Wild Things, No. 2

MINOR WHITE: "One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are."

Cottongrass at Sunset

ERIC LINDBLOOM: "Try as we will to make a fair representation of things in the world that move us, metaphors know the trick of entering the work through a small aperture in a fraction of a second."

WIld Things, No. 1

BOB LEJEUNE (http://boblejeune.blogspot.com/) reacting to recent photos: "Before I did photography I sort of went along with the notion that pictures give a more accurate rendition of reality than words, as in the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words." Now I know that's nonsense. You move one foot, and you see a different reality in the viewfinder. You change the angle or zoom, and the world becomes more abstract. You photoshop out the garbage, and everything looks pretty. Etc. Forced to see reality in frames, I realize more than ever that there is no reality. So spending all that money is good "therapy" even if I never become a great photographer."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: A good friend used to argue with me that architecture was not an art form because art was forced to serve an independent program focused on issues of functionality and economics. He argued that art must be free to follow the artist's imagination, that the artist's passions must be given room to operate without extraneous concerns. This photo was shot "on assignment," as part of the final project for the Lunenburg workshop. My shooting for 24 hours was restrained and regulated by time and program. Without that assignment, I'm sure I never would have stopped to shoot these leaves, nor would I have discovered later that a tiny insect had momentarily scurried across one of the images. Contrary to my friend's beliefs, I find a strict program or assignment can lead to new discoveries and new seeing, and that success can rest as much on serendipity as depth of feeling.

Bayside Op

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Once seen, the pressing question was where to crop. That's always the case, but rarely must edges be so precisely calibrated at all sides and corners. The temptation is to shoot large and preserve all options by cropping in the computer. I prefer NOT to do that, and I try to compose to the proportions of the image my camera makes. (Of course, at a certain point the image has laws of its own that dictate proportions.)

A major question here was whether to include the details in the top right corner. Intuitively, I thought they should be avoided, and made most exposures that way. Back in Lunenburg, however, it was this one I chose to present to the workshop. Without the detail at the top left, this is a curious op pattern. Included, the detail is an annoying (perhaps slightly surreal?) presence that must be unravelled.

Have you figured out what it is, or did you grasp it right away? Once you do, you can enter the image space. Some would say that it is only then that this becomes photographic.

Can you stay in the image space? No need to anymore.

Of course there were many more images to be made here, but the sun was moving quickly and the moment was passing. I had come on this by chance, and I have no idea how it looked moments earlier. Surely, it didn't last long. Could I ever find my way to the time and space of this alignment of elements in order to watch the full arch transpire? Do I really want to go looking for images I've already seen?

Starboard Watch

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL

The snake-skin sea slinks across the harbor,
Sounds the music of the old hulls,
Lingers in the underdocks,
Ready to uncoil.

Wharfside

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL - I must give some credit for this image to one of my colleagues (Sparrowhawk: http://www.btlens.com/) at the Lunenburg workshop. During a group shoot I had spotted these nails forgotten on one of the pilings and admired the colors and textures, but Sparrowhawk stopped to take the picture, and I merely made a mental note to get back there later while I hurried to something else I was after. When I saw Sparrowhawk's picture I remembered the spot and regretted not shooting it; when I found myself back at the boatyard another day the light was excellent, and I decided to try my own image. I'm pleased with the way this came out, but my colleague has a very sharp eye for composition, and I'd love to compare my choices with Sparrowhawk's.

Boatyard Composition No.2, June 2009

RENE MAGRITTE: "Everything that is visible hides something that is invisible."

Boatyard Composition No.1, June 2009

ANONYMOUS: "The film that survived a bomb blast, got wet when your boat sank , survivived x-ray machines at 5 different airports was ruined when someone opened the darkroom door and let all the dark out."

Hunk of a Dory

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL, "The Dory Ethic": A dory is essentially a, "plank boat," that's easy to build. It is a workhorse that carries a big load and that two can row with ease. The deep hull, flat bottom, and and natural curve make it maneuverable and steady. Coastal settlers in the northeast launched them from beaches and filled them with fish. When all else fails, one wants a reliable dory.

This photo was taken at The Dory Shop in Lunenburg, NS

Herring's Lament

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:

Mucilaginous porridge of brine,
The viscous vat, a universe.
Then scooped and bucketed,
Drawn and quartered,
Packed into purses,
And drowned in the parlor.
My essences drift,
Draw hungry crustacea.

The Lobstermen

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I met Howard on the pier at Thurston's Lobster Pound in Bernard Harbor, Maine. He and Roger were loading buckets of herring onto the "Dillon, Chris, and Linda." The herring would be chopped up for bait once they were at sea. I had already asked Howard if I could photograph him at work. When Roger went to get more herring Howard began a conversation about women, drink, marriage, and life. By the time he was ready to push off, we were friends.

The previous year I had vowed to get beyond photographs of the landscape, architecture and props of lobstering and photograph the lobstermen at work. Bernard, Maine, was the most likely place. In most of the lobster ports the fishermen leave from private docks which can be scattered. On some piers a photographer could wait all morning, and no lostermen would appear.

In Bernard there are two common piers used by most of the lobstermen. On the community pier lobstermen begin arriving in their pickups at sunup. The pier is a place of socializing as they fetch their boats, load them with bait and sometimes traps, stowe away lunch buckets and drinks for the day's work, and climb into their vinyl lobstering overalls. In the afternoon the boats return with the day's catch. They sell the lobsters to independent marketers who drive onto the wharf in white delivery trucks and wheel large scales out on the tailgate.

Other lobstermen leave from Thurston's pier. The lobstermen who sell at Thurston's take a lower price but they don't have to work to sell, and they use Thurston's large, dockside warehouses to store their bait. The pier is often a labyrinth of passageways through the lobstermen's idle traps.

That's where I met Howard and Roger and shared philosophy. As they pushed off, I asked if they would be back the next day. When Howard told me, "yes," he also asked if I'd like to come along.

I met them at 5:30 AM. This slide show contains some of the more than 300 images I shot aboard the "Dillon, Chris, and Linda," and it is a first attempt at telling a lobstering tale. I fear it fails to convey the fast pace and exhausting, assembly line routine of the work. In about 4 hours they pulled, emptied, baited, and set 200 traps and caught 55 usable lobsters.

On Leaving Peggy's Cove, June 2, 2009

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL - "Peggy's Cove, Future Thoughts":

I left Peggy's Cove without all of the shots I wanted. I'd reserved Tuesday passage on, "The Cat," the ferry from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor. No cat sailed Wednesday, and I doubted whether I would find enough in Peggy's Cove to linger until Thursday. I no longer think that's correct.

1. I had arrived with a primary mission of photographing the harbor. One can almost make out it's mouth, left of center in this image. The cove is a narrow groove with steep slopes, a classic and there are many shots of it. I wanted to find my own.

Where to stand? I wanted to look down the length of the cove, to take in as much of its complexity as I could; I wanted a picture that would embody the concept, "harbor"; that would be a classic rather than a cliche. Perhaps it is always a mistake to preconceive a picture that way. The moment often brings a thousand little pleasures that are quite different from what one is after. In any case, this was the place to do such a classic. I wanted to be at the mouth of the harbor in the afternoon and at the back of the harbor in the morning, but all my attempts to get to the mouth that afternoon and on my previous visit were blocked by, "Private property - no trespassing." I made some afternoon images from the back of the harbor, but the June, afternoon sun is a dragon breathing into the cove. It was not a subject for backlighting, certainly not what I was after. The next morning I was up at 4:30, but the sun barely appeared, and the light wasn't especially useful. From the few images I made then at a moment when the water in the cove was almost still, I realized that wind and tides were more important than early sunshine. I have a hunch I want to shoot near low tide. It's always a mistake to preconceive the picture.

2. Where can I hire a boat?

3. There's no lobstering after May 31. What is Peggy's Cove like when the fisherman are active?

4. After a short, early morning shoot I went back and made a panorama from the deck of my room at the B&B. The B&B is somewhere behind that big white building to the left of the cove mouth. My deck overlooked the harbor, a splendid view and a successful panorama but not my shot. I packed my bags - good breakfast and conversation before heading off for Yarmouth. It was with some amazement that I pulled off at the flight 111 memorial site, just outside of Peggy's Cove, and looked back. I took this just before the rain came, wilting my eagerness and obliterating the view. The photo makes clear that there's at least a half mile of road between me and the church steeple worth walking and exploring for photographs. How many moods can the sky and the landscape conjure over several days? I never know what it will look like until I get there.

5. Since returning I've read that the bushes on the barrens turn vivid color in October.

Click the image to view large.

Peggy's Point Lighthouse, No.5

H. E. Clark: "He carefully picked his cast of clouds, watched them intently as they swirled in before the lens and hoped the sun would break in concert."

Town & Barrens No.4

DAVID BOHM (as suggested by Jane Roth and quoted from The Tao of Photography): "All is process. That is to say, there is ‘no thing’ in the universe. Things, objects, entities, are abstractions of what is relatively constant from a process of movement and transformation. They are like the shapes that children like to see in clouds."

Cove Composition No.2

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: ...or are there photographs that must be connected to a real event at a real moment and yet transcend their time and place? Whether successful or not, this photo might seem less interesting if the viewer believed the birds had been photoshopped in from another image or repositioned for compositional effect. Why is that so? All of the other arts use lies to approach truth. Is there a "code of honor," for photography that makes it different? And if I wanted to float a cloud from another photo across this sky... ?

Barrens Blossoms No.3

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Yesterday's photograph, more than most, raised questions regarding the complex relationship between a photograph's subject and its meaning, and it evoked an interesting group of reactions from readers of TODAY'S. One referred to the, "musical sky." Many commented on what one reader described as, "objects standing at drunken angles." Several people commented about the humor of the image and one even said it made her laugh. Although, like other images of this series, it was taken at Peggy's Cove, and its subject is the barrens around Peggy's Cove, the meaning is something quite different, something that can't be put into words, something that language can only talk around.

The difficulty is that photography, in a way not true of any other art medium, is always about a subject that has an independent life; we always photograph SOMETHING. While a painter can work with nothing but imagination and paint, our medium is light that comes to us from the real world and usually reflected off of things. Even after a photographer has distorted that real world, the audience still looks to find the traces of its real-world origins. Given a photographic abstract they quickly ask, "What is it?" in a way they never would if it was by Kandinsky or Miró.

On the other side, viewers often approach a photograph not looking to see more there than the apparent subject. Is it the photographer's task to find ways to make them look further, or is it enough simply to lay out the composition and leave it to the viewer to enter deeply or to stand at the margins?

Town & Barrens No.3, Fiddleheads

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:

Camped out in a land older than time,
balancing the megaliths,
numbering their shadows
by the sun's glow and the moon's,
waiting on the diastolic blushes of spring,
riding a wave in the echoing of eternity,
stopping the surf's fall.
Returning home to laughter and love.

Town & Barrens No.2, Standoff

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON: "What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values."

Barrens Blossoms, No.2

EDWARD STEICHEN: "I knew, of course, that trees and plants had roots, stems, bark, branches and foliage that reached up toward the light. But I was coming to realize that the real magician was light itself..."

Cove Composition

ARTHUR TRESS: "Photography has an amazing ability to capture the fine detail of surface textures. But far too often these intricate patterns are loved by the photographer for their own sake. The richness of texture fascinates the eye and the photographer falls easy prey to such quickly-caught complexities. The designs mean nothing in themselves and are merely pictorially attractive abstractions. A central problem in contemporary photography is to bring about a wider significance in purely textural imagery."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I am in awe of Arthur Tress's haunting images. On the other hand, I appreciate attractive abstractions whose colors, textures, form, and lighting make the eyes dance.

Town & Barrens No.1

JOHN ROSENTHAL: "When I look at photographs by Ansel Adams, I sometimes find myself wondering if Adams is celebrating the natural beauty of creation or simply the beauty preserved in our great national wilderness parks. Are his photographs about life or about zoning laws? Of course one might accuse me of asking dreary questions - but I don't think so. The act of cropping a photograph, which is a fundamental act of photography, is at heart a moral decision. In our landscapes, have we cropped out the tourists and the garbage in order to suggest 19th century America (which is to say, nostalgia), or have we cropped out what is truly irrelevant to our intentions as an artist? What photographers leave out is just as important as what they leave in."

Barrens Blossoms

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The barrens is a desolate place. One can see for miles across the stony hills. Nobody is allowed to die in Peggy's Cove because there's so little land in which to be buried, but look about your feet and nothing is standing still. These rugged plants know how to root in very little soil and hold on through fierce wind. Where there is no soil, orange, green, and black lichens are at work on the rocks' surfaces. This is not only a place of cataclysm but of birth. Rugged as it is, it's also very fragile, and a few badly placed footsteps can undo the work of decades. It's a Canadian, "National Preservation Area," which, unfortunately has no effect on mortality rates, but it does prohibit development. I arrived back in Peggy's Cove on June 1st, and spring was beginning all over again.

The Barrens

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Where I live the curtain has been graciously drawn across the cataclysm. Sometimes I come upon it unexpectedly in the forest, a huge rock turned at an odd angle and in an unlikely spot, but for the most part the forests have grown back where the farmers used to have fields. I search for expanses of open land where one can feel the rolling of the earth and see the ancient convulsions that stood in the way of the farmers' crops. Chances are good that there's a stone wall there.

Growing up in New York City, I used to admire The Palisades. Even though as early as the 19th century men had been chipped away massive quantities of them for cheap railroad ballast, such efforts seemed puny compared to The Palisades' immensity. Now condo towers hop across the them as if they weren't there as the city itself spreads over them. Of course the furnace that built the Palisades would quickly incinerate anything that has stood there in the last thousand years. In the case of The Barrens, the critical cataclysm came, not with fire but with ice, and nothing now hides the violence of its chilly lacerations.

Peggy's Point

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: After the week-long, Lunenburg workshop ended I decided to head back to Peggy's Cove and spend at least a night there. I was immediately drawn to photographing the barrens, shown in the distance above. However, I'm amazed at how soon I found myself scouting angles on the lighthouse. A colleague at the workshop said, "Go down behind the lighthouse." I guess that's about where I am. Behind me the waves explode against the granite. I'm at the tip of Peggy's Point.

If I return again, this is a perfect place for panoramas. The body of water on the left is St. Margaret's Bay, and just around the bend of the bay is the memorial to the passengers of Swissair Flight 111. Like the surroundings, the memorial is bare; simple text inscribed into the granite boulders and neat paths tucked among the scrubby pines and outcroppings of the barrens on a cliff above the sea. I stopped at the memorial briefly as I departed Peggy's Cove. It was almost all fogged in. I was alone, and it seemed as if all the people lost out in the water were especially alone. If I could have seen through the fog, I have a hunch it is also a good spot for panoramas back at Peggy's Point and the town.

Peggy's Cove, I mean the cove after which the town is named, is an abrupt inlet at the center of the cluster of buildings. The church is at the back, behind, and all around are the barrens. The coast continues somewhere to my right. It is made up of huge chunks of similar granite, broken apart and tumbled just as this point will be some day.

Visit Peggy's Cove on Wikipedia.

Lighthouse Polarities, Peggy's Point Lighthouse No.3

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I'm very curious how viewers of TODAY'S feel about this image.

This shot was an afterthought. It was the last image I made before hiking back up the rocks to the car. I hadn't thought about the reflecting pool since earlier in the evening; from a standing position the lighthouse reflection was invisible. After finishing the previous image I thought quickly about checking to see if the beacon was still visible in the darkened pool. The light was fading fast, the path to my car uncertain, and getting my eye low enough to see the reflection had long ago ceased to be fun, but my tripod was already truncated. I fought with my gear to get the shot positioned. I recall thinking, shoot broad to permit serious cropping later. I made only one image and then rushed off furiously without checking the exposure. I didn't really believe it was worth caring about. Surprisingly, although underexposed, it was recoverable.

I'm still not sure about the shot. It lacks the vigilant calm of yesterday's image. At the Lunenburg workshop I dismissed it from consideration quickly, but each time I see it I find it both arresting, mysterious and paradoxical, an unpleasant clashing of dark forms against the stillness of the lighthouse polarities.

Vigilance, Peggy's Point Lighthouse No.2

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: After everyone had shot their lighthouse reflection shots and sunset shots, and begun climbing from the rock ledge back up to the cars. I lingered alone below for a few more low-light, long exposures. With the sun below the horizon the lighthouse beam would be clear in my pictures, and there would still be enough ambient light to record the lighthouse, rocks, and sea clearly. This is the shot I submitted in answer to the assignment. The exposure was for 30 seconds at f22 and ISO 100.

Click on the image above to enlarge it and make the light clear.

Catching Sunset, Peggy's Point Lighthouse, No.1

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: As the forecast for Wednesday was rain, we went to Peggy's Cove on Tuesday afternoon, the second full day of the workshop. We were free to photograph anything while we were there, but we were also assigned to make an image of the famous lighthouse that, "is not your usual lighthouse shot."

Having an assignment was to some extent a distraction, though I enjoyed the challenge, and I knew it would be fun to see the various solutions. However, as we reached Peggy's Cove, I think we were all affected by the barrens that surround the village. Huge boulders dropped by the receding glaciers balance singly or in groups amid scrubby, rolling landscape. They are like the game balls of old Titans that have temporarily come to rest. I don't recall any other place I've visited feeling so old, while everywhere the stunted, seaside vegetation was flashing May vitality.

In the center of this wasteland the tiny fishing village hangs onto rocks surrounding the harbor cove. It is the quintessential Atlantic fishing village preserved in its decay and still with a few active lobsterman. It was definitely the kind of place I'd hoped to find in Nova Scotia.

Taking the assignment seriously would mean considerable scouting over a maze of treacherous, seaside boulders - slow going. This lighthouse can be seen and photographed from all sides and in some directions from far away. I'd want to explore it all. There was hardly time to photograph either the cove or the barrens well, and either one seemed more exciting to me than the lighthouse.

In the end I chose to concentrate most of the afternoon in the fishing village and take my chances on the lighthouse as the sun began to fall. I even skipped dinner to keep shooting in the cove, though I realize now I was working against the light.

When I finally turned my attention to the lighthouse I found one of my colleagues on some near rocks squatting by a small pool with his tripod close to the ground. I had to stoop down to where he was to see what he was shooting. Soon a bunch of us were taking turns composing reflection shots of the lighthouse in the pool.

Lobster Boats, Blue Rocks No.6

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Standing at the end of Blue Rocks Point it's easy to understand why this sheltered cove was popular with fishermen. However, it's not clear until one looks at Google's photos of the shore line (Go to Goggle maps, search for "Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia," and select "Satellite.") how gradually land blends to sea. Everywhere the coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia are dotted with islands, but here they take the form of long striations cut by ancient glaciers. These grooves form a labyrinth of long, rocky channels. The long channels and rocky islands run many miles out and form an additional buffer here in Blue Rocks Cove against the constant pounding of waves. Standing on high rocks and trying to look out to the open sea as I took this photograph I had no idea how far inland I really was.

The Flight of Narcissus

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I shot nearly fifty images while the gull enjoyed his snail and then looked around to see what else fortune might have put in his path. After a few minutes he hopped to the edge of the rock and stared down, as if admiring his image in the water. Suddenly he unfurled and leaped and floated down to the tidal pool for the rest of his breakfast.

Breakfast

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL - The sunrise light on the rippling pool, exposed seaweed and rock ledge was perfect except the stage was empty until this gull came down to breakfast.

Nautical, Blue Rocks No.5

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I think I only began really looking at lobster shacks & boat houses on this trip, and I find I've arrived home with far more questions than answers. Even if I limit observations to those that are really lobster shacks with traps stacked on the wharf and bobs by their side in the lobsterman's colors, the range is enormous. Some are clearly just storage while others have stoves, and some have several rooms and curtains. What was clear in Blue Rocks was that even the most utilitarian had marks of personality: a display of antique nautica, complimentary paint colors chosen to distinguish the door from its frame; a well-trimmed toy sailboat set on a window sill or in another, a decoy Canada goose hung as if strangled. Some beg the question, "Did someone do it this way for me to notice?" And some leave no doubt.

Are there any traditions I should know about that operate here?

Tourist Traps, Blue Rocks No.4

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Although I sometimes wondered if the collection of shacks clinging to the edge of Blue Rocks was the work of an over-zealous preservationist, I met and spoke with several lobster fishermen there and saw others packing up their traps and closing down the season which had just ended. Does anyone use wooden traps anymore? Or was this little scene a monument set up long ago by some lobster fisherman protesting the Canadian government's enforcement tight limits on the length of the lobster season. Next door in Maine they fish for lobsters all year long and wooden traps are only found in antique stores. Here they were plentiful, though the locals call them, "tourist traps."

Wired for Photography, Blue Rocks No.3

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I reached Blue Rocks even before my Lunenburg workshop was set to begin. Arriving in town early, I found the B&B not ready for guests and began my explorations. It was drizzling when I threaded my way along Herring Rocks Road to the dead end. I was a bit surprised to find someone out there already shooting photographs from a tripod. I waved hello, and we kept to our solitary ways. As I shot, occasionally more cars reached the dead end, took in the scenery, and turned around; it was Sunday; everyone was on holiday. Then, I noticed another photographer setting up a tripod. As we momentarily engaged in a bit of photographer fellowship, comparing favorite lenses and cameras, a couple drove up and a woman began looking intently and opening up a tripod. Was this some sort of photographer's mecca? I patted myself on the back for sniffing it out so quickly.

Well, of course, the truth was that all of us were enrolled in the same photo workshop. When you reach Lunenburg, and the B&B isn't ready, if you're a photographer you head east toward the water. Doing so, one will eventually reach the dead end of Herring Rocks Road and the wharves.

Catching Sunrise, Blue Rocks No.2

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Beyond The Lane there are no structures between the road and the ocean, only the blue rocks that give the area its name. The road dead ends at some piers with an open bay and the sea beyond. Although I spent little time photographing from the rocks, under the right light they are a rich slaty blue and run in ridges parallel to the shore, clearly a photographic target for some future visit. To successfully photograph them one must get both sun and tide to cooperate. What might they look like under a full moon?

Air Mariner, Blue Rocks No.1

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The fishing shacks & cottages that perch on rocks along the ocean's edge in Blue Rocks range from the quaint to the idiosyncratic to the totally outlandish. I went over the hump onto tiny Herring Rocks Road. It hung out over the edge of the bay and then threaded its way between a cluster of ramshackle sheds. The majority of the shacks lie between there and The Lane. A small island, hardly more than a band of rock outcroppings with soil on top, encloses a tiny harbor and wharfs, and shacks straddle the harbor from both sides. At low tide it is an especially rocky affair with wharves perched high on stilts.

Rainy Night, Lunenburg

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL - My intention was to wake before dawn and shoot in the early light. I'd set my alarm and closed my eyes early. That had been my habit whenever possible in my travels. It had never been my habit to wake at 2 AM to go out shooting in thunderstorms. I'd barely napped, but if the rain persisted, sunrise wouldn't be worth shooting anyhow, and I was out the door.

The truth is that after I took the photo on yesterday's blog, later that night, Lunenburg was watered down by a drenching rain. We were all in the common room working on our final assignments, and reluctantly I decided not to go out. I was deep in preparation, but the missed opportunity nagged at me. I was hoping there would be one more big storm. Be careful what you wish for. I didn't expect it then.

I've had several inquiries following the last two images wondering if they were HDR or what special techniques were used. In fact, I did nothing special unless using a tripod constitutes, "special." In fact if all you have is a point and shoot, you could have rested it on the hood of a car and taken this shot or yesterdays. If there is a trick, it is in learning to see places where surfaces reflecting a bit of light will glow under a long exposure. The shutter speed for this shot was 102 seconds but that let me keep a deep focus. The aperture was f22. I thank Neal Parent for pushing me to explore low light photography.

As my camera will only time exposures to 30 seconds, I carry a timer, but I've found that I can come pretty close counting in my head. Since there's only a stop of light difference between 45 seconds and 90 seconds, being off by 5 seconds in my timing means I'm off by less than a tenth of a stop - insignificant. Besides, there is a certain amount of guesswork in a shot like this. I know I will have to blow out the highlights in the street lights. The question is, by how much? One can only experiment. Digital makes that easy as feedback is immediate.

I should add there is a special time in the evening or at dawn when the sky is bright enough to illuminate exterior surfaces, but not so bright as to drown out the lights behind the windows. Yesterday's image was made at that special time as was New England Farmhouse.

I often worry about the redundancy of images. If two images are redundant, it seems to me neither has quite made its point. I was puzzled by this pair until one of my workshop colleagues suggested this might work best as a monochrome. I think she was right.

Entering Lunenburg

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The only road out of Blue Rocks eventually leads along Pelham Street through the middle of Lunenburg. The intersection of Pelham and King Street seems to be the commercial center of the city and a vital counterpoise to the shipyards and harbor. Once a center of ship building and home to a large fishing fleet, the activity is much diminished though not gone. At one point while I was there, three large tall ships were anchored in the harbor.

Time has settled on these two communities so as to open a particularly wide window on the past. While encouraging tourism and promoting its history on many public signboards, Lunenburg has kept honky-tonk to a minimum and the architecture is largely preserved. It's an architecture enriched by the community's ship building history. Has anyone studied this phenomenon along the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia, the degree to which the cross-fertilaztion of shipbuilding and home building enriched the inventiveness and fantasy of domestic architecture? Blue rocks is arguably even more fanciful though cobbled together with little craft.

One could spend weeks photographing details in either place, but my bent is a more direct kind of time travel, trying to find a path along the streetscape between the here and now and the there and then. I had a special sense I was on that path as I came over the first hill into Lunenburg, that some hint of ancient commerce floated above Pelham Street that evening. I stopped at the next street for this photo. Perhaps I caught some hint of the ancient salt air.

Lighthouse

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL - Blue Rocks seems more like a collection of shanties and shacks left high and dry by a retreating tide than an actual place entitled to a spot on a map and a name. However whirled about it is, it solidifies here at what seems like a crossroad. It feels like a center, though what it might be center to remains in doubt. A couple of houses down, one branch ends at the water, and two branches end as dirt ruts. The store is gone. The only real road from here is the road back to town. I drove past here at all hours, and once I saw a couple of children playing in the street, but most of the time not a soul was about. Of course it must have been a thriving community of fishermen once, and somebody still keeps the lights on from Sunday to Sunday.

Lobstermen's Sunrise

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Please redirect lights away from your computer monitor, or turn them off, and look at this image before reading further.

The sound, what there was of it, was gulls and crows. At 5:20 AM they were already disputing rights to the highest peak in the neighborhood. A tribe of gulls had recently claimed a lobster shack next to where I had set up my tripod. They were jostling for position. Occasionally one of the gulls would sermonize or sound off or the crows would scuffle, but mostly it was all wing flapping. One might miss the pickup trucks that drove out onto a nearby common wharf at ten or fifteen minute intervals. From them lobstermen, singly or in pairs, would cross the dock, stop and chat, then descend with lunch bucket to their dinghies. Then they'd paddle off and disappear among the anchored lobster boats. In a bit would come the soft purr of an engine and soon the boat would appear, and its spreading wake would momentarily rock the harbor. This is lobstermen's rush hour. The harbor was again quiet when I made this image. The gulls, having established pecking order on the nearby roof were already heading off one by one to colonize and re-fight the same battles on some other roof.

*****

"Keep it real." It was hardly what I expected to hear from someone who photographs dreams and nightmares and beautiful, inventive, and sensitive abstracts, who creates dreamy montage overlays, jiggles and pans while shooting, and who promotes all manner of experimentation. How could I make sense of this advice in relation to the body of André's work. Later I asked, "You don't really believe that, do you?" and he said, "No." But I wished I'd asked differently. André's comment occurred following a discussion of HDR, and I wondered if it was a reflection of his own uncertainty regarding the newly popular technique. He complained about the cartoonish look of HDR, but later showed a demo HDR that was completely realistic. "Keep it real," was a surprising comment. I can't recall any other bit of prescriptive advice in one of his workshops. It has always seemed to me that one of the pillars of Freeman's and André's workshops is that any time anyone says, "This is how to do it," one has an obligation to try to do it differently. Now suddenly such a broad prescription, "Keep it real."

In the end I disregarded the comment, but in part, perhaps it reflects the difficulties in adopting new procedures that significantly alter shooting and processing habits. It may be as difficult to begin seeing and shooting and processing for HDR as it is to start seeing and shooting and processing for jiggles, multiple exposures and montage techniques. However, there is another aspect. André spoke of the cartoonish look of some HDR images. For me the danger is that there is an HDR look which is often indiscriminately applied to all images; it is something I try to avoid. Ultimately, I can't make much sense of, "Keep it real." However, I take comfort in discovering that someone whose aesthetic beliefs are as fully considered and established as André, still struggles with the conflicting roles of photography, a medium that asks to be used to grab realistic moments from the continuum of life and that opens itself to the careful, hand-wrought and formally organized expression of painting.

Wharf

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL - On Jiggling
One of the first points Freeman Patterson made in the workshop I took with him and André Gallant some years ago was that a photograph says as much or more about the person doing the photographing as the subject being photographed. On Wednesday we were asked to jiggle which has nothing to do with hips and thighs, and everything to do with how to guide the camera through an eighth of a second exposure that effectively makes the camera a tiny bit like a paint brush. Jiggles, pans, multiple exposures, montage overlays, shooting weird reflections are some of the techniques offered that effectively subordinate objective reality to subjective expression and got everyone in the workshop clearly talking and shooting in the same language.

Of course every workshop I've ever taken has been about making your photography more "expressive." Usually one learns a few strategies for composing or catching expressive images and sees lots of examples to emulate. Beyond that, you're on your own. Only in one of Freeman or André's sessions would you find everyone out in front of the B&B jiggling their cameras at otherwise unexceptional bushes. The result is workshops that get everyone photographing more freely and that open new paths to self-expression.

I know that the very best to be said of the vast number of my jigglings might be that they were, "unexceptional," and everyone accepts a high rate of failure in this. One of my images almost works. Had I known when I took it what I know now after seeing it on my computer, I would have stuck with that spot and maybe made it right. However, some of my workshop colleagues succeeded in creating images of great beauty and surprise, and André has produced a body of magnificent photo images in this manner. We saw one framed and matted and on its way to a gallery in town; its beauty sticks in my mind still.

So why am I unlikely to begin jiggling again regularly any time soon. I think that's true of other participants in these workshops, though I know several who jiggle still and with much success. Those who don't may feel some guilt as I did. Is it insecurity that keeps me from adopting the new techniques? I don't think so.

For one thing, as André confided, one must set out to jiggle; while seeking images to jiggle it may be hard to see other images. It's the same as when I photograph bugs or water drops among the weeds and become become blind to the roll of the hills. Also developing an eye and a hand for jiggling takes time and practice. One must commit to such a path. Of course if I see some curvy wrought iron stuff like the stuff that gave form to my, "nearly successful" shot, it might lure me to begin jiggling, and I'll probably look for some good side light on the swamp maples at Macricostas to pan or jiggle the way André did in the framed image he showed us. I may have a future in jiggling yet, but perhaps to jiggle or not to jiggle is not the question. The path of every expressive photographer is to find his own voice and articulate it clearly. Perhaps the real value in these strategies is that they break any link to photography as documentation or to photography as imitation while encouraging experimentation toward forever rediscovering and epanding one's expressive potential. The image above is not jiggled, but I find much in it that I recognize as my own, consistent with other images on this blog; and yet that stripe of green is definitely new.

Morning Comes to Consciousness

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Lunenburg lies across the neck of a rocky peninsula on Nova Scotia's ocean coast. A single road leads out onto the headland to the tiny, fishing community of Blue Rocks which sits perched on ledge as far out as one can build. The center of Blue Rocks is marked by a crossroad with an old, wooden church, but beyond that Blue Rocks is little more than a collection of piers and shacks, a handful of small homes clinging to the rock at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Roads branch from the Blue Rocks Road along low ridges, then turn to dirt and then to ruts with grass down the center to provide access to a scattering of small, vacation houses and fishing shacks on the various small bays and along the northeast shore, but nothing lies further out on the low-lying, rocky headlands than Blue Rocks.

We woke around four AM on the first morning of the workshop and were at the end of Blue Rocks Road before sunrise. One of the joys of this workshop was the energy and seriousness of purpose of everyone in the group. It's hard to believe that when I shot this we barely knew each other.

I set my tripod up on a tall flat rock to get as much separation as possible between the lobsterman's motor boat and the bit of island behind it. The land beyond is part of the headland and encircles a shallow cove. Lobstermen use small boats like this to get to the fishing boats which they anchor off shore and take to the open sea. We'd seen the lobsterman leave shortly after we arrived, and one of my workshop colleagues made a great silhouette of him walking along the dock with his lunch bucket. I almost didn't notice his boat passing in the background of this shot ten or fifteen minutes later. In a few minutes the sun will appear behind these rocks. Low clouds blocked much of the sunrise, but two of my colleagues got stunning shots anyhow. Another great joy of workshops is seeing the shots I didn't see.

Lunenburg Panorama

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I arrived in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on Sunday, May 24, after photo explorations that took me to Jonesport, Maine, and across the Canadian border into Campobello. I photographed the lighthouse at the eastern most tip of the U.S.. After three summers of site scouting along Maine's coast, I'd finally reached the top, and I'd become familiar with fishing villages and other features at the tip of each peninsula. I crossed the border to Canada in Calais, a name which the locals pronounce like the numb, hard spots on my feet. I reached St. John, NB, late in the afternoon and ferried to Digby, Nova Scotia, docking after dark. I finally arrived in Lunenburg the next morning to begin a week long photography workshop with André Gallant. The best way for me to resume my journal is to reflect on that workshop.

I find taking at least one photo workshop a year to be a wonderful way of pushing myself into new territory, and challenging habits and beliefs that guide my picture taking. In a good workshop participants become aware of the aesthetic values and sensibilities of the instructor and are guided by them. In the end, one encompasses, makes one's own, what is harmonious to one's own sense of direction and purpose, but that is a lengthy process.

There is no shortage of competing photography workshops in New England to choose from each summer. I had taken a workshop with André and Freeman Patterson previously, the first workshop I ever took. That experience with André and Freeman combined with my interest in visiting Nova Scotia to make this workshop my overwhelming first choice. Anyone with an interest in creating art photography should look for a chance to take a workshop from André or André and Freeman together. Who better than André to guide me to the best fishing villages and other riches along the coast of Nova Scotia? And it was the right time for me to reengage with André's aesthetic and benefit from his sharp eye.

How can I put into words the subtle effect this week had on me? Am I even aware yet of its true impact?

The most tangible fallout is that it has led me to shoot panoramas, not that panorama shooting has any measurable importance in André's work or thought, but he showed us the way to stitch panoramas easily in Photoshop, and how could I not want to make my own panorama of Lunenburg Harbor? This is about three-fifths of the full panorama I shot. Even so, the cropped original of this jpg is still 20,983 pixels wide, though this copy is only 1280.

Most of the considerations for this panorama were technical rather than artistic, though every decision is ultimately an artistic choice. Except for color, it is essentially like the famous panoramas of New York harbor shot from Brooklyn more than 100 years ago. It has no special reason that dictates where it begins or ends, and only enough water and sky are included to set off the shoreline; the weather is generic; the time was chosen to accent with shadows. I debated whether it belonged in this blog at all. One could thoughtlessly go on producing similar panoramas of many waterfronts. especially when they can be easily viewed from across some bay and at enough distance to avoid dealing with the effects of perspective.

Never-the-less, my love of using my long lenses to flatten architectural forms into simple, clear compositions was teased and challenged by the possibilities of shooting this way. Prospects such as this always pose hard questions about where to begin and end, and the possibility of deciding later, thoughtfully cropping on a clear computer monitor instead of through a tiny viewfinder is tempting though also a bit unsatisfying. It avoids essential questions such as how to best make use of the long form compositionally and how to compose landscapes in the long form that integrate and lead the eye through foreground and background meaningfully. Throughout my travels after the workshop I kept trying to study this question, to see inside a different box. I'm also intrigued by the way panoramas complicate normal expectations of time and space in photography; the same person may appear repeatedly by moving into each frame, the space behind me will appear in front of me and soon repeatedly if I rotate far enough.

In any case I can't deny the amazing visual power of images such as the one above, the way it offers a sense of omniscience, and its automatic authority in documenting the life of a city. It's with good reason I saw almost identical panoramas of Lunenburg on sale in stores around town.

Hay Wagon

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:

At the top of the stair
I was slapped by Spider Light.
Complexities resolve
To effortless geometrics,
Commanding the eye
Like the rose window
At the end of the cathedral nave
Where the organ point reverberates,
And like the inside of a fiddle,
Resonant and lithe.

Only later did I notice
The flying hay wagon
In the attic air
Like the lost chord,
Last vestige of
Kuerners working the land
Of root clinging to rock and earth.

So obvious and so enjoyable was the "vaulting" of the barn that it was awhile before I gave any attention to the wagon, here, on the third floor. I wasn't expecting it. This bank barn burrows in two full stories so that the hay wagon can be driven in here and the hay unloaded where it's dry. Hay is dropped left and right to level 2 for storage in the haymow and piled two-and-a-half stories high. Later it can be dropped again to feed animals housed in "the crypt" below or to reload onto wagons waiting down in the barnyard. Here, at last, farming still carried on by Kuerners. Betsy's hay lies somewhere below.

Karl J. Kuerner has done some beautiful paintings of this space. One of them, "Unloading Straw," is on his web site.

Spider Light

Tattoo

The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there -
Its two webs.

The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.

There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.

by Wallace Stevens

Over the Mow

KARL J. KUERNER: "The way I really came to understand hard work was to make hay with my grandfather. He drove the tractor while I threw bales on the wagon for my father to stack. Grandfather never slowed down to accommodate me. After he was gone, it was even worse. Dad drove and I had to load and stack."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I didn't reach the third floor until very late in the morning. Perhaps I should have taken time earlier to explore the building fully and to construct a mental image of its layout. It will require a return trip to think about and to reconcile what I know of the inside and the outside, but my approach to photographing here was more immediate. I stopped whenever I thought I saw potential for an image, and I never knew if something better lay ahead. My only goal was to move at a pace to permit shooting on all three floors before we quit and to try to move at the resonant tempo.

Looking at my interior and exterior shots now, I realize there are parts of the building I never saw, never figured out how to reach. On the other hand, and whatever the results, my seeing was always fresh, every step was an adventure, and I avoided the perils of returning later to search for a position and a shot that had resonated deeply on first approach but had vanished now. Cook when the fire is hot.

This flight to the third floor is not directly above the flight from first to second. I wish I knew why. I like the homemade hand rail on the left of the stair and the sheer drop on the right.

I took an especially long time in the stairwells; I suspect four distinct light sources is a photographic rarity. Two are obvious in this image. A third is behind us, a bit of glow from deep in the barn and of no consequence here; there is a fourth source behind the stairs, through a door to a room with an incandescent bulb that radiates amber light onto a wooden ladder half hidden leaning against the wall and casting a shadow noir. I made a number of images that tried to contrast these last three distinct light environments, especially the way the white light from the window met the golden universe of the bare bulb.

So many possibilities to compose! So many ways to lead the eye! I took my time, but eventually I could no longer resist the pull of that attic space, my ultimate destination for the day. Gene Logsdon ends Wyeth People by noting that Wyeth, "paints people who have learned this basic lesson of life: to endure. He paints endurance. He paints eternity." Was that what I was doing now, trying to walk through a bit of Wyeth's eternity? Where would it lead me? What might I find?

Betsy's Hay

from "WYETH PEOPLE":
"I tried to tell her [Betsy Wyeth] about my excitement in finding the subjects Andy had painted.
... 'But aren't you disappointed?'
... 'Not really. Everything is usually smaller than I thought it was from the paintings, but I enjoy seeing how he edited out all the stuff that would have weakened them.'
... She smiled. 'Well, at least, after that, you won't say Andy paints like a camera.'"

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: It is early spring. Out the window Kuerner Hill has recently turned green, and the hay mow is, understandably, nearly empty. It's clear that what farming occurs here now is just to provide for the few animals on the property and the livestock of a few neighbors. This is actually, I think, "Walt's hay," as the name on the front wall suggests. Betsy's hay was an even smaller pile to the left. At least here is a spot where real work is still going on.

I shot this too quickly on my way to something else. Had I been more patient I would have made one more exposure to clean up some of the shadow detail. Thirty seconds is a long exposure, but to get two stops more brightness for the next exposure, in the sequence required getting the pocket timer from my backpack and lingering two minutes more. I'd been doing it all morning, but somehow I didn't believe this shot would please me as much as it does, and time was precious. The pressure to rush must always be resisted; let the right brain lead.

Kuerner Hill

GENE LOGSDON: "The whole [Kuerner] farm was like a museum of Wyeth paintings cleverly concealed by reality. It was delightful hunting them out."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: In the great barn the spirit of Wyeth was always elusive, just out of reach, even as it was omnipresent in light and textures and in my thoughts. Like many barns, the second floor opens over the barn yard in a large Dutch door so that stored, hay bales can be dropped onto waiting wagons. The door is flanked by windows, and all stare eternally at Kuerner Hill. It is one of those views familiar from many Wyeth paintings and drawings. as is the view back the other way. Wyeth may have only rarely sketched the barn, but he sketched from it, perhaps taking a bit of shelter in the winter behind the Dutch door while he drew Kuerner Hill.

In the Nethers

KARL KUERNER, SR.: "Andy spends a lot of time over here, painting. We don't pay him any mind. We let him alone. That's what he needs. To be let alone. To know that we don't care how long he stays, or when he comes, or when he leaves. He could just as well be a rabbit coming and going. That's what he likes."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  When we arrived at Kuerner Farm Tuesday morning there was a red pickup in the driveway. Although we worried that it might be someone who would try to countermand our mission, fortune was smiling. We quickly discovered that the pickup belonged to Karl J. Kuerner, the grandson of Karl Kuerner, Sr., Andrew Wyeth's surrogate father and friend. Karl J. is a painter who learned to draw as a child, "watching Andy," and studied painting with Andrew's sister, Carolyn. Karl was happy to answer our questions and talk about art, and soon he was showing us through the barn and then showed us how to close up after he left.

Beyond the red door we passed between horse stalls into a deep, crypt-like space forested by columns. At the front and side of the barn, light poured in though several windows but barely seemed to penetrate the shadows. At the back, where the barn was dug into the hillside, a yellow glow came from a bulb above a steep, narrow stairway. How could I help but imagine Andrew Wyeth on his first adventure here perhaps as many as seventy-seven years earlier. Even though Wyeth rarely drew the barn, I sensed his spirit among the cobwebs and, I'd like to think, lurking in this image.

Karl Sr's spirit was quite evident everywhere. Karl J. writes of the, "No electricity needed here...stubborn independence that marked the Kuerner's 75 years of farming." Karl Sr. has been portrayed as a hard-working individualist who lived a utilitarian life and prided himself on his capacity for labor-saving, home-spun innovation. We'd already caught a glimpse of how he harnessed the underground spring. Most working barns are practical, make-shift affairs, added on to and altered as needs or crops change. Barns are studies in "form follows function," and Karl had made sure his barn was as functional as possible.

Kuerners' is a bank barn, a large one. The lower stories are dug into the hillside. At the back wagons can load hay bales and grain directly to the two upper floors. Inside, the arrangement of spaces was filled with surprises. It was clear it was the result of a careful plan integrating vertical spaces with horizontal layout. Making sense of them would require a longer visit or an expert tour, but I'm sure it's all geared to what needs to be where at which season. Various chutes and ducts seemed to have been added or altered as practices changed slightly. What was the adaptation that scooped a bit of daylight onto the steep, narrow stairs. Light was a necessity there before electricity. On the other hand, extra space for stair wells and in some cases stair rails were an absent luxury. I could imagine someone lugging an awkward bundle down the stairs and how a rail might make that impossible. Few bundles are lugged now. Hay bales are stored, but no cows are milked now and the dust has settled.

Later we visited Karl J. at his home, just behind Kuerner Hill, and I especially enjoyed his clean sense of design and the thoughtful characterization in two of the portraits I saw there.

Kuerner Stable

KARL KUERNER SR (quoted from Gene Logsdon): "This place is, well, like home to Andy. It IS home, by golly. Andy and me, we've known each other a long time. My land butts up against the Wyeths' over the hill across the road, and the Wyeth kids played around this farm from little on up. I raise my Brown Swiss cattle, grow a little oats and hay for them. My son and I work together. We mow grass and trim trees and such for people around here. I don't farm so hard anymore. More money in taking care of estates."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL "Following the Footsteps of Andrew Wyeth - Kuerner Farm, Part 1": It had been drizzling on and off all morning, big drops that felt as if they came from the trees, but we were in the middle of the field and trying to make the most of limited shoot time. We shielded our gear with towels and endured. I've been treading the footsteps of Andrew Wyeth again. Thanks to my friend Gary and access provided by the Brandywine River Museum, the two of us have just spent several days photographing in and around the Koerner House and other sites in Chadds Ford, PA.

Kuerner Farm is where Andrew Wyeth reached adulthood as an artist. He became part of the Kuerner family and the land. Among his best works are the "soulscapes," he painted here. One could certainly never stand and photograph one, nor would I ever want to try.

Gary and I were still in the upper field, once an orchard, when the rain picked up. We headed for the only open door, but I stopped first to shoot the Kuerner house behind clusters of yellow flowers, wet and glistening in the grass; so Gary arrived at the stable first and dryer. When I got there he was already shooting, peering over gates into stalls and passageways toward depths in the base of the Kuerner barn that had been dug into the side of the hill. Three more stories of barn were above us. It was an immense structure.

In the picture above most of the barn is in front of me. Behind me is the old milking room where Wyeth painted "Spring Fed." The great stone trough is still there, still filled from the underground spring which flows when the faucet is turned. At the foot of the trough the bucket is still perched upside down between the wall and the pipe. The windows are more as they are in one of Wyeth's sketches. Other sketches suggest this was not just the milking room but also the room where animals were slaughtered and butchered. In several Anna is seen busy, cleaning the milkroom. In a final watercolor, there is just a single window through which we see Kuerner Hill brightly glowing and the bull standing by the barnyard wall. In the final tempera, however, we are looking into another room, through more windows with bull and Kuerner HIll proud in the background. However, as I looked through the actual windows nothing lined up and a pile of farm refuse was in the outer room.

The facts of Spring Fed mostly remained but I felt none of its spirit. It was the barn itself that called to both of us. For the next hour we made images peering into the shadows of the lower barn, a place where time seemed to have stopped. Whatever lay behind the red door, for now it barred our way.

The Brandywine River Museum and Kuerner Farm

Waller Under Spring Clouds, April 23rd, 2009

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The barns of Waller are venerable. That's as simply as I can say it. Unless I'm preoccupied or totally insensitive I can't pass here without feeling their power. How long it took me to understand! They are so quiet now; they barely whisper, and twice a year the fields are hayed. Are the barns also in retirement? I like sharing in their quietness and their testimony, and it can't help but influence the kinds of photographs I make here.

The barns are great hollow shells. Inside, empty cow stalls remind us that this field once reeked of cow manure and urine, that it was often mostly mud. Or, more likely cows grazed on the uphill slopes, and this flat, rich land was planted with corn. One of the barns is a tobacco barn. At some point tobacco grown here supplied the prized wrappers for which Connecticut was known. What did farming look like when the American Revolution stirred within some of these walls? But even without their pedigree, the barns themselves are a venerable presence. It's in the wooden clapboards that hold their volume. They anchor the north end of The Great Hollow, one of the few places that a visitor from the late 18th century might almost recognize.

Others have noted that photography is 25% preparation and 75% luck. From two hills over, at the orchard on Baldwin Hill, I could see a patch of interesting cloud forms, and I calculated that the lake or Waller Farm might be, pardon the expression, ground zero. It's usually futile to chase clouds, but this felt right. I had to pass the lake to get to Waller. I rushed because the clouds were moving. Coming down the road from the left I saw my chance, parked, hoisted my pack, shouldered my tripod and took off across the field. Because I've shot here often, I knew where to stand to make the barns fan out across the field while putting the klieg light at the back. The first two exposures were a quick HDR set, just position, zoom, and shoot. I had time for five more shots and the clouds were gone. As it turns out, those last five shots were just wishful thinking. Fortunately, the first exposure was spot on, and I worked up two versions, one using the single shot and one with the HDR set.

A few other images made at Waller Farm:
The Hollow
Clarion Call
Peeking In
The Other Side
Colors of Winter
Waller Farm
Inner Space
Behind Inner Space
Composition in Triple Time
Barn Dance
Unarbitrariness
Window Faces