Fine Art Black and White Pictures of an Old Corral

One of my favorite fine art series is "The Old Corral" series I made in 2014 with the Mamiya RZ67 Pro II. These pictures are from an old corral near the Saddlehorn neighborhood in Pelzer, SC.

Information from the Historical Marker Project:

Before Saddlehorn was a neighborhood, it was a rural cattle farm. Corrals like this were used (and still are in some instances) by farmers as holding pens to work with cattle that grazed the surrounding pastures. When farmers built this corral, they cut the posts from Eastern Cedar trees located on the property because this wood is slow to decay. They built the cross members high so an excited animal couldn't jump over the fence. The main section of the corral acted as the holding pen, and the cattle were brought into the narrow shoot to separate them for tagging or for veterinary care. The metal gate at the end of the shoot acted as a head-hold to stabilize the animal.

Old Livestock Corral (HM78N)
Location: Pelzer, SC 29669 Greenville County
Country: United States of America
N 34° 39.53', W 82° 21.277'

When making pictures of man-made objects I am often drawn to old buildings structures: castles, churches, houses, barns, and stand alone structures like this old corral.

This typically is for two reasons: in the first place, these old buildings and objects have gained a certain patina and structure that made them very interesting as a photography subject, usually providing a lot of textures and interesting detail. Secondly I'm always wondering about the people who build, used and lived in these buildings. What kind of people were they, how did they live, who were they?

From a photographic perspective this old corral provided a great opportunity to explore the shallow depth of field that medium format film can provide.

For that reason I used the Mamiya RZ67 Pro II with its 110mm 'standard' lens. This lens is called standard because it more or less compares to a 50mm lens on a 35mm film and full-frame digital camera, and a 35mm lens on a digital camera with an APS-C size sensor. It produces an almost three-dimensional effect.

The structure furthermore has a lot of texture that looks great on black and white film. For this shoot, I used an expired roll of Efke R25 with very fine grain that brings out the detail of the weathered wood and iron.

The best way to display these pictures would be in a simple, not to broad black frame with a pure white mat.

When used as a set I recommend to have these pictures printed at a size near to 8"x10" keeping as close as possible to the original 6x7 negative aspect ratio. The pictures then can be displayed all next to each other to create a lengthening effect for the wall, or they can be grouped to provide more weight and emphasis on one part of the wall.

When using a single picture to create a distinctive focal point, I recommend printing not smaller than 24"x28"