If you’re trying to figure out a music-lyric reference for the title of this post, I have to admit it exists. The phrase jumped into my subconscious from Fleetwood Mac’s “Big Love”. Wow. That one was buried deep.
This little farm sits on a hill overlooking a pretty darn rural vista. No power lines. None of those horrible subsidy-sucking wind turbines. Even the road is a long, long ways away. Perfect, as far as I’m concerned. And what a beautiful sunny day for a photo!
This windmill caught my attention while I was out roaming recently, and – unlike many of the windmills I encounter – it was actually near the road so I could quickly get a nice photo of it. It seems these things are vanishing at a quickening pace; even ol’ standbys are falling to the ravages of time and North Dakota weather.
This one actually sits in a yard along with an old farmstead. There are cattle on the land, which is probably why the lawn appears to be mowed. It’s sad to see another casualty of time here, but fascinating nonetheless.
I love HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography when done judiciously. It’s the kind of thing that can bring out all kinds of delicious detail in both the highlights and shadows of a photo, and that’s what I like to go for. That hyper-realistic look really pleases my eye. Unfortunately, HDR processing techniques are often done in such a heavy-handed fashion that they end up looking like grainy, over-saturated paintings. Those I do not like one bit.
I opted to go a little further toward the artistic side with this particular photo, just because I liked the effect in this particular case. It’s pushed a little past hyper-realistic detail into a more stylized realm, but in this case I think that works. Not too keen on some of the blooming where dark areas meet light, but much of that is actually because of the way the sky was that day.
How about you? Do you like extra realism, or surreal style?
This is a wild looking old barn. It has a long overhang on one side, which seems will inevitably collapse. But it was a great place for a snowdrift this winter. What a uniquely shaped structure, I wonder how it must be configured inside! Sadly, I doubt I’ll ever know.
Props to B-Man for recognizing yesterday’s elevators! I took a quick trip to one of my favorite ghost towns, Arena, to check on this church. The road to it still had chest-deep snow, so I hiked around the back way. Although the foundation has caved in on both sides, the supports in the basement are holding strong and the church looks no worse for wear than it did last year. It’s sagging slightly in the middle, but aren’t we all!
I’d photographed this elevator a number of times before, but never from up in the air. Today was conducive for sUAS flight, so I took advantage of it. I’m recovering from the flu and wisdom tooth surgery, so I was getting cabin fever and figured fresh air would do me good. So did coming home with some nice photos.
One of the challenges of photography during a North Dakota winter is the shadows. The sun is low in the sky, and that makes for some very hard shadows that travel with the sun throughout the day. It also doesn’t seem like we get many partly cloudy days in which one can find a window of diffused sunlight, either. But sometimes those shadows can work to one’s advantage, as in the photo above.
When I set up for this photo, I was really just going through the motions. The reason is that there wasn’t a cloud in the winter sky to break things up or throw some colorful reflections into the sunset. Well, that’s what I thought, anyway. I was pleased to get a splash of all kinds of color as the sun reached the horizon. At one point the barn was blazing with a beautiful gold, and then the blues, purples, and even a touch of reds kicked in.
I haven’t been able to do a whole lot of photography-related stuff lately, so it’s like I’m forgetting the fundamental technique of getting in place and letting the light come to me, and to anticipate great things from God’s creation. I’m glad I got this reminder as I slowly dust off the cobwebs .
The leaves here were just starting to turn yellow as I rolled up, but the fact that this barn has had a serious wardrobe malfunction caught my eye nonetheless. Sadly, I think this probably means a speedy demise once the elements start to take their toll.
I had the opportunity to stop into a former North Dakota town, Aylmer. I suppose that’s how Southerners like my wife say “Elmer”. Anyway, there isn’t much to indicate that the town used to be there except for an old metal sign at the railroad crossing and a few deteriorating buildings.
I remember reading somewhere that this was a combination general store, blacksmith, and something else at one time. I’ve seen photos of it with the roof intact, but sadly those days are long gone. Here you can see a piece of it which the wind has carried quite a ways from the structure.
It looks like, and I think what I read backs this up, things were added onto this building as needed. It’s a shame that it’s crumbling now.
There are also a couple of other buildings within a stone’s throw, such as this house with a barn that still has patches of a brilliant blue paint. It too is suffering from a rooftop deficiency.
This was a fantastic trip. I had picked up my kids from camp in my new-used truck, which absolutely loves the back roads. For the weekend I’d clocked around 950 miles, and this was the cherry on top. At some point, although I’m busy as heck at work and with freelance stuff, I’ll have to show more from that weekend. I still have a few more photo targets I hope to visit while we still have some nice weather!
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