Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Idle


Skies are again very clear. Melissa, Aiden, and I went out shooting this morning. However, Today's Photo was shot on Monday just as the snow was ending.

Addendum, May 26, 2007: I learned today that the tool in this image is a tedder. It was pulled by a horse and large wires rotated, reaching under the hay to lift it and aerate it.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Weathering Triangles


What should a photo be - a representation of a particular barn at a particular time or something more universal, an arrangement of colors, shapes, and textures with a more abstract expressive purpose? This is the other photo from Saturday - a companion to the barn interior and something of a photographic breakthrough for me in attempting to reach beyond photography as documentation.

More snow today and more shooting. I'm coming to a new appreciation of the difficulty of editing snow and fog images. This image, on the other hand, was open to a wide range of editing choices.

Monday, February 26, 2007


My intention had been to send another photo from Saturday's shoot, but today was so special, something absolutely current was required. I was out before seven while it was still snowing and shot for 5 or 6 hours. The problem was choosing just one.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Trying to Peg the Photo Geometries


Today was zero humidity - crystal clear, and I took more shots that please me than I have taken in a few weeks. In spite of the glorious blue sky and light, today's shot was taken into the roof of one of the barn's on Rabbit Hill.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Experiment in White & Gray


For the past few weeks I have been photographing icicles and ice. All the images that have pleased me most have also been flawed in some ways. On the way home from the post office today as the snow/sleat/rain began again with the promise of refreshing the landscape with new white, a fog rolled in. I reached the top of Rabbit Hill for this photo almost too late, but stood in the muck to take a dozen shots of this farm. I could barely see what I was photographing and backed my effort with a variety of exposures. I've never before tried shooting into such thick fog and the resulting image needed much work to adjust tones (and remove the marks left by dirt on the camera's image sensor (the plague of digital photography). For the moment, I'm pleased, but I wish I had moved a bit right to separate the truck more from the barns. I'm not sure what I'll think tomorrow, but the opportunity has already passed. Any tips or criticism will be much appreciated.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Dandelion's Revenge


This photo from last June was taken just before leaving New Brunswick, Canada, after a week-long photo workshop with Andre Gallant and Freeman Patterson. I passed by this field on my first day in New Brunswick 7 days earlier. Then the field was all yellow. I took numerous shots, but I like this one for the bit of mid-ground dialogue between left and right. I'm not sure why, but the house peeping over the treetops makes me giggle. It has hung in my dining room for a few weeks, and I have also come to enjoy the soft focus of the hillside in the far background. At the camera club they complained about both house and background soft focus. They said I should have tilted the camera down and just taken dandilions. Well, I did that too, and I chose this instead.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Barn Cat


Last night we got our second snow of the year. It was just a bit more than a dusting, but there was a shot I wanted at a barn in Cornwall, so I was up early to catch my shot before footprints and wind spoiled it. While I trespassed on the snow-covered lawn in front of the barn, a woman stopped her car. Before I could apologize for trespassing, she asked if I wanted her to wait before she left car tracks in the long driveway to the door of the barn and spoiled my image. Trespassers have no right to expect such consideration.

As it turns out, she is the, "milkmaid." The farm is owned by New Yorkers, and she takes care of the cows. After shooting outside, I knocked on the barn door and introduced myself further. She gave me permission to explore the barn and take all the pictures I wanted. This cat never budged from her perch. She looked at me for a few moments and then turned to look back out the window. I took the photo both ways and haven't decided yet whether I like her better looking at the camera or with her facing away and enjoying the view from her spot of warmth.

I don't know what the object on the right is, but I loke the way it catches the light and balances out the picture.