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PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The Drowned Lands Swamp Preserve lies along county route 3, near where it crosses Punch Brook, and the best view of the swamp is from the long bridge where the road crosses the brook and the swamp. Just now the swamp is ripening into autumn and the sun was finding all kinds of ways to make the textures dance.
It was not the first time I had tried photographing the old barns with the rusted roofs and wondered how to get closer. For that reason, it took me a moment to realize they were being upstaged by a splash of red like a feather duster. Whether or not the image has profound import, one of the pleasures of a day of photography is finding a spot of such rich resources: a pair of leading characters surrounded by a chorus of textures in a pleasing palette of colors, a nicely lumpy sky, and a guy in the light booth working the spots. I spent 30 minutes repositioning my camera to place textures and features in different relationships to the rectangle. Of many possibilities, in the end, I must choose one. One wants to say, it is the only possible one. Most of the time that's not the case, but one must process and finish it as if it were.
When I was done I again tried to circle the swamp on local roads to locate the old farm. I never found it.
