Zach Petschek Photography Blog

As human beings we create with little remorse. “Let’s build it!” “OK”. Time erodes the dream and hacks away at intentions. Until one day our creations get abandoned and mother nature systematically reduces it to ruble. This silo was built with great things in mind. At one point someone said “We’re going to make a lot of money”. After years and years the entire structure was abandoned. Rain to rust it, wind and sand to scrape it, sun to scorch it. Human life is so quick that we do not see these processes happening before our eyes. When you slow everything down far enough there is only peace and quiet. So here sits this enormous structure. Over it’s lifetime it will collapse and break and be eaten away. To us on this full moon night it is an escape from the world in a quiet corner of the world.

It decays in the full moon.

Silo in the light of a full moon

Against the skyline

Shade from the light of a full moon

Alone in the night

It comes only once a year and it is a benchmark in our lives to society. So it deserves a celebration right? Well Amy was no different. And since I am a complete dork I bring my camera along with me whenever I can and take photos. Here let me show you what I mean.

For the rest of the photos click here

Telephone pole from the grass's point of view

Always look at an object from the objects point of view. Try to look at a sunset from the sun’s point of view. At 2 inches tall a tree will reach the stars. A few photographs of alternate points of view.

Close skateboard grind on a rail

Band from the front row's point of view

Street after the rain

Wandering the city has its perks. Some of the best things I have ever found were by chance, random and with no prior destination in mind. My trip to New York is no different.

Escalator to the network below the city.

An entire fungus can cover acres of land underground and only have a few mushrooms on the surface. This is what the transit system in New York feels like. It is this underground network linked to the entire city. As a passerby you hardly catch a glimpse of the complex system that lies beneath your feet. Your only sign is the subway entrances seemingly sporadic in location. They seem to grow out of the ground every so often in strange places along the city roads. They sprout out like mushrooms. Every mushroom you see is a link to the network of roots below.

For all of the photos from New York click here

Night Sky in Backyard

Sometimes you just gotta go shoot. I was sitting outside the other day as the sun was setting. It was a clouds day with small patches of sky. It looked cool but nothing special. Well apparently the clouds didn’t go all the way to the horizon because the underside of the clouds started turning red. Being the photo dork that I am I quickly grabbed my camera just in time to miss it. Just my luck.

But the cool part is that the street lights started to reflect off the clouds instead. Sodium vapor is an ugly red color. HOWEVER I made light of it. (pun intended). I switched my white balance to tungsten and fired off a few.
I after playing around with the sunset it got too dark so I started playing around with the evening light, shutter drag and painting with light. I first took a photo at the pool. The light looked good but there was no character to the shot. I grabbed a flash and set my exposure to 30 seconds. During th exposure I walked to the other side of an iron gate and popped the flash towards the area being exposed. I then played with other angles, popping the flash into the water of the pool and the array of colored lights available in night photography.

Pool with night clouds

Sunset in Vista

Pool with night clouds

Pool deep end

House and a pool at night