Sfj wrote:

Your North Carolina Shack isn't. Looks like an old store.

But since all you have are thumbnails, it's kind of hard to tell.

I live in Raleigh, NC. Your image of the State Capitol there is really,
really flat. It needs a lot more contrast, and is a little too high key.

A yellow filter might have helped to give the sky more definition &
separation. As it is, the roof of the Capitol fades right into the sky
with no discernable boundary.

The statue should be black, with the pedestal a darker gray than the
portico behind it. Your highlights are completely blown out, losing the
detail along the cornice.


Thank you for the feedback. You may be right, the shack could have been a
store, but it was an abandoned store.

As for the photos, I agree they are pretty rough. Many people love to
photograph their capitols and are pretty good at it. They live there so
they have the luxury of waiting for the right weather, the right time, etc.
I was just passing through and I don't pretend to be a great technical
photographer. I went on this trip in the spur of the moment. I used an old
Nikon F and a light meter that my friend gave me. I had a good Normal lens
but I haven't played much with filters. I bought the film as I went and
since I never stayed anywhere more than a day, I couldn't even do any
developing until I finished the trip two months later. Really I was pretty
lucky that all the film didn't get ruined.

I'm just glad I got the right building. My first stop was in Florida. I
went up to this nice old building and read all the literature and studied
all the pictures. Then I went out back after spending several hours and saw
this huge building. I was horrified. I was in the "OLD" state capitol. I
was eager and patient at the beginning of the trip. But by the end, after
eating nothing but Ramen noodles and sleeping in the van all the time, I was
pretty grumpy.

North Carolina is a pretty state, though. Thanks for your input. Hope to
visit again someday.



Interesting about Florida.

The State Capital in NC moved around for a few years before Raleigh was
built. The capital was especially mobile during the American Revolution
when the colonial legislature had to move several times to escape the
redcoats.

Taking a page from the Constitutional Convention's decision to make a
new city in DC for the nation's capital, the NC legislature decided to
make a new city for the state's capital, and named it Raleigh in honor
of Sir Walter Raleigh who organized the first English attempt to
colonize the "new world".

That colony failed. The settlers disappeared, becoming the "Lost
Colony". But that's a story for another time.

The building you photographed is the second capitol building. There is
however no old Capitol to photograph, since it originally stood on the
same site.

The first building burned in 1834 IIRC, and the Capitol was
reconstructed using the original architectural plan. The present Capitol
opened in 1840.

There is now a seperate building to house the state's legislature. The
old legislative chambers in the Capitol building are kept for historical
purposes, but when the legislature out-grew the capitol in the late
1950s they commissioned their own building.

Designed by Edward Durrell Stone, it opened in 1963.

The Governor of NC has an official office in the Capitol building, but I
think his working offices are located elsewhere.