The Red Barn

Have you ever driven past a place or a scene thousands of times, but never thought twice about it? I have done this so many times I can't count them. But then one day you drive past the same place and all of the sudden you think to yourself, that would make a great photograph. Well that is exactly what I did with these pictures of a red barn. One day I was driving past this hay field at thought it would make a good photograph. I kept checking it at different times to try and get just the right light. Finally one day I thought I had the right light and I went and took several pictures of it along an adjacent road. I wanted to get some clouds in the sky to add some drama to the scene, but by the time I arrived at the site more clouds had moved in and all I had was a gray cloud covered sky. Well I went ahead and took several pictures anyway. I moved about the scene a bit to capture different perspectives of the foreground and where the hay bails were placed. In the end this is what I captured.

Even though the bails of hay and the sprinkler pipe is right there in the foreground I tried to capture the red barn as the main subject of the photographs. Ever time I look at these pictures the red barn is what my eye is drawn to every time. I would like to go back and take a series of photographs of the red barn with the bails of hay in the field, and it is on my long list of different photo projects. 

The lesson that I learned from this photo adventure is that sometimes when we try to hard to get a landscape or nature photo just right we tend to miss out on other opportunities. No two pictures are going to be the same even if all the settings and placement of the tripod are the same. The light that we paint with will always be different from day to day, hour to hour, and minute by minute. This is a lesson that I have had to learn over and over again. My advise, and I should take this more often, is to just get out and do it. The one thing that I like most about taking landscape, cityscape, and nature photographs is that they are not staged or set up. You use your skills and knowledge of photography to make the best photographs that you can at that exact time in history. 

Happy Shooting,

B.D. Young

~Photographer~