Day 110: Batches of Stored Clay

2026-05-27

Hello! We're back. Sorry, Jerry.

Before the guided tour of the clay factory with the steam engine ended, I walked upstairs to rush through the remaining rooms before we had to go. It was warm enough to make me want to go home by that point, and we hadn't had food.

I passed by this room, and took a photo before looking into it. In similar rooms right next to this one, there were old pamphlets and archival folders of documents. I assume that this floor of the factory is dedicated to archiving and storing old pieces of history, but I didn't read anything.

As for the photo itself, there's two things I like about this quick snap. At the time of capture, I saw it as a great view, but only noticed the details when I got home.

First, the gradient from light to dark. The window on the left brings in sunlight that gets reflected all around the walls and objects of the room. As you look further from the bright window, the room gets darker. There are also lights hanging from the ceiling off frame, so really, there's a strong diagonal gradient from top-left to bottom-right.

Second, I really like the color. But describing this is much more difficult. I even tried punching up the reds and oranges because that's what the color of wood should look like, but a palette generator shows muted greens and other colors that I didn't see at the time.

I use automatic tools to automatically set white balance. I haven't used an automatic tool to edit this photo, so you can see my bad eye for color and balance. It's why I can talk about a pleasing brightness gradient as my first point, but struggle to enjoy the color of clay and wood in my photograph.

Color is such an important part of photography and art in general. Although I believe it deserves a place in my articles, I can't talk about it with any degree of confidence. That is the limits of my skill as a hobbyist photographer and amateur writer.

Finally, a great historical archive of amateur photography. The popularity of flash in the 1960s allowed anyone to take a photo of their family or friends indoors, and it's a reminder of how cultural styles have changed in the past few decades. They even have photos from the 1860s, a century prior, but since I couldn't find a way to browse the entire archive, I can only say much about the technology behind flash photography that they blog about.

Cheers,
David