Enchanting Cottage II

Part of the enchantment is the salty patina achieved by the fine wood shingles, but the cottage is a joker, faithless, and not to be trusted, bedeviled by potions and herbs..

Enchanting Seaside Cottage, 2 Rooms, Furnished

On the way out of Southwest Harbor I looked again around the bay for some recollection of what I'd seen the previous summer - the shot I'd missed. The bay looked gray and flat. I drove out to the shipyard, but I remained disconnected from the place. I turned and headed for Bass Harbor. It was beginning to clear and I thought the orientation of Bass Harbor would provide interesting side lighting as the sun got low in the sky. I had no idea I would be transfixed along the way by the magnificent palace in this photo.

I yanked my forester to a halt, grabbed my gear, and began to set up to shoot. As I shot I slowly moved closer. Soon I was shooting from all sides, close up, far back, through doors and windows. I was compulsively drawn to the cottege, and only when I saw certain doom staring back did I draw strength to disengage. Of 262 shots, relatively few were extreme wide-angle like this one, but it may be this shot which best captures the siren's song.

New Horizons II

That was a heady time a year ago in Southwest Harbor shooting, as I thought through the lessons of that first summer workshop. There was much that drew me back to Southwest Harbor now, but especially on my mind was the shot I missed. Of course, there's nothing worse than looking for some shot. One winds up seeing nothing. One must stop thinking, watch, and take what is given. Midday on my one full day in Southwest Harbor and I had been given listless gray skies, but I had been given hope of some late day clearing. I decided to find a high prospect from which to shoot the harbor while nothing else was possible. The clerk at the wine and cheese shop had proven himself a connoisseur of good stout, so I took his advice on a trail just north of town, and a good cheese for dinner later. I also took another bottle of the tasty stout.

The trail rose steeply and was much rockier than I expected. As I neared the top, it began mounting over boulders. Threatening clouds began brushing me with rain, and I worried about the nasty trip down and how much more slippery things might be if the full storm came my way. If I tripped and fell would anybody pass for the rest of the day? I thought about retreating, but the clouds that threatened rain also beckoned with the promise of images. At least for me, shooting into fog and mist is very uncertain. Sometimes when I think it is too thick for shooting, it turns out perfect, but I've also been surprised at how uninteresting, pale fog can surprise me with passionate images. At other times, the best looking fog has totally failed. Perhaps I need more fog experience. A similar process of reasoning persuaded me ignore my sense of vulnerability and continue across the top of the rocks toward some interesting, low clouds just passing in front of me.

I haven't made up my mind on the series of shots I made up there above Southwest Harbor, so I'd appreciate some honest feelings about this one. It was one of the very last before I turned and headed back down. Just as I did, a dog appeared and licked my hand. Then I heard someone call and two parties of hikers with kids and backpacks and good wishes appeared. We stopped, exchanged talk about our homes and our travels and compared weather news. As stragglers caught up and the crowd grew, I turned and headed off for my next photo destination. The sky had grown a bit lighter.

New Horizons

Even if my failed hard drive caused my Maine photos to be lost forever, the trip was more than worth the time, effort, and cost. Yesterday evening I went out shooting for the first time since getting back from Maine. I returned to one of the sites that I have been shooting repeatedly, but I saw it with new eyes. Part of the credit for this must go to the perceptive comments of the workshop leader, but more often the changes wrought by Frank Lavelle's comments have focused me more clearly and critically on shots I would have taken before. Certainly, my new eyes were in significant part do to shooting alongside 10 other photographers all of whom saw the same sites but differently. However, at least as important in refreshing my vision was the very act of shooting in very different places for two weeks. My strategy of going back and back and back to the same sites won't change, but I'm also now more aware of the value of sometimes varying my diet.

The shot above was not taken last night; it is one of the Maine shots taken at a remarkable antique junk shop that Frank took us to. Next to the day spent shooting people at the July 4th festival, this junk shop was the most difficult shoot. Aisles as tight and sometimes as dark as mine shafts led through mountains of unidentifiable widgets, tools, fabrics, furniture, household clutter, taxidermic survivals and more. Periodically glaring flourescents would cast ugly light across this debris. Even when I found myself intrigued by objects it was tough to find light and space to shoot them as I wanted. I spent too much time arranging a bunch of large pulleys into a still life that was stillborn. I spent less time arranging 50 shovels so they would like like the scales of an animal - another failure. I shot where I could and tried to see more. I never expected to see a landscape in old saws. I wish the shot above had a slightly sharper focus. By the time I took this I was rushing and moved on. Like the previous shots from Maine, it remains at this point unsigned, a work in progress, perhaps, but to me an interesting attempt.

The good news is that this morning I got a call from David Mafucci of Visionary Computer in Lakeville, CT. He had worked his retrieval magic. His computers worked on my hard drive through the night, and I now have my Maine shots restored. In the next week I hope to process some of these as finished images. I have paid the bill but remain indebted to David for his rescue work.

Backup, backup, backup

I had intended to post another people photo yesterday as a follow-up to the shooting image. However, on Tuesday night, as I was copying all of the Maine photos from my travel hard drive to one of my normal drives, the travel drive failed, and I have been grieving the possible loss of 80% of the images I took over the past two weeks. The failed drive is currently with my local computer repair guy who this morning reported a tiny bit of success recovering my images; he was able to grab a handful. I had no heart to post yesterday. I'm posting today in the light of this bit of hope for the sick "patient."

I consider the image above one of the best I made at the workshop. Sadly, all I have left of it is the full resolution jpg copy that I processed for our daily photo review & crit. It happened to be left on the thumb drive I used transfer images to the workshop computer. I've done a bit of recoloring here, but it is not the final I would like to produce. This is a third generation copy of that jpg reduction.

The very best images I took in Maine were taken after the workshop as I shot at my leisure in Southwest Harbor, Bass Harbor, Bernhard, Seawall and along the roads of Mt. Desert Isle. I reviewed these once the night before I left Maine, and I will be deeply saddened if they are lost. Light was perfect, and the post sunset images caught that final night in Southwest harbor were a big part of what drew me back to Maine this year. I had driven by that spot a year ago after I had finished shooting. The water in the harbor was pink and blue and seemed topped with whipped cream. A similar effect was there this year as I returned to my B&B on my last night in Maine, and i knew exactly how I wanted to shoot it.

I'm waiting for the full prognosis on the sick patient. What lesson will I take from this experience?

Shooting People

Shooting people is tough. The sniper stalks his prey unnoticed and must make settings and compose in an instant. Alternately, he must ensnare his subjects with charm and wit, coaxing them into complicity in the finished composition. In either case, he strives to harmonize foreground and background, include supporting "actors," exclude distractions, determine appropriate depth of field, watch for hot spots that will be blown out, and all before expression or gesture of the primary subject is lost. At all of this I am a rank amateur, a beginner. Too often the prey got away. I'm much better at shooting bottles. This was the greatest challenge I faced at the Rockport workshop. I think most of my colleages at the workshop felt similarly.

Frank LaVelle, our instructor prepared us expertly and then took us to the Thomaston, July 4th festival and parade, a place where people did outrageous things, wore outrageous costumes and expected to be photographed. The best shooting was at the staging before the parade, but it was clear from the moment I began that I needed to think and to use my camera very differently. I'm used to shooting manually, but if I tried to set shutter speed and f-stop for each shot, the shot would be long gone before I ever pulled the trigger. As I had switched to a new camera 2 or 3 weeks before the workshop, I didn't even remember how to switch it to aperture or shutter priority. Once in shutter speed priority, aperture is then set automatically, but one must use exposure compensation to cope with very bright or very dark scenes. This was in the same place as on my old camera, but I'd forgotten where that was. (Heck, until this assignment I didn't understand why anyone would prefer exposure compensation over manual adjustment.) And, of course, one must be aware of aperture to get the desired amount of background blurring or sharpness. I got some quick help from a colleague with a similar camera and was on my way, but with parade staging chaos all around me and new shooting technique, I found myself very quickly in overload.

The real lesson occurred some hours later when I reviewed the 400 or so shots I'd taken. Amazingly, almost all were properly exposed. That does not mean that there were many images I liked. Reviewing them made me aware of pieces of Frank's prep that I had not made use of. I spent much of my time wandering around looking for shots. I engaged lots of people in conversation as directed, but I never went to the next step of moving them around to put them in front of supporting backgrounds and setting up my composition. Only rarely did I spot a supporting background character. In spite of all, I found enough useful images to make a showing at our review crit the next day, and it was reassuring to see that most of my workshop colleagues felt as I did.

Well, that's why I chose this workshop, to stretch me into new territory, and the 4th of July festival was a great place to do it. Since leaving the workshop, I've begun challenging myself occasionally to engage people in my shots, but I'm still happier shooting bottles.

Christina's World (updated)

I can't look at this or yesterday's TODAY'S without lamenting the many shots I missed - not those that my colleagues saw (We all see differently, and that is what makes workshops such as this so incredible) but those I tried to get and botched through rushing and those I walked right by as my logical mind swept past my receptive self. Well, this one seemed too obvious to miss, but, though some classmates shot from here, nobody else shot the house through the graves.

When I'm back home, I'll crop out the power lines. Christina is behind me, perhaps perched on my left shoulder.

Christina's Gone

No photo could better follow my week-long photo workshop at Rockport (Maine) Multimedia Workshops than this one which I'm titling, "Christina's Gone." I shot it on the fifth day of our workshop on a very special visit to the Wyath Farmstead. I took it on my way down the hill to the small family cemetery where Christina is buried. I chose this workshop because it seemed like it would do most to stretch me into photographing new subject matter. After 4 days of shoots that fulfilled my expectations, coming here brought me home to safe territory.

The house and barns were open to us before regular patrons arrived, and we had permission to go anywhere and rearrange furniture to suit our image-making needs. Like all of the shoots, time was limited. I don't work well under such conditions, and my time in the house always felt rushed; I knew I wanted to spend time outside shooting the property. Normally I have the patience to shoot for 3 or even 4 hours from a single spot. However, when offered the candy store and told I have limited time to pig out, I find myself frantically trying to consume a bit of everything as I explore. When I finally got outside, time had become limited there as well. Under normal circumstances, I would have tried a shot from under one of the wheels of this hay wagon, or I would have shot down the side to catch the partially hidden barn. I would have tried a hundred different angles. The energy of this meadow and the lovely magenta flowers were most welcome, and I have no complaints with what I caught here with its hint of Wyeth's landmark painting.

Photo workshop shoots are always under pressure, not just the pressure of time, but the pressure to produce for an audience of peers. We were asked to present 10-12 images each day. Most photographers are happy if they produce one good photograph a day. It seems that while patience may be my greatest photographic virtue, it is also my greatest photographic weakness. In any case, the figure walking across the field on the way to the harbor is one of my workshop colleagues. There were ten of us in the workshop. We all felt the pressure to varying degrees, and we all presented a mixed bag of images. Well, there was comfort in that, and much of the value of the class was in learning why those weaker images were not working. Frank Lavelle, the workshop leader, is a wonderful photographer and teacher. He is director of photographic education for the Smithsonian and has taught widely. His crits were clear, focused, and humane. His wisdom was always balanced by great humility, and he when he didn't know his own mind, he was quick to say so.

I'll meet you all tomorrow down by Christina's grave.

The Futile Photo Chase

I'm writing this from the campus of the Maine Photographic Workshop in Rockport, Maine. As I'm outside and running on battery this note may be short. Earlier in the week I woke at 6AM and found my yard filled with fog. That is a call to arms, and after hurrying to dress I decided to make a quick stop at Mt. Tom Pond just three miles from my house to catch a few shots quickly in case the fog lifted. I wanted to make it quick and then head for Straight Farm where the long view of the valley might offer many possibilities. Alas, it is the old syndrome of chasing photos. I should have spent much longer at Mt. Tom. How could I expect a more photogenic scene anywhere? Perhaps it was the hum of the state highway that made me move on, or simply the prospect of a quiet morning at Straight. However, foolishly I snapped just three shots at Mt. Tom and then moved on. Looking at what resulted, I can think of lots of other shooting options that might have kept me snapping for hours. Straight was not nearly so good. In any case, I'm pleased with the single image that resulted, but the lesson remains one I still need to learn.

This image was coverted for posting in Photoshop which tends to wash things out a bit. However, as it is too complicated to follow my usual procedure, I'll just hope for the best. Under current light I can't see the shot which I edited for posting last night. I hope I like it when I see it under better conditions.

Making Choices & the Shooting Process

On a good morning or evening I can shoot between 150 and 400 images. This part of the image-making process is utter joy as the whole effort is directed at opening possibilities and perfecting them as conditions constantly change. I am my own companion and there is always more to see. If it is a site I know well, as I shoot I'll plan ahead to follow sun and clouds, but primary focus is on expanding the possibilities of the moment, on standing at the edge.

At some point I must take those images back to my computer and go through them all. If I feel the shoot was good, and I had found my shooting self erupting with ooohs or even ahhhhs, I'm eager to see the results, though sometimes shoots that felt weak turn out much better than expected, and good shoots don't always pan out. However, the best review is done at some remove from actual shooting and then begins the task of selecting one or two images, from the, possibly 400, that I consider worth finishing.

Selecting is the lonliest part of the job. I'm not out to make a slide show; I'm hoping to have one image that will remain memorable, that I'd like to think has gotten hold of some essence or has an expressive purpose beyond the unframed reality. On a good shoot I am always on the edge of my seat with expectation. The view is always opening. At selection time my task is to eliminate possibilities, settling on the one best choice.

I had walked about half of the sheep's pasture when I shot this image. I've learned that I don't know what things really will look like until I stand the ground, but I knew as I shifted my tripod slightly and made final adjustments for this image that I had found the one best spot to pull the barns of Kallstrom into the compositional relationships I had been striving for. I knew after I clicked the shutter I would move on to another idea. So it was with some pleasure that I later reviewed this shot and confirmed my initial judgement - Oooooh! Aaaaah! The one best choice was clear.

Then I came to the shots taken a few minutes later after I had climbed a few more steps up the hill, and sheep flooded into where I had stood earlier and I zoomed. The towers were no longer optimized but sheep had changed the equation, and my reaction was that their presence had superseded the mere balance of towers. Normally, today's TODAY'S would have remained in my computer archive, unfunished, merely an abandoned possibility, an unnecessary redundancy.

Reviewing to make choices is a lonely activity filled with uncertainties, and it would be wonderful to always have someone at my elbow to stop me and say, "Wait, don't dismiss that one so quickly," - another pair of eyes, another sensibility to sit by me through the long hours of reviewing each day's shoot would be a great aid in helping me to see more. How many times I have come back to a shot months or even a year or two later that I had completely overlooked. Tomorrow I'm off to Maine for a week-long photo workshop where, hopefully, we will all be looking over each other's shoulders and helping us see that work more clearly.

In the meantime I'm left wondering if this shut is merely a redundancy after "The Joker," and "Sentries of Time," or does it offer something all its own, not captured there?

The Sentries of Time

Old barns are among the most practical buildings ever built. One can read the logic in the layout of a good farmstead, but this utilitarianism often yields a beautiful mix of vertical and horizontal forms. Then time leaves its mark on old barns in a multitude of textures and colors which grow especially rich in dawn and dusk sunlight. Most farmsteads grew and changed constantly. Today most bear the marks of many generations.

I like trying to compose the textures into, "samplers." This sampler is also a gathering of generations. The green roof facing us is the latest addition. It was added this spring and replaced wood shingles. It's sad to see the old roof go, but good to know something of the original is now better preserved. The cupola was recently restored honoring the grandfather's design. Who was the practical-minded farmer that resurfaced one barn wall with black shingles?

With the right choice of angle and lens we can almost listen in on the conversation among the old towers. What do you think they are saying to each other today?

Hollow Barn Dance

The Barns of Hollow Farmstead almost never dance. They are stately and symmetrical, their roofs well matched, their siding intact though worn to painterly perfection. They all meet at right angles. No animals dwell here. Periodically someone comes to cut and bale the hay from the long rectangualr field which the barns bisect, and then for a few weeks the fields look like great lawns to house and barn, too formal for a dance. To make them dance one must poke them with the long lens and turn them askew; the barns behind each gable, although here squashed flat, stretch 60 to 100 feet. The shot was made some months back, and and I like the way the trees dance along. Wearing their lush, green leaves, they are not nearly such good partners. Straight Farmstead is shy and withdrawn; Kallstrom is The Joker; Hollow Farm wears its age with complacent dignity, but every once in awhile I try to coax from it a little jig.

Kallstrom Barn Dance II

It's hard to make the Kallstrom barns stop dancing. When I shot them last winter (see: http://rothphotos.blogspot.com/2007/04/processing-image.html ) they were dancing despite a noreaster blowing sleet and snow through the farmstead. No goats stepped out into that furiant; the barns danced alone. This week the tune was more bucolic, and here they blush in the warm evening sunlight. But it's the same dance then as now.

The Joker

Susan Sontag says, "All photographs are momento mori. To take a photo is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt." If so, the images of Kallstrom farm have the mark of the joker about them, laughing in time's face. Where splintered boards seem about to fall baby lambs scamper beneath their mothers. A ladder lies on a rooftop waiting for repairs to resume. A truck lies rusting in the weeds, it's cargo still aboard. Nobody can remember a time when it wasn't parked just there. Goats with curved goats and long beards graze and cast a cynical eye and answer back to the bahhh-hbahhh of the lambs. All about are the relics of 100 years of Kallstrom farming, custodians of an inscrutable story. Cows, goats, lambs, and people barely notice as each carries out its appointed task.

Having just produced a more comprehensive image of Straight Farmstead, it's satisfying to follow it with a similarly comprehensive image of Kallstrom, the former quiet and shy, this one, a never resting prankster.

Why I Never Shoot Sky

I hate sky. You may have noticed that most of the photos I post include as little sky as possible. Most of the time it's in my way, and I do my best to push it aside. I like the way an overcast sky can intensify some colors, but, unless I want the effect of a gray day, I'll try to sneak under its grayness. Even worse are the all too common "atmospheric" days where the blue isn't quite blue and the light at dawn and dusk isn't quite as intense as it should be. Such gray-blue emptiness adds nothing of interest to a photo and is so bland it is good for nothing but a timid yelp of existential boredom. A crisp blue sky makes a great flat background, but it's rare one needs or wants lots of great, flat background.

Add to those the days when it is too wet or snowy to shoot, and I've shot in some, and that's half the year, at least in Connecticut, when I don't want to shoot the sky. What's left is an assortment of days with clouds of various kinds, most good only for adding a bit of texture to great, flat background.

This was the first shot I made yesterday at Straight Farm when the clouds were rioting, Fasalt and Fafner trampling across the hills. We've had a spell of god-cloud weather lately. Last evening at Straight the line of approach was right over the nearby hill so it was impossible to get the measure of the cloud until it was almost overhead, and I ran for cover from rain and lightening several times but neither happened.

What did happen was a lumbering parade as good as anything Macy's can put together. The problem was that the parade began at the top of the hill behind the barns and to the left in this picture, and stumbled along the side of the mountain and down the long grasslands in front of the barns, and the sun alternately burned deep behind the mass of clouds and powered through, dappling and casting spotlights randomly. Sometimes soundless shadows slithered over the lumpy hills, while I ran circles around the barns, up the hill and back down, trying to predict where the next good extravaganza was taking place.

It has bothered me that I've been so far unable to compose an image making use of the full cluster of barns at Straight. The problem is that trees and orientation keep it from getting decent light. Last night clouds taught me how to shoot it.

While the Sun Shines

This image was taken 60 minutes and 37 seconds after the previous blogged image. With such precision our cameras plot our every shot. It was, I had hoped, with similar precision that I observed what I thought was the approaching thunderhead. I have no burning desire to be bacon, and at such moments I am aware of a god's presence. I'm also aware of the potential for a good photograph. Yes, precision is crucial.

So the sudden, fat drops of rain were unexpected. The storm was still far off. I dismissed them and kept shooting, waiting longer than normal before stowing and waterproofing my gear. I finally turned around when I heard the rattle of the cow shed's tin roof. Behind me cats, dogs, whole cows were ricocheting tin. The thunderhead I had been watching was in retreat.

So it is that I can tell you with absolute precision when the first rain drops hit my lens, and I packed and fled past the newly planted corn, past the out-to-pasture cow, past the giant silo, and into a tractor shed. It was a splendid, if somewhat smelly, window on the storm.

At the top of Rabbit Hill where one can watch the weather pass, I forgot to look the other way.

Out to Pasture

I shot this before the storm broke. It was the day the front moved through and I hoped to have good clouds to play with. Driving up Rabbit Hill Road the view is all sky and then the top of the great silo pops over the horizon, and the sky did, in fact, offer possibilities. I thought those clouds would look best behind the Rabbit Hill barns and the rows of newly planted corn in the adjacent field. However, on my way to the back where the corn seedlings had popped up a few days earlier, I passed a lone cow. It was, apparently unteathered, but it wasn't going anywhere. It didn't even nod as I passed.

My eye was on a storm cloud to the north, and I gave little thought to the old cow. Minutes later and some hundred or so yards further back in the field I heard rain, like a snare drum, beating on the tin roof of the cow barn to my south. It took a few moments to register that I was about to get very wet. I had just time to pack my camera away in my backpack and pull up the pack's concealed rain hood before the downpour enveloped me. On my hasty retreat to the shelter of the nearest barn I passed the same cow, still not moving nor registering my passage or the downpour. Like this old barn that I had shot ten minutes earlier, I guess she had little choice but to silently take whatever occurred.

I've photographed this barn before, but here the compression of my long lens makes it seem isolated in a wilderness about to devour it. The same long lens creates a kind of cardboard cutout effect in front of the distant hills, and I've been looking at this for a few days to decide how I feel about it. I've toned the background to minimize this effect, but I'm curious how others feel.

Wine

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Wallace Stevens

Here is yet another shot from the ridge above Hill Farm. For the past three years I've been looking toward this ridge through my long lens from one range of hills farther west (behind me), wondering what it would be like to stand here. Yes, I'm trying to take life one hill at a time. I've now explored many of Hill Farm's byways and walked the full circuit half a dozen times.

It's worth the tick threat to finally cross the ridge and descend into the hidden valley and abundant grasslands ahead. The loop I follow descends beside the trees on the right to more grasslands deep in the valley, then across and back along the river to the lower farmstead shown in an earlier image. Finally, I climb the main farm road to the upper farmstead (previous image) and follow the town road back to my car, just on the other side of the ridge. This trip with 35 pounds of camera gear is good for my calves, gentle on my knees, and it revitalizes both heart and soul.

Is it strictly antiquarian to wish that there were cows in those fields? Undoubtedly, and the future for Hill Farm is exciting. The posts set on the other side of the wall are waiting for the planting of hundreds of grape vines later this summer. On two other hillsides vinyards are already leafing, and in a few years wine will be flowing, and I'm looking forward to shooting as the valleys turn from from milk to wine.

Finally, you may have noticed the cairn. Was there a battle fought here? Did George Washington stop here on his way through town? Does anyone even remember why it was built just here?

The Old Farm Road #2

This shot was taken a few hundred yards down the old farm road from the yesterday's TODAY'S. A bit of the clover can still be seen sprouting from the ridge between the ruts of the road. The farmstead to the right is the main farmstead described in that previous posting. Still no sign of bees.

Throughout New England farmland is vanishing. As fields are no longer cultivated or minimally cultivated to preserve tax benefits the beauty of the landscape changes. When the farms are finally sold, the fields sprout rows of houses instead of corn or beans, and something of our connection to the land vanishes with the farmland. Then we no longer think of the problem of the bees. It may also be that something more essential is lost when we can no longer stand in places such as this and look out across the ranges of hills.

For the past year as I've hiked and shot images I've been striving to capture the rock and roll of the hills as they tumble around me. For me, to feel the tilt of the land in this way is to feel connected to something timeless and vast. Fortunately, where I live there are still numerous places where I can feel that rush. As I drive elsewhere I'm increasingly aware of how fast such places have vanished from most of Connecticut. When I moved here in 1974 interstate 84 was still lined in places with fields of tobacco and rows of long tobacco barns. Today those fields and barns have been demolished; none remain. In their place stand strip malls, warehouses, and shopping plazas.

Fortunately, all the land in this picture and the previous two have been preserved for future generations. Elsewhere, I try to capture pictures before it is too late.

The Old Farm Road & the Problem of the Bees

I've been driving past Hill Farm since I moved to the area, and I began shooting images of it from the public road as early as the winter of 2005. It was a magical vista to me always - a destination along a tour when friends visited, and one of the ultimate subjects for "a pretty picture." Meeting the owners and getting permission to explore the property made me aware how little of the magic I'd seen. As to this picture, I'm still hoping for a truly clear sky before the clover starts to turn.

Hill Farmstead (not the one in the picture) sits on a shoulder of land just below the main ridge. The dirt road climbs steeply before it turns right and passes through the middle of the main farmstead. After it leaves the farmstead it turns left and climbs higher, then turns to the right and passes over the ridge. Viewing this image, that farmstead is about 45 degrees off camera, to the left. The spot where the dirt road crosses the ridge is about a third of a mile to my left and near the farmstead. The farmstead commands the long valley before it, farmlands and hills for as far as the eye can see. It has stood here since before the revolution, and it has looked the same much of that time. At the height of Connecticut farming it must have been quite an operation.

The farmstead in front of us, part of the Hill Farm operation, is on the banks of the river which flows through woodlands beyond the fields. Among this farmstead's features is a mail-order barn (the big one in the picture) and two pens with stone walls 9 feet high and 3 feet thick. That's where they penned the bulls. The upper barns are horse barns now and probably were then. These lower barns must have been cow barns. It makes sense. The owners of a fine farm like this wanted their transportation nearby, but they might not be so keen on having the tons of manure produced weekly so close to their noses.

Once this field and all the fields in view were cultivated, probably for feed. It's clear that this one is mowed, but my guess is that it has been all clover for awhile. The aroma as I shoot images is a heady concoction that ought to be bottled. One can't help in places such as this to feel the great life force which, left on its own, powers forth this frenzy of blossoms. All around me here nature is exuberant. Of course, the blossoms are not there to tempt and intoxicate me, and that is the problem. It seems to me that this place should be buzzing as loudly as it is chirping and singing, but in the 3 or 4 days I've walked up here, in weather both chilly and sweaty, early and late, I've only counted three bees.

Perhaps the more deeply moving photo will be when the clover turns. I'll keep you posted.

The Meadowing

Those of us in the northeast who have lawns know that in spring and fall it can be impossible to keep up with mowing. Farmers who grow hay have a different perspective on this phenomenon. Not so long ago I described Straight Farmstead as sitting astride one of the gentle hills within Kent Hollow. Suddenly the fields above and below the farmstead have filled with tall grasses. Last summer I spent much of my time in the meadows of Macricostas, shooting into the sun at dawn and dusk when the strong golden beams make the meadow fibers dance. I find myself again drawn to those strong textures.

I debated a long time before posting this photo because of it's odd lighting. At this season of the year the southern face of the main barn at Straight Farm only gets midday sun. At sunset the sun glances past this corner pouring beautiful light on the end face of the barn, just beyond the left side of the image. When the meadow grasses are dancing this most expressive southern face has a deathly grimace and the contrast of ancient barn and buzzing meadow is most acute. Whether that is caught here, I'm still uncertain. Perhaps the contrast is too great as the grass seems almost a cutout pasted on the surfacve. Or maybe that is the idea - the two worlds of life and death which never meet.

In spite of appearances, this is one of the most stable barns I've shot. A new roof and reinforcing structure have preserved it just in time. I returned the window frames (found lying inside) to their sockets a few weeks back, my way of celebrating that this barn still serves farming. The hay that will be mowed in these fields will be roll-bailed and stored in this barn.

The Frog in the Swamp

They were there all along. Only I was facing the other way, wrestling with the barns of Hollow Farm while enjoying the unusually multivoiced choir of birds around me. Jannequin's polyphony had nothing on these guys, but the barns were stubborn, stuck there like cows with their heads down in the pasture. I had hoped that the carpet of pink blossoms would somehow help me make the picture I wanted. I had been moving around, looking for angles on the setting sun and the fiber of the blossoms. The barns textures glowed as the sun got lower; the paintpot was ready, but the whole would not compose itself. I had probably shot 200 images of the barns when I first turned around. Beyond the curtain of trees the sun skated across the marsh grasses, a last thrill of golden, warm sunlight, and the birds were exalting, and I heard frogs there too. I snapped just 4 images and knew I had something I would like. Then I turned and snapped another 200 of the barns.

When I went back the next day for another sunset shoot the field had been mowed. It was just a large lawn between the barns and the old stone wall.

Unarbitrariness

The arbitrary is the enemy of the artistic. If you find that proclamation a bit overbearing, I'm in sympathy. I usually try to avoid such terms as "artistic," and "artist," and I'd much prefer principals to laws and rules. Defining art usually raises more problems than it solves as does this concept of arbitrary, but I address it now as I try to understand why I have published so few photos from The Hollow Farm and what that has to do with my own intuitions about photography.

As already mentioned, this farm is unusual in its orderliness. The land is flat, the barns sit along a straight stretch of road, and all lie at right angles to each other and to the road. All this means that each time I reposition myself and shoot, the elements of my images adjust themselves in ways that are not wholly distinct from the previous shot. As I review these numerous images, and watch the compositions slowly morph from shot to shot, it is usually hard to single out any one shot. Then I begin wondering if the image would be improved if I had shot under different light or with a change in leaf color or when the grasses are turning to seed. I'd like to address that orderliness in a way that seems, if not definitive, at least complete in order to set off the ways one can make it dance, but no single or set of images has emerged to do that.

If one seeks merely to publish pretty images, such concerns are largely irrelevant. One goes looking for pretty sights and then uses a camera or paint brush to document them. They exist at one level removed and inferior to the real thing. For me photography is not be about finding pretty images to shoot or even about shooting pretty images prettily; it's not about documenting the external world. It is about taking the scene in front of me, whatever it may be, as raw material and composing elements of it into a new whole that expresses something beyond the original, a mood, an emotion, something universal or iconic or surprising. It may make us see something old in a new way ormake us fit something new into a familiar emotional resonance. In the end, the compositon should feel like the inevitable arrangement to satisfy the ends of the image.

Susan Sontag, in her book on photography, suggests that painting is ill equipped to express the surreal, that the medium of photography is much more capable of truly capturing the surreal because it is so firmly attached to capturing the light of the real world. I raise this point here because I think it is a perception that goes well beyond strict surrealism, that in fact the relation of real and super-real is a fundamental paradox that forms a cornerstone of photography as an art form.

While my intuitions tell me that a given image is or isn't arbitrary, explaining why can sound a bit like intellectual rationalization. It's easy to talk about elements of a composition and their meaning, but whether the image is merely an intellectual construct or expressive in a way that goes beneath surface reality resists the verbal explanation. The image included here struck me as a likely candidate to illustrate what I mean by not arbitrary. To explain its non-arbitrariness I might talk about its division into two equal rectangles top and bottom, about the way barn and moon balance and their symbolic reverberations, about the way the dividing line of the trees seems to echo the roof line of the barn, or I might even try to justify the odd point at which I have decided to cut the barn off at the knees, but my words can't capture the deeper harmonies of the work which I feel. That is not to say that the image is profound or that one ought to like it or even that I consider it among my best. For me, it merely means I feel this image has received its ultimate form here and fulfilled its super-real potantial.

The opposite of the arbitrary is the committed. A month from now, when the moon is again rising full at dusk, I may see a similar shot with a spot of cloud in it and say to myself, that adds the finishing touch; it is more committed to the initial vision than it was before. Or perhaps it is my lack of vision that is keeping me from seeing what all those other images taken at The Hollow might become.

I risk this wandering philosophizing in the hope of eliciting thoughts that further clarify my understanding. I invite comments which may help me think further about this issue of arbitrariness.

Weekend one of the photo exhibit was a success. I look forward to seeing those you you who have told me you plan to attend this coming weekend.

The Other Side

No matter how I plan for a series of related TODAY'S, that plan is diverted by the passion of the moment. My note awhile back on The Hollow was intended as the first of perhaps 4 or 5 images in a series on The Hollow Farm. Similarly, the post on the Bunnell Windows Book was intended to introduce numerous Bunnell Windows. It's not that I later think less of the images never posted; one of the Hollow Farm images has a key place in the Camera's Eye exhibition. Rather, I am diverted by some new passion. In the end, however, things usually come round. And so we return to Bunnells.

The image above was worked on after it was shot and then set aside; it never reached completion. I rediscovered it tonight as I reviewed a folder of such temporarily abandoned images, and maybe the variety produced by such circuitous posting habits is a virtue. I set the image aside for technical reasons. My normal habit is to compose in the camera, and it is very rare that I crop a shot after I shoot it. I have no aesthetic objection to doing so, though cropping yields lower resolution images. This one may never be able to print out at 13"X19", my usual size. However, when I did the initial editing, I found the focal interest of the image in what you see; I cropped the rest away as superfluous.

What you see above is the cropped version, my first thoughts on the image. Below are my second thoughts, my current thoughts. Or maybe they are alternative thoughts. Your thoughts on which version is preferable would be most helpful and interesting. There is no question that the effect is very different.

Peeking In

These are the same velvet surfaces posted under the title: "The Hollow," on May 1. However, it was the windows that first caught my attention. I've never seen windows like these on any other barn, and the contrast between their soft, if perhaps forced, cheeriness and the view through them intrigues me. What the shadowy diagonal form inside the barn may be, I have no idea.

Of course, if you've looked at "Peeking In," and "The Other Side," you realize they are not two versions of the same image. They are two distinct shots from the same series. However, they have been worked up differently as described.

Freuhlingslied

You see what has happened, don't you? I returned to Straight Farmstead this evening. A week ago a shot from this very place was a throw-away, and now everything is reaching for the sunlight. In spring, especially, all things turn toward the heavens and the life-enabling energy of the sun. And the songs of the birds had changed too. Some fellow on a branch near me was whistling a fine, bold melody to the setting sun.

Before getting to Straight, I stopped at Macricostas Meadow to shoot the swallows nesting there. A week or two ago they were flying around everywhere, so I was surprised at how quiet it was at a time when I expected them to be even busier. A peek into one of the bird boxes, and I knew I was being watched. At another, a swallow head popped out, but the meadow remained quiet except for 5 circling turkey vultures. Their wings caught the light nicely, and I thought about taking aim with my lens, but I knew they were just too far. Their presence made the meadow all the more desolate, and I swore I would wait only until 5:50 and then buy myself a new set of birds.

I've concluded that what I witnessed in the meadow earlier was the nesting, and the commotion was the busy work of gathering and delivering bedding in preparation for the laying. I know that last year in June the meadow was filled with brigades of swallow arriving and leaving, feeding the young. My guess is that now is the time of waiting and feeding and getting strong for the work ahead in which every bird will have to gather food to feed himself and herself and few others beside. The meadow needs to be watched for signs of the first hatching.

I left Macricostas Meadow disappointed and made several productive stops on my way generally toward Straight Farm,. I wish I had arrived at Straight earlier to see how the turkey's dance had changed, but the light was turning sour by a haze of vapor. This shot was almost the last of the evening. It's a keeper. I'm going home to play some Schubert.

New Brunswick Storm, May 2006

For the past week weather has made shooting difficult. In fact, in some ways this spell of gray has been well timed. Preparation for our exhibition which opens this weekend would have been in conflict with my urge to catch the last of the opening leaves, just as it has kept me from adding to, "Today's." On the other hand, this storm system lying off the coast has moved in and out; it has been one of those in which expanses of slate gray periodically give way to dramatic skyscapes, the kind of skies where one quickly looks for anything that will compose them into an image. Any photographer moved by such weather must be always on alert for sudden changes, ready to quickly hop in the car and find the spot where a picture may lie waiting. Preparation for the exhibit has kept my nose down and my printer running, and such weather events have all been missed.

On the other hand, final prep for the show has sent me back through older images to find any that will fit with the other work in the show. In doing so, I came across this image taken just one year ago while I was on my way to a week-long photo workshop in New Brunswick, Canada. It illustrates, as well as any image I've taken, what one can catch when the clouds suddenly turn lively, and in the past year my skill with Photoshop has improved so that I can get much more out of the initial image than I could have when I shot it.

The signed date on the image reflects that I have worked it up fresh to try and extract every bit of contour from clouds and hillsides. In truth, it is one of those images that are almost beyond the reach of a camera; if one is to catch the shapes in the bright clouds on the right, one loses detail in the dark clouds on the left and the foreground soil turns black. I had time to snap 9 images before the clouds shifted. Three were bracketed shots (different exposures) very similar to this one. This image was made from the darkest of those. As shot, dark areas showed no detail. However, it was perfectly exposed to catch the cloud formations on the right. The latent image in the underexposed areas was enough that there was no need to take parts of the other shots and make a composite image.

Now that it is finished, however, I've decided it will not appear in the exhibit. For me, the hardest part of putting together an exhibit is cutting out shots for which there is no room and which don't quite fit with my thematic intent. Much as I like this finished image, it will not fit. I've chosen to show very few broad landscapes in favor of the farmstead abstractions that have been catching my eye for some months now.

I'm glad I will see some of you at the show this weekend or next.

Rolling Straight at Sunrise #3

The little building with the funny chimney lies just below the barns and house of Straight Farmstead. I thought, "a pump house!" Of course the chimney's wrong, and why a window. Inside, a feeding trough instead of pipes and pumps. I've since been told it was for pigs, not that anyone I've met can remember pigs here, and only a small section of the barn's "L" is outfitted with animal stalls.

I've had a nasty time getting a print I like, and its probably not going to wow anyone. If the top or bottom of the image are clipped on your screen, the effect is totally lost, but for me this image more than any other I've taken at Straight Farm touches the essence of the place. I like the linty, minty, early morning, first-of-spring hills and how they cradle the pighouse. Most of all, I like the painterly light in pighouse and hills, and the simplicity of the geometries. Ah, spring!

Rolling Straight at Sunrise #2

The field below the barn gets a bit wet at the bottom, but I'm told it is a good haying field. That's the place to shoot the barns at sunrise, I think, but so far my trips there have been in mid afternoon, and the grass is beginning to get long and ticks are about. In the late afternoon the lower area belongs to the turkeys. I wish I could get close enough to photograph their dandy dance. Perhaps I need to get down there before they do and hide out in my turkey suit.

This photo is not what usually attracts me, but I was pleased at how it all came together.

Rolling Straight at Sunrise #1

In the last posting I described the rolling hills astride which Straight Farm spreads. As the moods of spring begin to cast spells across the hills, I find myself each day more in awe of the peacefulness and grandeur of this spot. Perhaps it's also the infinity of photo possibilities that exist here. The previous photo was shot at sunset, this one at sunrise; the farmstead is situated well for both my Lauds and Nocturns.

Of course, no photo can capture the song and acrobatics of the swallows that for the next month will live and raise their families in the barns. I've watched them swoop through narrow, dark passages at jet fighter speeds, sometimes within inches of my nose. It is no wonder that farmers used to cut holes in the sides of the barns to let them nest and lead their busy, insect-eating lives. Their song celebrates any farmstead they inhabit.

Sprung

Straight Farm is anything but straight. It is another of the farms in the Hollow. Unlike the farm I've called, "The Hollow Farm," Straight farm is perched astride rolling hills beneath the western slopes that define that side of the Hollow. From various angles the hills appear to swallow up the farmstead. These galloping hills run north-south so that from the barns one may look south down to rolling pasture lands and distant mountains or north up to more pasture lands and the neat rows of trees that frequently divide adjacent fields. To the east lie the flatter sections of the the Hollow and several other farms.

About half of my recent evening shoots have been at this delightfully still farmstead. The 3 "Composition with Diagonals" images were taken here. The barns look much more decayed than they actually are. The fields are hayed regularly and the barns store the hay for lambs and cows raised up the road.

Last night, the tiny leaf bundles that have given the hillsides their delicate texture sprang open and all was suddenly transformed. This is the event I've been waiting for and the reason for this picture.

The Evanescent & the Enduring

Old farms are marked by their silos. Even small farms often had several of these. In New England's cold winters they kept livestock happy until the grazing season returned. Often the silos remain standing long after the barns themselves have disappeared, and even when barns and silos are gone, the distinctive foundations of the silos tell the vanished history of the land.

The unusual red silo at Bunnell Farm (seen in some of the other photos I've posted) is set unusually far, perhaps 12 or 15 feet, from the main barns. I have no idea why this was done, but it necessitated an intriguing, narrow passageway with windows on both sides that enabled earlier generations of Bunnells to get the silage from silo to barn & cows without suffering winter winds. After composing a variety of shots through this passageway I went into the barns to take other shots. On emerging from the barns I was struck by the white, fluffy clouds at that moment reflecting from the windows of the idle passageway.

Incidentally, for those who have been wondering, Bunnell rhymes with Funnel.

The Bunnell Windows Book

If there is a book in me, and that is hardly to suggest there is anyone interest reading, looking at, or thumbing the pages of the book that is or isn't in me, this might be the cover. The title of the book might be, "The Bunnell Windows." The window images in the book need not be all Bunnell windows, nor were the Bunnell windows my first windows. It's just that at Bunnell Farm the riot of windows made me realize how varied & expressive windows can be - made me the window nut I am. This group catching morning sun crows like a rooster.

Then again, perhaps such books, like family farms and roosters are obsolete.

The Back Cover

I'm not certain this image is interesting enough in itself to merit posting, but I kind of like that it is the other side of the rooster crow image.

Is a rooster crow anything like a churkendoose?

Composition with Diagonals #3

How convenient that someone stored an old plow with great wooden wheels right inside the barn where its silhouette could catch my lens! Perhaps it should trouble me that many of the elements of this composition are the same as in the previous posting, but in my home, I'll happily hang them side-by-side. Unfortunately, when we open our next Camera's Eye exhibition in late May, I will have to choose just one from these last three. Choosing is so hard. Perhaps someone will offer guidance.

Composition with Diagonals #1

"Composition with Diagonals #2" or "Grampa's Teeth"

Several people have commented on the light in the May 1st photo. It was changing even as I snapped the picture, and I confess to being pleased by the results. However, I've spent much of this evening struggling with the importance of such prettiness as I try to decide between two very different interpretations of the same image.

Interpretation #1 has murky shadows and burnt out highlights, it's jagged and chalky. For me, it has a bit of anguish about it. Interpretation #2 moderates the extremes, details are revealed in the shadows and reclaimed from the burnout. Is interpretation #2 a bit more forgiving of age's frailty?

The Hollow

It is the most mannerly of farmsteads because it grew where the hollow flattens out in good, dry land. The barns are also in relatively good repair. The large barns were once cow barns, and I'm told it was for a time a horse farm. Because it lies at the bottom of the of The Hollow, I call it, "The Hollow Farm," but it is hollow in another sense too. Nothing happens here. The barn doors are shut, the barns are still except for the birds, vivacious inhabitants.

I haven't been inside the barns and can't say much about their age. I was invited to climb up into the loft of "the wood shed," a barn structure used currently as a garage. It appears to be quite old, and local history tells that the farmhouse was burned twice during The Revolution. This is prime farmland that has been lived on for a long time.

Processing an Image

The process required to bring a single image to completion is often lengthy. After a good day's shoot, often between 200 and 400 images, I look forward to reviewing the catch. That may take a full evening. Until I can see them on my computer monitor, I'm not sure what I have. Even then, my mind may not be made up, but if I'm lucky one or two images will jump out as keepers. Sometimes these need little more than tweaking, scrubbing the inevitable spots, the result of gunk that is always attracted to the ccd of my camera, a bit of sharpening, an adjustment of levels or a balancing of highlights and shadows. However, some images need time to settle in, for me to make up my mind, and often images take much work in Photoshop before they look the way I want.

This photo was taken at Kallstrom Farm during our one big blizzard this winter. At that time I was preoccupied with another image from the set. That shot has already appeared on the blog. I wasn't sure how I felt about this dark dance. When I finally went back and decided to finish it there was much to be done. Balancing tones to bring out the storm was tricky and of prime importance. The screen image was not quite the same as the printed image, and each printing gets a new letter designation. There was also a white rain gutter that glared in the gloom and had to be removed. By the time I had a print I liked, I was on version "c." Last week I gave a print to Brent Kallstrom, and he wisely wondered if the large stake in the center of the image might be removed. Rather than remove it, I have lowered it; I like the pattern of the wire fence that keeps us from entering the image, but I'd missed how distracting the stake supporting it was. It has been significantly lowered. Not counting the time spent shooting and identifying the image, there is at least 3 or 4 hours of process time in this, and the storm has long been history.

Images from new farms recently shot have been in process for several weeks. I will have to shoot more at each site and process some of those before I know which are ready for "Today's" and the blog. While I ponder those and wait for more good sky or sunshine or moody fog to make the landscape photogenic is a good time to finish up and publish images that have grown on me with time. This image is now ready.

Your comments posted here or sent via email are always welcome, whether words of encouragement or suggestions for improvement..

First Leafing

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the New England Regional Genealogy Conference took place in Hartford. Jane and I were supposed to be there throughout, but after seeing little of interest on Saturday's, long program except the banquet speaker for which we had already (unfortunately) paid unrefundable cash, we skipped out.

No banquet speaker could compare with the evening I spent in Kent Hollow. A post storm sky proved not quite as good as I'd hoped, but here and there tentative leafings spattered accents in the contours of hills, and I pretended to be Monet. Does the impulse to shoot, "things" make us miss such images? Quiet fireworks! Shots like this were everywhere, and it feels very good to be home. Thanks, Frances, for taking care of the imaginary cat and the very real pigs, and especially thanks to Melissa, Jane and Jonathan for their help in delivering the computer workshops at NERG. Your support meant everything.

Dance Macabre

This image didn't come in the normal hunt for compositions. Instead of my searching for it, it grabbed me after I thought I was done for the day. I'd made my way through the muck at the bottom field of Rabbit Hill; I'd stopped at the cows and snapped a few token images of cow dinner. As I left the cows and turned to climb the last hill between the farm buildings, this shot was just there. I'd passed that spot many times, but I had never seen it quite as I saw it then. I took one shot and then considered a bit. Then I adjusted the camera to level the windows, shifted position to get them less hidden, and shot again. The second shot was properly balanced, more polite, a result of my conscious judgement, but it was the unruly first child that won my love. I've learned to heed such signals, though in this case, others may be wondering why.

Back at my computer, I needed to bring this strange photo to fruition. At first, I got the processing wrong, warmed the colors, lightened the shadows. Again, my conscious mind was trying to make the shot polite, do what one is supposed to do. At first I printed the wrong shot by accident, but even after printing it is this dark, homely child that has won my love. Perhaps it's a child only a parent could love.

The Three Sisters of Rabbit Hill

Yesterday evening I finally got access to the field directly below Tanner's Rabbit Hill Farm. Up until now it has been too wet and messy, and I have been peeking around bushes and between clumps of trees from one field over, looking for the best clear shots of the angles I want. It's still messy, and now the insects are just appearing, newly hatched mosquitos and the clouds of Mayflies that announce the less pleasant parts of spring. This field is below the farmstead; it is where all the runoff from the cows winter pen drains, but it is a new angle on old friends, and nothing could have kept me out on such a gorgeous evening..

Frances commented on yesterday's post, "For you it always seems to be the music of intersecting geometric forms. For me, it is always the unstated questions, the secrets: What might be going on in the fastness of those barns? Where is the access road to that courtyard in the center that will lead me to them? The focal point is on that inaccessible place, that intriguing space, and the people are stilled in time." What a terrific comment to set me thinking. In fact, an essential part of my attraction to New England farmsteads is the mystery of time and mortality. I'm not sure I've taken a photo that says it better than today's post. Sadly, the eldest sister is already stooped, twisted, and arthirtic. Still, the loft window still joins in song.

Can you find two of these barn's in yesterday's photo?

Rabbit Hill Redux

Like many children, I was fascinated by castles and fortresses and imagined, drew, and built with blocks my dreams of walls and towers surmounted by walls and towers. It is that piling on that keeps drawing me back to some of my favorite farmsteads. The Tanner Farm at the top of Rabbit Hill is one of the best. Sadly, many of these old farms are like agéd grandparents whose remaining days must be treasured. The double barn in the center of this farm could fall in any moderate wind storm. Mrs. Tanner told me yesterday that they had an estimate on the cost of repair a few years back: $750,000.

After our days of storm, wind and flat gray clouds, yesterday the sun returned full force and I was glad to find all of the barns still standing. I'd been waiting for just such a moment to get back. One of my favorite shots from the winter was marred by some blurring, a result of the strong breeze that kept my tripod in slight motion. Such problems become great when shooting at 500mm. I got the shot I wanted and many others as well. This shot, actually, a composite of two, was not planned. Artie will be glad to see people (I think).

Since last year Luke Tanner has passed management of the farm to his grandson who does all the chores together with his wife. Below, they feed the cows and reflect on the day's work. I've watched them do this every evening I've been there, and was glad to catch this shot which I will give them. Working dairy farms are disappearing. In spite of the condition of some of the barns and the difficulty of the site. Luke's grandchildren have chosen to stay and make their stand here.

Bunnell Geometries II

Look at the previous post. A few steps to the right produces this surprising variation. Initially, I considered this image as an alternative to yesterday's post. For a week or two both of these prints have been sitting out among my new photos. This week I added both in adjacent windows in the portfolio of copies I keep. I think they might easily be hung next to each other as a pair. However, I'd be interested in the thoughts of others.

Bunnell Geometries

Try as I might, it's tough to keep the picture pasted flat to the page; it keeps wanting to jump up and dance. I must have 40 variants of this shot. Every slight movement changes the tempo; move enough and its a new picture entirely. Also, the window reflects sky at certain times of day, and it is clear that the panes are set oddly. Here it is at its most abstract, just a series of radiating triangles in shades of red and gray? I'm hoping for a vigorous spring to inspire the vine in the background. Perhaps this is only a draft of a photo yet to be taken.

Can't seem to get away from shooting windows.

Scherzo Disjunct

On the walls of the Bunnell's parlor hung several large aerial photos of the farm. The earliest of these showed the intersection in front of the property, lined with elms. That aerial photo was taken about 1950.

Syncopation

Windows, walls, and roof planes, everywhere intersecting in rich counterpoint - that, for me, is the fun and maybe the essence of Bunnell Farmstead.

Bunnell Firewood

Yesterday's photo is more typical of the images I have been making at Bunnell Farm. However, as mentioned, I spent a portion of yesterday shooting Bud Bunnell and his neighbor turning a dead tree into firewood. Bud is the one on the tractor. He is 84 and the 5th generation of Bunnells to work the farm. It is 110 acres which Bud's GGGrandfather bought in 1860. Bud and his wife raised 10 children here. and they are happy to be retired. Evidently. the job description for retirment for Bud includes cutting trees into firewood. His son and grandson still work on the farm, though there are now horses instead of cows. While, so far, atypical of the pictures I've made, it is a great introduction to the overall richness and variety of forms throughout the farmstead.

Today Jane and i brought Bud a large framed print of another image from the tree sawing series and two other large prints. While we were there I learned all about the history of the barns and a bit about how they have changed. Bud said there were once 18 farms in the immediate vicinity of his. The good news is, Bunnell Farm is now protected acreage that will never be developed. The roof line of the large barn in the picture is the bad news. When barns develop such kinks, they are very difficult and expensive to preserve. As i mentioned yesterday, Bud's son Rick is hoping to take the barn down and rebuild it. In any case, Bud is happy to let me share his picture with you.

Bunnell Farm

No, it's not Cape Cod. I need a bit of distance before making hard decision with those. However, back in CT, I have found another farmer to welcome my camera. The boy I met at first was the seventh generation to work the farm. I have since met his father and grandfather. Today I shot pictures of his grandfather running the tractor and sawing trees. The geometries and rhythms of these barns are very complex. Best of all, lots of windows.