“Oil Cans” series … a new image

A couple of years ago, I began photographing oil cans. Old ones. There are many things about them that I love… including their interesting shapes, their unique patinas and their utilitarian appeal (to me, anyway).

Simple little machines to oil bigger machines.

A couple of weeks ago, Vera and I went to a local auction and I bought some “new” ones. The beautiful one on the right of the image was very recently photographed by one of my workshop students (and, as always, I’ll do a blog post on that workshop), and it inspired me to photograph it with its “mates”. This particular one has an amazing patina (brought out by the remarkably revealing nature of light painting), an indication of what must have been decades of use.

Photograph by Harold Ross                                             “Oil Cans #4”

~ by Harold Ross on January 7, 2014.