Recently, I decided to shoot a lot of local landmarks (advice from a few folks figured into this) and felt one great place to do a lot of this was the capitol area in downtown Salem. It’s close to home and has some beautiful buildings that I predict could be interesting to travel clients.

So my approach to these shoots (images are from three separate shoots) was first to put elements in the images that would be interesting from a travel perspective. Secondly, I tried to include elements letting the viewer know the season, thus the flowers etc. Finally, I tried to put it all together in a pleasing composition. Now as you can imagine, the various elements aren’t always placed around the grounds in an ideal arrangement for photography. To compensate for this, I did a lot of walking around trying to analyze perspectives without taking images. For two of the shoots, I also had a 17mm TS lens on loan from Canon Professional Services, which allowed perspectives I can’t normally achieve. (Great lens by the way, although I don’t think it would be used that often in my work, just a bit too wide. The 24mm TS however, I would love to add to my permanent kit. I loved it when I had it on loan.)

The experience of shooting the capitol was also very interesting. I shot towards the end of the day for the good light, so that meant crowds had shrunk dramatically. So most of my time there the atmosphere was just that of any location with few people around. Some of the time I spent there however, there was a soft casual atmosphere of friendly people playing in the park together. Kind of like the atmosphere I enjoyed so much in my former home of Eugene. Not something I have come to expect here in Salem.