Thursday, December 17, 2020
Long time no see! About 24 hours ago I was writing my last blog from where I stepped out on the front porch to capture the ice in the trees. It was a rainy and dreary day, but it was nice to get a few images during our first winter weather event here in Purlear. I had been hoping to get out to photograph a barn the following day which I had seen the day before for the first time. Well, maybe not exactly seen for the first time as I have driven by there several times. I had seen it, but it was mostly obscured by the trees that were beside it and there was just no photograph to be had there when I saw it over the Summer. Now that the leaves were down, there was a lot more visibility and I was able to see the entire barn for the first time. It was up on a hill and I knew that I was going to need an interesting sky overhead to make the image work out as I wanted. Wednesday wasn’t going to work out at all since any attempt to photograph up a hill would be met with a wet lens from all the rain. However, as the front was moving out of the area, it was looking like some good low level clouds Thursday during the day.
That was the start of my plan for the day. I wasn’t going to worry about getting up too early as I wanted the sun to have a little altitude to it in order to really bring out the shapes of the clouds. That meant leaving around 9ish or so which was great for letting me sleep in a bit. When I got up I took care of the morning business stuff and grabbed my gear to head out for a little while. I was planning on working the barn which was now visible and then figured that I would head to another barn that I had seen on the way to Traphill a while back. Both of these barns would benefit from the same conditions in the sky so that was great and would give me a little variety in my travels with destinations in mind.
I made my way to the barn closest to the house first to see how it was looking. When I got there, the sky was a little too bland for my tastes and wasn’t showing the promise of clearing off anytime soon. I took the opportunity to explore a bit in the area while staying close in order to react to the changing conditions of the sky. I made several turns and found myself on roads that I had not been on before. I saw promise, but nothing jumping out at me for a photograph just yet. I was keeping an eye on the sky though as realized that my mind was more on the barn that I was planning on shooting rather than any secondary subjects that might pop up.
When I saw that the sky was starting to show some interest as I was hoping it would, I quickly made my way back to the barn. This time, I pulled off on the side of the road and took stock of the scene. The sky was still not quite there, but I was seeing a thin patch that was progressing towards the barn which gave me hope for a good image. I started to play the “What do I like and what don’t I like?” game which is always a fun task for me. What I loved about this scene was the trees to the left of the barn, the wooden fence, and the trough that was in the field. What I didn’t like about the scene was the fact that the trough was very close to the fence, and the fence was close to the road. I wasn’t wild about the smaller shed that was on the other side of the trees, and I didn’t like the balance of the open sky if I were to include the full height of the trees.
I had a working idea of how I wanted to photograph this scene, so I pulled out the camera as well as the 24-70mm lens which would give me the ability to shoot wide and moderate telephoto depending on how my composition decided to come together. Before I mounted the camera to the ballhead, I checked out the composition from across the road. I was able to get a great balance of the scene from here, but the problem that I ran into was the road that crept into the frame in the lower left corner. No matter what I did, the road was going to be a distraction so I moved in closer and set my tripod up at the corner of the fence. I was going to try a composition that I had successfully done last year in Salisbury with a barn on the side of the road with an interesting fence. As I composed the image in the viewfinder, I noticed that I wasn’t going to be able to include the corner of the fence along with the tops of the trees unless I got down very low. This would block the trough with the fence which I wanted to avoid. If I went wide enough to capture more of the trees, I would end up capturing too much clutter along the left and right sides of the frame.
I ended up making some compromises with the composition. I wanted to keep the trough separated from the fence, and I wanted to include at least a portion of the trees above. I framed up the image with the corner of the fence at the lower right corner. The fence went up to a tree which was used as the framing element on the right, and the left part of the fence led to the small shed which was purposely cropped as the left edge of the frame. The upper edge of the frame fell across the tops of the trees which was tolerable for me. I realized that the horizon was right in the middle of the frame which I usually don’t let happen, but this time I got to thinking that it actually worked here. It brought a calmness to the scene that I thought helped to tell the story.
I made a couple of images with this composition before deciding that it was just too busy and I wasn’t sure if the sky had enough visual weight to pull off the composition as I had it set up. Ironically, when I got home, this was the image that I liked the best from this location. The sky had brought just enough to the scene to make it work quite well. While the elements were not as separated as much as I would have liked, I was unable to elevate the camera anymore and I had to deal with the trough sitting right on the railing. Regardless, it worked well and pointed to the trees which then really highlighted the barn which was my goal. It really captured that quiet still that I was experiencing there on the side of the road. I spent more time on the following composition though.
Having decided in the field that the fence and associated portions of the land were a bit distracting to the barn, I decided to tighten up the crop on the image and concentrate just on the barn itself. I loved the trees that were beside of the barn so those had to be kept in the frame. I found a small tree in the background that helped to frame the other side of the image. It was a natural for a vertical shot which I started out with. It was better in concept than in execution. The sky was taking up too much of the frame and the barn was just too small in scale which turned the composition into one about the trees. While I loved the trees, that was not what this image was about. I flipped the camera horizontal once again and did the same composition, only not including as much of the sky or the tops of the trees. What I ended up with was an image that was much better balanced and actually brought out more of the personality of the trees. The sky was the only wild card here as it had gone soft on me while I was recomposing. I needed to have some texture in the clouds to make this composition work.
I stayed with this composition for probably 20 minutes as the clouds moved around. I shot a bunch of frames in the hopes that one of them would work out. It was the composition that I was most excited about in the field and I was happy to spend the time waiting for the clouds to do the right thing for me. When I got home, I was surprised that I liked the full image a little bit better than this intimate capture and started working it first. When I got to this second composition I really liked it, but it didn’t have the same presence as the grand capture. The sky was just too soft and there was a lack of overall balance to the image without the blues in the sky.
Not wanting to let this composition go to waste, I started to think about how best to deal with the processing. What I loved about this was the textures of the trees and barn compared to the soft clouds in the background. The light that was hitting the scene was very nice and soft which would normally prevent me from thinking about a monochrome image, but this one seemed to call out for a black and white treatment. I started to process it and paid particular attention to how the contrasts were built up within the image. I was able to work the sky much more than I was thinking which allowed me to bring out the subtle details of the clouds which really complimented the overall scene. The more I worked on the tones of the image the more I really loved how it was looking. This was so much better than a color image would have been as it imparted just the right mood which the color would have confused. The time that I spent on this composition wasn’t wasted at all and I’m glad that I stuck it out because this was one of the later captures when the sky decided to play nice with me.
When I was confident that I had what I needed to ensure at least one good image I packed up my gear and set back out on the road to see what else I could find. I wanted to head out to the other barn on the way to Traphill, but I was open to other subjects along the way. As I was traveling, I started to think about an old house that is a mile or so away from our house which I have started to pay attention to coming home. It isn’t so much that I have just now seen it, but rather with the bare trees there is a much better view of it. With the sun still a little low in the sky, I was thinking that I might be able to make a good image here. It was on the way, so there was no harm in stopping by to see what I could do with it.
When I arrived at the house, I debated stopping for a few minutes. The light was good on the house and there was even a little bit of steam coming off of the roof from where the sun was heating up the damp shingles. I liked the trees, but I wasn’t sure about the composition I was seeing. It looked a little too static to me and I wanted a bit of extra drama in the scene to really make the image pop. Ultimately I did decide to pull off the road and give it a go. I knew that my standard lens would be the right choice here so I fitted that one yet again for this second subject of the day. I crossed over to the opposite side of the road and started to really look at the composition. There were some obstacles that I was going to need to overcome to get this one to make sense. I had a power pole guide wire on the left side of the frame which I wanted to avoid, and there was a grove of trees to the right of the house which were a little overbearing to the scene. If I positioned the camera too far to one side or the other, I would end up getting too much of the bunched trees, or the wire. I could have cloned out the wire easy enough, but there were several objects just beyond that wire associated with the houses in the background. I was pretty well committed to a very small area to shoot from.
I tried to keep the proper separation of the windows and doors from the front porch while looking at the relationships of all of the elements in the frame. I decided to balance out the image by taking all of the real estate that I could with the lens. I included just a few of the trees to the right for a foreground interest which also served as a framework for the right. To the left, I included a large tree with a fantastic structure which went well into the sky. To give it breathing room, I included a smaller tree of similar shape in the background as the actual framework for the image. I kept the house low in the frame so that I could include the bare trees against the sky above. It was the lighting that really made the image though.
As I had been discussing with Toni earlier in the day, this was magic light. I had the low sun bathing the subject with light, while the clouds in the sky over the background were much darker. It was this magic light that provided the highlight to the house that I really needed for the image to really make sense. It was the age of the siding that I was particularly interested here. The sun gave me the contrasts that I needed to really showcase that worn paint and the staining which I found so beautiful. The more I looked, the more I liked the composition as well.
It was while getting excited about this subject that I saw a pickup coming from one of the homes in the background. He came up slowly and paused at the top of the road. He then turned my way and passed my me slowly. I waved and expected him to stop but he kept on going. I figured I was all good at this point, but then he turned around and came back. I knew what was going on here and I waited for him to get out of the truck and I made my greeting. As I had figured this turned out to be the property owner and he came over to talk with me. One of his dogs also came over to say hi. We chatted for a bit and to make a long story short, he didn’t have a problem with me photographing the house (which I was standing close to the road anyway), he was just worried that I might be there for some less than legitimate reasons. I made my standard offer of a free print if he liked anything that came from this location and with his blessing I remained there for a bit longer to get a few more images.
I did make use of the access to the property and moved in a bit closer to capture what I thought was going to be a better composition, but I was wrong. When I got the images home, the later images didn’t have the right feeling to them and the balance was off. It was actually one of the first couple of images that turned out the best. I was surprised because I had made a lot of compromises to the composition so that I could shoot it from closer to the road. While the front porch looked better as I was able to get closer, the surrounding elements just fell short and I missed the group of trees to the right that made for such a great framing element and foreground. Even though it wasn’t the image that I thought would be the keeper, I’m very happy with this one as the lighting was just superior to any of the following images and the overall feeling and story behind it was the best out of them all.
Now that I had two subjects in the bag, I was feeling pretty good about things and was ready to take on the barn that I had seen a couple of times before on the way to Traphill. It didn’t take long at all to get there and I loved the barn and the clouds over the distant mountains. It was all just looking fantastic. I was even thrilled to see smoke coming out of the chimney which meant that there were people home. This was important since I was going to nee to go deep within their property to access the composition that I was wanting. Before I made that move though, I started to really look at the barn critically to see if it would be worth asking. Certainly it would be since I have been wanting to photograph this barn for weeks now…But there was something that I hadn’t “seen” in those times before that was concerning to me now. There were many houses in the background which I wasn’t seeing a way around including in a composition that was grand enough to include the mountains behind the barn which I really wanted to do. I made several passes on the barn and just wasn’t able to get a composition in mind that didn’t include at least one house in the background. I was really feeling let down here, but I didn’t want to disturb the property owners here unless I had a really good composition in mind. There is just nothing worse than asking permission, and trying to convince the owners that I am a legitimate photographer only to get set up and decide that there is nothing there worth photographing.
On the plus side, while I was making all of those passes, I was also looking at a house that was across the street at the top of a small hill. It was aged similarly to the one that I had just shot and the clouds above it were looking just interesting enough to pull off a nice image. On about the third pass through the area I decided to pull into the driveway and see what I could do with this house. I grabbed my standard lens once again along with the polarizer and set out to making a composition. The biggest problem that I was going to have with this scene was the very large tree to the right of the house. There was no way that I was going to be able to avoid including it in the frame as it was touching the roof of the old house. I was going to have to include it, but the question was how much of it was I going to have to have in the image?
Since it was going to be a prominent element, I was going to have to include the trunk of the tree which I would then need some breathing room to the right of the trunk. I then figured that I would make the left of the frame an arbitrary cutoff point since there were no framing elements to be found. I just needed to make sure that the house was properly placed in the frame to give that visual tension that the scene needed. Fortunately, there was a chimney on the side of the house that gave a strong vertical element to match the tree and help bring the attention back to the left of the frame. I kept the grass to a minimum as it was going to be negative space anyway. With three borders determined, I was left with the camera picking the top of the frame and where to crop the tree. It looked pretty good in the viewfinder and that was what I went with.
I spent the next 10 minutes or so moving around slightly to fine tune the composition as I watched for separation of the doors and windows on the front porch. I also watched for perspective distortion since I was shooting uphill for the most part. I didn’t want to get too close to the house since I didn’t have permission to be on the property to begin with. I was still pretty close to the road and very close to the driveway so I was feeling comfortable about where I was standing. Getting the separation right was important and worth the time and effort to figure out.
It was one of those last frames that I captured which turned out to be the keeper. They were all pretty much the same image, but they all had subtle changes to the relationship of the elements of the house. The basic composition concept remained through the image. As you will remember, I had decided on where the left, right, and lower boundaries would be for the frame and had let the camera’s 3:2 aspect ratio determine the top part of the frame. When I started to do my edit on the image I wasn’t quite as happy with the composition as I thought I would be. There was too much sky and too much tree in the frame. I really needed more grass in the lower areas to pull that off, but I didn’t want any more than I had. The answer was an easy crop though to a 16:10 aspect ratio which snipped just a tad of the top off of the image. The visual weights came into line quite nicely with that crop and I was very happy with how this one turned out.
It was starting to drizzle at this point so I didn’t stick around long here before I packed my gear up and headed back down the road. Not wanting to be done just yet, I started to take some new side roads as I made a long road back home. The rain was short lived and before too long the windshield was clear. I started looking for other targets of opportunity as I was now out of ideas. As I traveled I realized that I had made it onto a road which was familiar with from early Fall. I remembered that there were some interesting barns on this road and I was anxious to see if any of them would work out for an image.
As I was coming down one of the roads I saw a barn in the distance that I instantly recognized. It was the new green tin roof that had been put on it that caught my attention. I had seen this a couple of times before and had tried to figure out a composition for it each time. I had never been able to get anything to work out in my mind, but the barn was looking very good to me as I was approaching it. Since I was liking the look of the scene at a distance, I just pulled off the road to contemplate how I would want to shoot it. It was almost immediately clear to me what my problem had been with this barn. I had been too interested in getting in close to it to photograph it with my 24-70mm lens. This had always met with perspective distortions as well as shooting an elevated subject up close. This time, I was looking at the barn from a quarter of a mile away. I was on equal ground with it and there was a nice tree that was blocking the roadway from being problematic in the frame. This could actually work to my benefit so I turned the truck off and went back to get my camera. I opted for my 70-200mm lens for this scene which I had never considered before.
As I was starting to figure out the composition through the viewfinder I was very happy with how things were looking at a mid point in this lens. I had a couple of different choices with this and I could shoot it either vertically or horizontally depending on what I wanted to include in the frame. I actually tried about four different compositions with this scene in order to get exactly what I wanted. In the end, I went with the composition that included the most elements in the frame. It was a horizontal approach which allowed me to place the barn in the lower right third of the frame. It was balanced with the inclusion of the tree which also served as a boundary on the left side of the frame. I was able to include enough sky above to keep the entire bare tree to the rear in the frame. As a bonus, there was a tree still covered in red leaves just to the left of the barn. This is the element that forced my hand in making this a color image. I had originally thought of it as a black and white since I wasn’t all that happy with the green roof along with all of the grass in the foreground. It was that red tree that gave me the color balance that I needed to make this image work.
I didn’t have to stay here long in order to get several different variations on the subject and get enough that I should have a keeper among them. With this one in the bag it was time to head home. I was tired and had a great many images in the camera. However, a short distance down the road I came across another scene that caught my eye. It was a complex scene with two barns, both of which covered by vines and trees, but there was an awesome tree behind one of the barns that forced me to stop.
I tried to capture something there for about 15 minutes and even did an HDR series because the lighting was getting very tricky. I liked my composition, and I had controlled the light well enough. I thought I had something really cool to work with, but when I got it home I found out that the brush that was covering the barns was just too much for the image. It kept the view from locking onto the barns, and the confusion that it created pulled the attention away from the tree in the background. I tried to edit three different versions of the image and just wasn’t able to get anything that made sense. The story just couldn’t come out to be seen so I trashed the images.
At the end of the day, I had 93 frames captured and was thinking that I had either four of five images out of all of that. Ironically, one of the images that I thought I had ended up being trashed, but I still managed to keep five images from the day which is actually rather impressive since I had made countless exposures of the same compositions to get different cloud formations over time in order to get the best image that I could. I’m really happy with these five and think that they are some of my best in this type of landscape photography. It is easy when the light is great like it was today, but I was still kept on my toes with how to compose the images to tell the stories.
I hope that you enjoyed today’s trek and the images that I have shared here. Remember, if there are any that speak to you, I would love the opportunity to help get a print into your home to brighten up your space. There is no better way to enjoy photography than to hold the actual image in your hands and enjoy it it person.
Until next time…
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