Illinois River at Hennepin, IL

Hennepin, IL is a small town on the Illinois River. Despite its small size, it plays a very big role in the lives of the people who move the barges up and down river. ADM and Cargill have facilities along the riverfront, and a local grocery store has been seeing to the needs of the barge crews for years. It's an unusual place, very much off the beaten path, but worth a look at any season.

A snapshot taken last Thanksgiving -

Excellent vision!

Again Tom, you have a good eye!

I do question the compositon on width? Either I'd expect to crop more harshly or go wider to allow us to enjoy the landscape context. Still, I'm impressed that you found your knots again and the analogous shapes and their relfections.

Kudos!

Asher

Hi Tom,

You might also be interested in the recent pictures by Nat Burgess with his M8 Leica Rangefinder. He also notices things like you do! His work does remind me of some of yours. See his M8 lecia work here.

Hi Asher,

Thanks for the links to Nat's M8 photos! His acuity is a few steps above mine, so your comments are very much a compliment.

Your question regarding the choice of framing is a good one. The reason for the choice was to eliminate distracting elements. Designers of barge towns value practical concerns over aesthetics, apparently.

Hennepin, IL is a small town with some very serious industrial business being conducted nearby. There's a lot of land that has drifted back to its natural state in the last few decades, but there are few parks of any sort. It is hard to hike around the wilds without being concerned about trespassing. Posted signs are few, and it has a no-man's aspect at every turn. There are a lot of abandoned farm houses.



An old gondola found along a rail spur that eventually ran out of rail in a patch of weeds. Both the car and the line have seen better days.

while i liked the first image, this second shot of the gondola has real emotion for me! perhaps because the tonalities here are in keeping with the essense of the image, whereas in the first shot the clarity stands in contrast to the statement within the image. the angle of the shot of the gondola shot is more captivating to the eye.
or maybe it's just me i like it. did you crop the corner because of a distracting power pole there? i'd love to see a crop which included that corner, although this crop is growing on me...

Thanks for the comments, Marian,

The scene was cropped through the viewfinder when the shutter was tripped. There was nothing outside the frame that needed to be removed. The feeling I hoped to capture was the beat-up bloody-knuckle aspect of the abandoned car. I took many shots closer and further away, but this one seemed to be the best compromise.

Lopping off corners and other parts of things doesn't bother me much. Perhaps it should...