Confessions of a Stalker

After spending several hours with my fellow members of the Fort Worth Camera Club taking pictures and eating breakfast last Saturday morning, I went to a local garden center to do some shopping with a friend. New plants in my car, I started home.

But I was in a historic part of Fort Worth and decided to scout for some shots for an upcoming competition. Every month the FWCC has a competition for its 200 members. Each member is permitted to enter one digital image and one print for consideration by an outside judge. Three times a year the competition has a closed subject. In June 2011, the print category’s topic is “Architecture in Monochrome.” I had no idea what I was looking for, but found some things that I thought might work and took a bunch of shots.

Back home the next day, I started reviewing the images from the outing and my solo expedition. While I like several architectural photos I got, I really liked one and worked with Photoshop to convert it to monochrome and see what I thought. What do you think?

Back up a couple of weeks to when a friend and I talked about going to the Fairmount Historic District Tour of Homes in Fort Worth. After buying the tickets and clearing my schedule, I hadn’t thought much about the event until Thursday when I checked their website to see what homes were included. Imagine my surprise to find the subject of my photo to be one of the eight properties on the tour.

Blanchard Schaefer Advertising & Public Relations

Since I had two copies of the print, I considered taking one of them with us and giving it to the owners of the building, but wondered if they would think it was creepy — sort of like someone stalking their building. But my friends encouraged me and I brought the print along. The way things worked out, this building was the last we toured. When we entered the former apartment building that is now a glam studio for an advertising agency, the owner was just telling the docent goodbye and on his way out the door. I got his attention, explained the circumstances and gave him the print. He loves it and was just a tad regretful that he did not have a personal stalker. He did say he was going to tell his wife he does anyway.