Mome Raths

My mission yesterday morning was to make my third trip back to Cold Spring Farm in New York State (not to be confused with Cold Stream Farm in Connecticut) to catch the rear face of the barns in early sunlight. For that I had gotten up early - not early enough to be there at sunrise, but early enough for early light. The farm is 27 miles by country roads from my home. I figure it takes two gallons of gas each time I shoot there.

I had been there at sunset the night before when I climbed the steep hill west of the farmstead and shot down at the barns' fronts and east side bathed in orange light. Such is my ignorance of late season sunlight that when I arrived the next morning I discovered that at this season the rising sun also hits the fronts of the barns; the rear won't be sunlit until next spring.

What I found behind the barns, however, was a world of frost preserved in the shadows. Somewhere in this thicket I perceived Borogoves, and I was determined to catch them while avoiding the dreaded Bandersnatch. Three shots show the results of my hunt. The others are below.

Your expert opinion is sought to see if I have identified all three species correctly. I'm also interested in your preferences among the three shots.

I went on to shoot more of the Cold Spring farmstead which is sharpening my understanding of the workings of the sun on complex architectural shapes. I'm far from done here, but it is odd that I drove all this distance for a bit of frost I might as easily have found at home. Then again, this line of old fence continues to intrigue me.

Slithy Toves

Mimsy Borogoves

Among Blackbirds

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
-Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens aside (not easily done), there are few sights I know as magical as blackbirds after harvest. On Rabbit Hill they gather, sometimes perhaps a thousand, as if I could count, and they fly, weaving and looping as one body then divide to several, settling in trees to watch or among the corn rows to gorge on "nature's" bounty. I marvel at the precision of their movements and wonder, is there a leader? ...or does the flock think as a single brain? It does seem so. With such thoughts I watch the birds, one-by-one, leave the trees, each bird choosing its own moment to rejoin the crowd among the cornrows.

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
-Wallace Stevens

Equipotential Surfaces or The UberTrump

Across the Hudson

The Gantry

One of the highlights of the New York trip was, "The Gantry." I knew what it was, but Bob was ready with the name that wasn't at my tongue's tip. In any case, yesterday Bob published a beautiful photo of me shooting the gantry. You can see it on his blog at: Walking the Boroughs .

This is a shot of the gantry that Bob shot me shooting. It is a bit north of where the great steamships landed, an area that I recall being hard to reach, where the railroad tracks came out from hiding between the end of Riverside Drive and the great piers. There's little left of whatever was there - no waterfront, at least in the sense it once had. They were adding new walkways to the new park, newly planted with new marsh grass. We looked over the construction fence to where concrete paths and benches were being poured. The present had not quite arrived, and we had to go back to the new bicycle path to get out onto 56th street.

The Undertrump

Today Bob LeJeune and I went shooting (pictures!) in NYC. We are both native, "city boys," but we managed to find places in midtown we'd never visited before.

Where late the sweet birds sang

Taken yesterday - an odd sky, an uneven shoot, but I liked the way the filtered light swept Maples Farmstead as I headed slowly toward my car. It was a moment, and then it was gone. No time to go back and shoot it differently nor will it ever be quite the same.

Cowtopia Reconsidered

As it turns out, the dream of Cowtopia was nothing but a dream. Mary-Del Farm is next door to Maples Farm. The pastures lie side by side. The farm road on which I descended led through the Maples pastures. The cows there are not dairy cows but beef cows. It may well be they all followed me in hope that I might be their pied piper. I met Bessie here on the way back. Perhaps that is an expression of disappointment if not utter cynicism.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Cowtopia

This is a cow's-eye view of Mary-Del. I've recently been walking among the cows (one steps cautiously), and from their perspective, life is sweet. Most of the time they wander from field to field, nibbling grass and looking at the scenery. When the urges move them, they wander to the barn where a kind man milks them or feeds them. When their done, they go back outside.

Walking among them, their attention can be unnerving. Yesterday my path took me across a bridge into the end of a pasture where they were then grazing. As I approached and then passed through the middle of the herd, their eyes followed me, 30 or 40 pairs, and as I passed through their midst the bodies turned, one by one, so they could watch me leave without looking back over their shoulders. Nor did it stop there, but they followed me up the dirt road a bit toward the next field, and I suppose I did look a bit odd with my camera dangling at the end of an extended tripod which was slung over my shoulder; backpack, straw hat and turkey feather. It certainly felt odd being at the head of this lumbering, bovine parade.

Ultimate Autumn

Which of us, camera in hand, can resist the tug toward that ultimate Hallmark moment, the autumn photo? It is as if there is some shared ideal, some vortex of warm hues from white-hot to fire and smoke, a sugar maple distillation of light that lures us like moths, and the hills are alive with the sound of digital cameras. A friend of mine, a casual photographer, only takes his camera out once a year when he goes to shoot, "colors." He's an autumn photographer; It's his hunting season, and he's bagged some nice game. Of course such quests are hopeless and can be a distraction, but who can resist taking a Hallmark stab at it.

What? You thought more fog?

Pocket Full of Posey

Who is it who, "the foul fiend hath led through through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge"?

*********
I hereby certify that this image was made with only 100% pure, natural, extra-virgin fog. No artificial flavors or preservatives have been used. No trans-fats.

Fen-Suck'd Fogs

Well, Lear's incestuous fogs left the fen and met me in the cemetery yesterday morning, and so halloween photography needs to go on a bit longer. This silent, old tree holds the very center of the burying ground, and it coaxed more than a few shots from my camera. Choosing has been, as always, difficult.

In this case, choosing provided a small photographic epiphany with regard to lenses and fog. This image was made with a lens zoomed out to 180mm. That's a pretty telescopic lens, so I was standing well back from the tree. I was surprised when in the shot immediately afterward the fog appeared to have lifted in the space between me and the tree. However the fog behind the tree was only slightly changed. I'm sure I would have noted so sudden a departure of the fog's sucking (the second image was taken just 1 min and 3 seconds after the first.). A check of the image data reveals the secret. Although I seem to be the same distance from the tree, the second image was taken with a 95mm lens. I had moved much closer and used a less powerful lens to keep the tree the same size; the fog was as thick, but there was less of it between me and the tree.

This relates to a discussion I was having with a friend and fellow-photographer yesterday on what some call, "photographic cheating," or less pejoratively as, "manipulating the image." In fact, I can go into photoshop and manipulate this image to minimize or maximize the fog as I wish. Actually, I can't even open a RAW image without making some kind of judgement about this. So, if this photo is to be judged by its faithfulness to some objective truth, which is the better truth, the one at 180mm with fog everywhere? Or the one at 95mm with only background fog? Both? None? (continued below)

Fen-suck'd Alternate

Of course, if you've looked at both photos, you notice that while the tree stays almost the same size, something is very different in the placement of the headstones. I haven't moved around the tree, only closer. Perhaps the, "authentic" photo is one to be taken at about 35 or 45mm where the foreground tree and background headstones both seem as large in front of me as they are in the image? Then, true photography must be limited to such lenses for photographic manipulation is already seriously underway the minute we make our camera.

As it turns out, I had much difficulty choosing between the fog-swept eeriness of the first image and the jewel-like, leaf colors and intimacy of this where the fogs are moving on. I'd be curious to know what others think. In any case, understanding how it happened will effect how I choose lenses in future situations.

Cold Stone

This morning was the third time this week I have been up and out to catch the dawn. What I really wanted, however, was the dawn fog that is endemic to the valley just east of the Housatonic Valley. This morning I got it, a cool fog that tasted of the cellar steps and sent chilled damp through my nostrils.

I delayed my visit to new farms in Amenia Union to visit with spirits here. I have tried in past visits to work the fence into an image, This is the first to please me.

I had chosen a different shot to end this halloween series. I like that one quite well, but I'm sending this today if for no other reason than it really was taken today, Halloween.

The Wall

Witch's Oils

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

-Coleridge

This Ol' House

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

-Longfellow

Bone Garden

Eye of newt and toe of frog,
What is moving through this fog?

Silence at the Top

A few days back you saw this field from a different angle and at dusk, and I wrote about the naming of hills, but this view calls for deep silence and sometimes geese.

Dry Bottom

Having missed the summer haying, I hadn't walked down through the hayfields since spring. In the Southwest drought means terrible fires; in Atlanta it means thirst. So far it has not been so serious here, but when I got down to the edge of the swamp, the ground around the ferns was too dry, and there were parts of the bog where I walked on dry, cracked mud. Could we be losing this precious swampland?

In fact, I've learned that once much of the area I've come to know as Hollow Swamp was farmland. Probably beavers started the conversion when the farmers stopped planting the fields, but the real change came when they raised the road across the bottom of the bottomlands. The land on both sides of the road is legally wetland, but downstream it is forest, upstream it is teeming bog - except now.

Rectangles

This may be a lesson in patience:

The sounds of the outside world rarely penetrate to the hills above and below Straight Farm, and usually the only evident inhabitants are the birds and deer. It's joy just to be here, but for me it continues to seem an apparently endless source of new photographic ideas. In spite of this, I've found the large forms of the main barns difficult to shoot. Instead, my camera picks at the details or shoots the fields, trees, and outbuildings. Of photos published on TODAY'S, only two show anything of the silo.

http://rothphotos.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-i-never-shoot-sky.html
http://rothphotos.blogspot.com/2007/05/freuhlingslied.html

On Sunday we spent part of our Colors Marathon here, and I saw that the fields were freshly mowed. I decided then that I would get back at first opportunity to walk down through the field east of the farmstead to the southern edge of the property where it meets Hollow Swamp. More on that in a subsequent post.

On my way back I climbed up along the eastern edge of the field, not crossing back to the farmstead until I could see the barns end view, and I approached it dead on. What a surprise to come on this old friend from such a new angle!

Here finally was a whole face of the barn that would yield itself up to my lens without asking for compromises. At last a true place for the vines and the one, mute window whose expressive ring had always appealed to me! And the silo's patina, not yet weather-scrubbed on the northeastern side! I'd used the bank on which the farmstead sits as a platform to get angle above the fields; I'd never seen it as a carpeted apron textured in fallen leaves to anchor the image. Even the orange tree which had turned a brilliant orange but only in isolated patches that made it more weird than photographically useful... even that tree turns in a bravura performance doing exactly what is needed.

It's not that I haven't tried. Perhaps the picture isn't ready to happen until the picture is ready to happen, and the gift is being there at the right time and place to find it. Or perhaps others would have spotted it early on and had a hundred good shots by now.

Cornrows on Rabbit Hill

Walking farmlands and meadows one sees how the land lies and chooses a path freely and fully knowing the roll of the earth between here and there. Doing so I have become more convinced than ever that I'm walking the back of a vast beast. This knowledge is less evident to forest goers who follow the beaten trail or the river. From this cornfield I can see vast distances to my left and right. Once, when travel was slower and more toplands were cultivated, such long views were easier to find, and travelers and farmers who looked daily across the hills knew their names.

Those arcane names can still be found on old the maps and Nat'l Geologic Survey topos. There's a name for almost every moderate sized hump around here. Most are forgotten. It was years before I realized I lived in the valley between Mt. Tom and Mt. Rat, but a hundred years ago such names were the way one knew where one was. I know of Rabbit Hill because Rabbit Hill Road leads to this hilltop. It must be Rabbit Hill. Back when, they named the road so everyone would understand, "Go here, and you'll get to the top of that Rabbit Hill you saw from the last hillock. Trails are insidious, and I'm certain our ancestors were quickly seduced, but I wonder how their more spatial understanding of the great beast we ride affected how they felt about her?


Abutment
Small steps, like the march of the corn stalks make a matrix of earth's roundness
from her sunny fullness to her boggy hollows.
In the forest one follows the old trail or the river's path.
In the meadow, one walks free and contiguous.


After my photofriends from Maine went their separate ways, Jane and I went to the goose pond above Lake Waramaug where the sun sets. On the way back the recently cut hay and corn were catching irresistable sunset light. This and several other shots were a fine conclusion to a lovely day of shooting. Other shots taken Sunday can be seen at:

http://flickr.com/photos/rothphotos/

Sitting Pumpkin

Sunday was billed as a marathon, fall, colors shoot . Friends who met at a summer photo workshop in Maine were to arrive through the morning. Car trouble made for a rough start and an early finish, but from 10:30 to 4 PM we explored sites in The Hollow and Spring HIll Vineyard. One member has already published a bunch of his images, and I'm impressed by his speed in and wit in seeinbg and setting up images, ...and his color. It's both inspiring and humbling to see what others find in places I've been shooting for months. Although I've shot this spot since last winter, until recently I stayed away from the front porch, mostly out of a feeling of not wanting to intrude, but now I've gone and done it.

Late-breaking news, a few of Rebecca's shots can be seen at: http://camerajourneys.blogspot.com/

Southwest Elbows

It's reassuring to know that contact sheets (and virtual contact sheets) have posed problems for the greatest of photographers. There are times, of course, when photographers know what they want, and the contact sheet provides a record of the refining of the idea. There are times also when the image is not there until a serendipitous event clinches it. For me, however, it is more often the case that at the end of a series of shots, all I have is options that seem to offer different advantages.

On August 23rd of this year I posted on my blog and sent to subscribers a different image from this series under the title, "Staying Rooted." In the note I grumbled about the difficulty of choosing. Above is the image I chose not to post. This link leads to what I did post:

http://rothphotos.blogspot.com/2007/08/staying-rooted.html

As I posted the other image, I quietly filed this image in a folder titled, "Reflection," in preparation for the exhibition just completed with The Camera's Eye. Unfortunately, I followed a different path in assembling my exhibit photos, and it was only in final review of images that this one elbowed its way into the show just outside the door where the rest of my pictures hung. It is now similarly elbowing its way onto TODAY'S.

The sun rose early on July 8th. My first shot was at 5:03 AM. By my second shot, 20 seconds later the sun was peaking over the hillside. By 5:10 the bay was covered by a broad blanket of clouds and by 5:18 the sun had almost entirely disappeared behind those clouds. Even so I continued shooting until 5:29. Throughout , my decision-making was rushed by my late arrival, rapidly changing conditions and a mood just short of panic. A vision of what I wanted? All I had was a knowledge of the site from previous shoots. I exploited that knowledge as best I could and scampered around within 30 feet of my car framing what I could as best I could. The 59 shots that resulted testify to how small changes in position and zoom can create vastly different meanings. This shot, perhaps, emphasizes the security of the harbor and the lure of the open sea and the unknown. Some shots emphasize rapid change and others calm. A few suggest the precariousness of civilization hugging the shore. It only takes a small tilt of the lens to make such vast changes, and I would be lying if I said I was aware of all of these differences as I shot through the tiny viewfinder. I'd also be lying if I said many of the shots were fully committed to the meanings just identified. I've come to believe this one, at least, is. Ah, choosing!

Autumn Brew

The time of fall colors is so short that in other years I often rushed to catch as many stunning pictures as possible. This is a destructive impulse, a mad dash to snag butterflies out of the air. It has taken me this long to learn to take this season as just a swelling of the color palette, a chance to find in old landscapes new blushes and highlights. At the least, these blushes and highlights allow one to recompose the familiar. However, with the low autumn sun beaming an incendiary sunset blaze, fireworks can erupt out of nowhere.

I've long enjoyed the old silo at Kallstrom Farm , and I've included it in many photos. As the leaves behind the farm color up, work has begun to restore it. They were pouring new concrete floor supports as I took this shot. Tomorrow is supposed to be nasty, so by the time the sun returns to light these trees, the leaves will have changed and the silo may have a new roof.

This silo is unusual. Basically a silo is a big barrel made relatively airtight in which the stalks and greens of the corn are packed and in which they ferment into what must be an intoxicating gruel to keep Elsie contented through the long, winter months. Many silos made of either wood or concrete are wrapped with great steel bars like the hoops that make a barrel hold its shape. Unlike most wooden silos, this one is built more like the frame construction of a house - a structure of members covered inside and out with a wooden "skin." Brent Kallstrom pointed out the obvious defect of using stud instead of barrel construction: the cavity inside the wall provides a series of passages away from winter's cold where rodents can access any part of the silage and enjoy a long winter celebration at Elsie's expense.

Autumn Tractor

I'm told this tractor is from the 1920s or 30s. Restoring it is one future plan among many at Cold Stream Farm. Right now they are at work saving the old wooden silo, so I'm shooting there every chance I get and hoping the silo's forest backdrop is in full autumn dress before they cap the silo with a new roof.

But this shot was taken behind the silo. It was taken after most of the light was gone, and I had given up shooting.

I looked at the tractor again this afternoon when the sky was crisp and bright and dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves. After a few moments of almost shooting, I decided I preferred the flat light I'd already captured here and moved on without a click.

Amber Waves

The hills and valleys of Connecticut's northwest hill towns don't look like this. Descend into the valley east of Sharon and one is quickly in spaces more vast. Things rock and roll here to a different beat, more spread out. more expansive. As I walk the land, composing it in my mind, the hills often rearrange themselves more slowly, and I get fewer shots per gallon. After a long day of exploring the route 22 corridor between Amenia and the Massachusetts border, I had little to show.

The haze did not quite kill the strong sidelight of the late afternoon sun, and my eye was grabbed by the edgy texture of the foreground soy crop and its contrast with the tassels of the drying corn in the next field. I had gotten permission to shoot on this farm just south of Copake, NY, and the farmer told me his land stretched to the foot of the tall mountain that formed the valley's eastern wall. Soon he had sent me out along a farm road. It was on the way back that I came upon this fine filigree which one might imagine stretching endlessly in either direction, left or right, or mitered into a pretty picture frame. Can you tell we're getting closer to the mighty Hudson?

Mr. Barn

I've tried repeatedly for two months to shoot this barn on Perotti Farm. Unfortunately it sits close up against a hillside and next to busy rt. 22. It is an outbuilding across from a major dairy operation that lies awkwardly in a "flatiron" plot of land where a county road forks off into the hills. I've walked both roads in both directions looking for angles that capture the barn and make it read. It's hard to move back from it and not put unrelated and distracting stuff into the image, nor does it ever quite command the frame. I think I'd almost given up, yet the detailing on the cupola, and the pleasing proportions, and the gaping mouth kept calling.

In any case, I was shooting at a farm I thought to be 5 or 10 miles off. I'd just shot the power line photos from which the previous image was taken, and I'd decided to cross into a new area of hayfield for some new angles. My path led down to what I thought must be a stream bed and then up to a point higher than I'd been, but I thought I might be unable to cross the stream bed. As it turned out, there was none, and I began my climb. Only when I reached the half-way point up the hill was I sure the line of brush and trees at the field's perimeter was unbroken; no link to further fields! I decided to climb to the back edge anyhow, It was the high point and just maybe it was penetrable.

In fact, there was neither wall nor fence and I found a spot where the brush was less thick. Popping through to the other side, I found myself in a newly harvested corn field. The power lines continued marching across to the next hillside on my left across a deep valley, and a lovely farm lay in the valley floor off to the right. What a quiet cozy spot! But something about the farm looked familiar. ... and then two trucks sped through and I realized I was standing atop a hill over route 22 looking down on Perotti Farm that was supposed to be so many miles away.

I guess it would always have been possible to climb the corn field from the 22 side. I've climbed many others. Perhaps eventually I would have gotten permission and tried it. In fact, it's a much longer climb than it appears here. The picture has a soft fuzzy quality because I have my long zoom opened all the way out to 400mm which functions on a digital camera as if it were more than 650mm. That's a vary powerful magnifier and I'm a long way away. And remember, it was foggy, so part of the fuzziness is haze. I'm considering working it further. I want to soften it even more, perhaps by making it more grainy. I'd be interested in others' thoughts.

It is sheer luck that Mr. Tractor was parked in the exact right spot

Wired

One of the challenges I took for myself almost two years ago was to capture the noble roll of the Northwest hills, and I'm always on the lookout for good sites or supporting characters to help tell that story. A month or so ago I got access to the Collins Farm and discovered these giants striding across the hilltops. When the sky is clear you can follow them with your eye over all the intermediate hills and right across the top of the big hill in the background. I've been trying since then to compose them into an effective image.

This morning I set out 45 minutes before dawn in hope of again finding fog again in Sharon Cemetery. In the previous post Dick called me, "a fog specialist." In truth, I'm just learning how this fall, fog thing works, and I'm even beginning to learn to adapt and roll with the billows. When I came over the hill east of Sharon and found myself rising into the fog, I suspected I would be disappointed. To shoot the cemetery I need a fog that settles into the valleys, not one that brushes over the hilltops. As I came out the west side of Sharon and passed the cemetery there was no fog, but just a mile further I quickly rose into a fog that made me strain to see the road ahead.

Adaptation: Collins Farm lies low in the hills and has broad prospects across the valley that I might be able to shoot. In fact, light fog separated the barns of the farmstead, and I spent some time shooting there. By the time I had hiked up here the fog had thinned a bit, but the hill behind me, like the hill in front, was still blanketed in. Somewhere in the fog in front of us is Sunset Ridge Farm, perhaps just two or three towers on.

After many tries, at last a shot of the striding giants that satisfies me! I'm hoping that when I print this there will be enough differentiation to suggest the intermediate hills. It's going to be close.

Detour

My initial destination at 6 AM was too smothered in fog for driving, much less shooting images. I groped my way back through the murk to this ancient cemetery. It was awhile before I noticed the house. However, after shooting a half dozen images here, the house vanished. I was looking through my viewfinder, and all of a sudden it wasn't there.

It is October 1. The stores have declared it Halloween month. At WalMart they will charge you for good fog like this and a styro tomb stone to spread it over. Happy Halloween. I'm going back to the cemetery tomorrow, but I'm bringing my plastic rat.

Above the Bog before the Storm

You've seen this building in fog (Scroll down to "In Fog at Sunrise"). This shot, captured as a thunder storm rolled in, was taken the night before, but I published another photo from the storm set instead (just below "In Fog at Sunrise"). This one had to be set aside incomplete as much work was required to get it the way I wanted it, and I worried then as now that it was too dark. The resulting photoshop file completed tonight has 10 layers. Not all atmospherics are made for the camera.

I have a folder of such partially complete shots that I think are worth returning to. This one has repeatedly snagged my attention. I haven't seen it printed yet, but there is plenty of detail in the dark forest areas so I don't expect it will clot up.

At one point I also worried that two shots of this building from the same side might be redundant. I suppose they would be if what I cared about was the building.

I've begun calling this apparently nameless farm, "Above the Bog Farm" since it stands high at the New York end of Bog Hollow Road, a country highway that threads the narrow, bog-filled valley cross the mountain chain that edges these two states. However, the photo may have more to do with the vulnerability I felt as lightening began to crack nearby just behind that dark forest. Whoever propped that stick in the barn door must have known I was coming with a camera.

Plowshares

Sunset Ridge Farm is a working dairy farm. The quantity of milk a cow can produce is astounding. One really good Holstein milked twice daily can produce 50,000 to over 60,000 lbs of milk in a year. Of course milk is not all these great animals produce, and farms have many cows. As you can imagine, the farmyard around a dairy barn has, to say the least, a "lived-in" look and smell and feel, and it must be "managed" daily. It is quaint, only at a distance. Up close amid the muck, the beauty of these dairy barns tells of the joyful engagement in long, hard labor. Please don't snicker.

For the past weeks the owner of Sunset Ridge Farm and his laborer have been harvesting the corn crop. From what I've seen it's just the two of them. They are cutting, hauling, and processing for the silos the many, many fields of corn surrounding the farmstead. They have a lot of cows to feed. Unlike so many silos in the area, these silos are used. I watched a few days ago as the ground-up greens from the corn harvest were fed from the harvesting wagon into a large funnel attached to a motor that sucked them in and blew them up the tube or duct that hangs by the side of the silo and into the belly of the beast where the silage will ferment.

Out in the field the owner loads the corn greens into wagons which grind them into fine salad. At the other end is the silo swallowing everything fed to it. Throughout the morning and afternoon the laborer goes between, picking up wagons and setting them to empty into the silos, and the owner cuts corn and loads wagons. I've been there to shoot at both dawn and dusk; they're up with the rooster, and they're still processing silage until the sun sets. Meanwhile cows must be moved between pastures and milked and the muck must be mucked. Sometimes the owner and his hand switch to other tasks and our paths cross. The owner always stops to talk. He'll offer shooting suggestions or stories about the farm's history or expound on the beauty of the day and the land.

I've only taken a few photos that give any real sense of the size of some of the silos. This photo isn't one. The largest silos quickly dwarf any farmer's house should he have built it nearby. Of course, as suggested in yesterday's TODAY'S, for me this picture isn't really about silos.

Sunset Ridge Farm in Fog at Sunrise

Is it a matter of shifting the emphasis or is narrative photography a totally different beast? At the moment they feel quite distinct to me. The narrative in "The Story of M," was admittedly beyond thin; thinner even than some of the slide shows I've worked on. That's, perhaps, why I'm becoming more convinced that narrative and non-narrative images are almost unrelated forms of expression. In keeping the narrative so thin, as much emphasis as possible is on the power of the visual elements to take control of the experience.

The photo above was not what I was looking for when I went to Sunset Ridge to shoot in the light of Thursday's sunrise. I'd shot Wednesday's sunet there, and I had a hunch (and still do) that there are some good images to be made there on the right morning. Unfortunately, I was tricked by the weather, and the closer I got to the ridge, the less hope there was that any of that early light would reach me through thickneing fog, and the view from the ridge, normally extending for miles, stopped half way down the corn row. There was no ridge shot to catch.

However, when I reviewed the images I did catch, this one grabbed me. By the time I shot it I had turned away from the ridge. Although the long lens usually flattons scenes, here the round forms almost balloon against each other and against the chosen edges of the frame. The graying effect of the fog adds to the sense of our distance from silos and the crowded space between. I liked the way the rhythm of doors on the barns give them a mediating effect between corn crib and silos. I liked the way the forms in the two lower corners drew the eye to them and added interest to the whole. However, I suspect the true subject of this photo is textures - most noticeably the transparent textures of the corn crib, but if one can view at sufficient scale, there is plenty to let ones senses explore on all of the surfaces.

This photo distinguishes itself to my eye on exclusively visual merits that, in fact, have nothing to do with farming or old barns. Although all the things pictured are recognizable, the thingness of them is unimportant to me, and it might almost be enjoyed as abstract, much as one enjoys the way sounds clothe images in a good line of poetry and, if truly integral, make feelings palpable.

But at my back I always hear,
Time's Wingéd chariot hurrying near.

Of course, poetry often (usually) has narrative. Even if there is no story, one is usually helped by knowing who is speaking and who that speaker addresses. Without narrative, a photo makes its point in a single instant. If it is to have narrative, it gains strength by having that narrative evident in the same flash, but that's a whole different kind of narrative.

M - The Final Chapter

But nobody heard the pleas and recriminations of L and the gang. They were gone and most people didn't notice that the message had been altered or cared that letters were missing or thought that other letters would also be retired.

Yeah, Another Etude

C couldn't resist saying it was all M's fault
at which M called C, "nothing more than a broken G
and afraid to admit it."
L caughed and reminded M of the, "Don't ask, don't tell," rule,
at which Assistant L, who was broken and looked more like an I than an assistant L, reminded everyone, "It's the foundation of good service."
At this L sniffed and seemed to turn away as if to detach himself from Assistant L. L had heard he might be promoted and given a new team.
M was sad and angry and humiliated all at once.

Main Street Etude #3

Main Street looked as Main Street always looks.
Nobody knew who gave the order, and L and the gang never even saw the crew drive up,
but suddenly they were there,
enforcers looking properly official.
They chose a moment when Main Street was empty
to get out their ladders.

Main Street Etude #2

It's not as if much changes on Main Street. This chair sits in front of the Main Office, back under the overhang and just behind and to the right of the post. One could walk down Main Street at the right time each morning and, if the sun was bright, catch this dance frozen in nearly this position as it was on September 7th at 9:17:41 AM. In fact a similar shot catching the dance each day at just this moment would swing with the seasonal pitch of the earth's axis and dip twice before anyone moved the chair.

Thus, it was a great surprise when the order came. Nobody knows who issued the command.

(from "The Continuing Story of M")

Looking Down Main Street

It's the grain warehouse that gives the south end of Main Street clarity, just where it turns to rejoin the old highway. The general store is on my left, the tavern is behind me. This, such as it is, is the retail center. Once there was a train depot by the track that runs along the back of the long grain warehouse. They've moved the post office and the factory has closed. Even the highway left town, though the clarity remains.

Horse in the Cowbarn, Skip to My Lou

After leaving the Beatific Barn I drove and explored as the fog slowly lifted. I'm beginning to know my way around in bits and pieces, but one different turn took me into new territory. Suddenly barns such as this appeared at each turn, many much larger, some still nestled in fog. How many were there? Could there have been as many as hundreds around Amenia alone - and unusual houses too - a land nearly free of subdivisions. Imagine!

Today only a few are active cow farms, many are falling into ruins, a few lucky ones get "repurposed." And so, today sometimes gentle horses graze before industrial basilicas, each once a family farm.

Eventually the fog lifted, and my car needed gas.

The Camera's Eye web site has now been updated to reflect our upcoming exhibit: http://the-cameras-eye.blogspot.com/

In Fog at Sunrise

In fact, the Beatific Barn has had my attention since I first wrote about it "grabbing me," under the heading, "Etude in Diagonals." It is there suddenly when rounding a corner shortly before reaching Wassaic with wonderful fences that lead the eye, an old silo and an assortment of buildings that create a farmscape rich in spaces, shapes ,and shooting angles.

I had been watching the property on each trip to Wassaic in hope of finding a living person who might grant me permission to shoot. On my visit the previous evening I drove up the driveway and concluded all was vacant. But the visual treats and surprises discovered on that evening convinced me to get up at 5:40 the next morning, and my effort was rewarded with a fog so thick I could taste it, This is the way I had wanted to shoot the Beatific Barn from the start.

Cartwheeling Rumble

Eventually the rumble thundered, and there were even some pretty impressive lightening cracks across the sky. That's when I knew it was time to get ungrounded and head for home. But before the storm, almost as I arrived at this farmstead, three magnificent, floating islands of vapor sailed by. I'd seen them at a distance and followed them to this farm. I rushed from the car and set up in time to catch the barns in strangely beatific attitude. If this is the blessing of the harvest, someone has chosen the wrong operation - If not abandoned, this farm is at least dormant. Nor did this beatification have an effect on the state of bliss up the road in Wassaic.

In truth, I haven't the least notion what this picture is about, but when I see clouds like this I look for anything handy to shoot against them.

Beware Shrub

After the Steep Rock picnic Jane was marching in Southbury. She was worried that thunder showers might dampen her piping mood, and I was hoping an El Greco sky would make my photos moody. She headed south to her parade; I headed west toward whatever the much anticipated front was to bring. As I reached Wassaic the sky showed change was imminent, but not what change it would be. Wassaic was quiet. It was a stillness worthy of the old west, and I half expected tumbleweed to come rolling down the street in front of the grain elevator. Things still simmered in Wassaic over M's rightful place on the grain warehouse wall, but like L, most remained diplomatically silent. I chose to drive on without a shot.

Wassaic is interesting for lots of reasons. It is a tiny pocket surrounded by steep hills; the name of the town comes from a Native American word meaning "hard to access." It was the home of the first Borden's Milk plant, the place where the first condensed milk was perfected and made for delivery to troops in the Civil War (You can learn more at Wikopedia or http://hvrt.org/sect1full.html.). The survival of the train line, if only as commuter service, helps make the past palpable here. The factory still exists just across the track from the grain warehouse and near the grain elevator. In fact there's still much that exists in the surrounding hills to suggest the old network of dairy farming that lingers now at only a few isolated farms.

Around Wassaic the land in Amenia and beyond stretches out in broad valleys that frequently open grand panoramas. Just 8 miles east, in CT, as one approaches the Housatonic, the ridges get steep everywhere and the valleys are more confined. The further north one goes, the more pronounced the difference, and then you reach the Berkshires. Around Wassaic these broad valleys provided room for many farms to support large herds. To house such large herds the farmers here built huge barns with Dutch roofs to permit massive hay storage. Beneath these gothic hay lofts cows lined up, side-by-side, to feed. Often barns were wide enough to hold 4 or 6 such rows and long enough so one could never see the other end.

Once in easy reach of New York City by rail, today Amenia lies beyond all of the highways. The exception is the Taconic Parkway, but it is a hilly ride west, closer to the Hudson River. From the end of I-684 one must follow rickety old route 22 to reach Amenia. As a result, things have changed much more slowly in Amenia than any place to the south, east or west.

So these dinosaur barns linger on, a few as working farms, some as colossal wrecks, and many as lonely silos, tomb stones to mark the foundations where once a dairy industry thrived. The barn in the photo (You are seeing about a quarter of its total length, and it is supplemented by other, large out-buildings already caving in.) has been idle for years and may be torn down this fall. When it goes vast fields now burgeoning with corn and surrounding it for many miles will be seeded with rows of identical houses, each with its mail box and street light. What a panorama that will be!

They tore out the rail line above Wassaic many years back. It's now a lovely bicycle and hiking path, but train service will never return. In 2000 they restored commuter service to the end of the old track and built a new station on route 22 in Wassaic. That makes Amenia a sort of last frontier in the onward march of suburbia. In the meantime, it is fertile ground for photography, so my time is limited for shooting gothic barns beneath flashes of lightening and Toledo clouds.

As I walked around this barn a thunder shower dumped enough water to send me back to my car. The moody, lowering clouds I sought would have dictated a very different shot than the one I took. However, it is the colors here that make me like this picture of a bush. The real rumblings were to come a bit later and I was elsewhere.

L

Compared with M, L was a straight arrow. L had risen to a position of responsibility, next to the second floor, office-like-station window which was next to the door to the grain chute. That was where grain had to be carefully selected, measured and dispatched to wagons on the street below. L was the right letter to keep things running right. In truth, L had harbored suspicions about M for some years, but L was nothing if not a team player. L said little, a letter of few words when it came to M's dirty little secret.

The Continuing Story of "M"

The rumor is that several of you, you know who you are, said that "M" was really a W - some nonsense about a duty to roll upright for Wassaic or move to Millerton. "M" had always believed that M-ness was inborn. "M" could no more flip over and become a W than turn sideways and become a clumsy E. As to the notion of moving to Millerton, "M" had always lived on this facade in Wassaic. Wassaic was "M's" home.

I was in Wassaic all of Sunday morning from before 8 AM until after 1 PM and "M" was terribly depressed. However, as you see below, "M's" mood was worse on Monday when I returned.

I'm sometimes asked if that was how a paticular image looked or, "Have you Photoshopped it?" The implication is often that I've been cheating; ...that the camera is an objective tool that records exactly what existed, and the photographer's sacred duty is to convey truth unmolested, yea, unblemished to the viewer. If you use a camera with any attention to the results you know that, for all kinds of reasons, cameras see very differently than we do, and that the photographer relinquishes her objectivity the instant he choses a spot to stand and shoot from. As to lenses, Alice got lost in such a looking glass. Photographic objectivity? Hooey! Your not a photographer unless you make choices.

I stayed in Wassaic all day on Monday. There was great concern about "M's" safety.

The Story of "M" - part 1

What "M" did to get itself so precariously perched is a mystery. Clearly, "M" is bummed about it. It is similarly a mystery when this strange building in the center of Wassaic was built or for what purpose. It is as unique to this town as the grain elevator. I'm told it served as a grain trading depot for local farmers before the grain elevator was built in the early 1950s.

If shapes and texture are what make me love old barns, it is good clear light that paints and etches their surfaces for me. It carves the space behind the chicken wire, scores the clapboards deeply, and brings painterly blushes and overtones from M.

It's not clear any of this will make "M" brighten up.

Elegy

I'm not sure its a healthy relationship for a photographer to have with his subject, but today I'm in mourning for a barn. Yesterday I went back to Bunnell Farm after an absence of a month or two, and the main barn had been demolished. Rick said, "I told you I was going to do it. The old barn was too low for anything."

It's not outright mourning; it certainly isn't a willed act, but a feeling has been with me since yesterday morning of something important lost. I'd like to think I had shot the barn thoroughly, but I know there's always something new to find. Yet it really isn't about shots not taken. It's true that the ceiling was low. That's how the sun could clear the top and light the courtyard on the western side - a view best appreciated through the barn's west windows Without the barn to hold the middle, there isn't any courtyard. It was built low because built for cows, and also for that reason painted white as required by law. That's why the sun pouring through the great row of eastern windows lit the space so brightly. This photo taken several months ago may be the best elegy.

The two silos and the tall barn in the back still stand. So does the back shed and the little garage on the right. Everything in the middle is gone, and a new slab portends whatever is to come.

Saving the Undercroft

The beauty of old barns for me begins with their riot of shapes and panoply of textures. Barns are industrial buildings that often meet a complex architectural program. They grow with the farm they serve and change with changes in agricultural markets. Their organization usually follows considered decisions about how to get more out of the work day with fewer sore muscles. One can often trace the history of what was farmed and how, by additions and changes made to the farmstead.

A lot of hands went into the making of any old farmstead. Every window and every wall carries the particular quirks of each hand & mind that hammered on it. In some old farms, even today, a great great great grandchild has taken me to places where great grampa set a mark.

Sadly, all of my encounters with old barns also remind me that these geriatric structures are often crumbling. As they fall, they plow under a rich history and a lifestyle. I'd like to think that "plowing under" is the compost of images such as this.

Title Search

I intended to post more of Southwest Harbor, but then we went to Salem, MA, to see our friends Lou & Vicky; I chose a shot on our walk near Marblehead for posting, but last night I was back at the swamp and the sky was perfect, and so it went. Why plan? Today I shot barns at midday. I never shoot at midday.

This shot is crying out for a name. Any suggestions?