Category Archives: Fallen Farms

Put me in, coach! Put me in

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If one could feel a sense of pity for an inanimate object, it would likely happen during a sight like this. With an ample harvest approaching in the verdant field ahead, this poor broken down piece of equipment is reduced to spectator status. Its glory days have passed and it has been relegated to being an ornament, a placeholder on a hill. It will now be forced to watch as newer, larger machines – machines with closed, air conditioned cabs and GPS receivers – perform the duties it once enjoyed. See? Kinda sad, isn’t it?

Room with a view

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A lot of the old familiar abandoned farmsteads I’ve photographed since picking up my photography hobby are now lying in shambles. After all, a building leaning at a 45 degree angle can only do it for so long, right? So it’s time to search out some new ones.

This one is my new favorite, I think…an ornate home, large for its time, which was at one time lined with brick outside. This front window overlooks a particularly scenic little valley. I noticed the remnants of an old chair parked by the front picture window. The drab and delapidated interior is an amazing contrast to the colorful glory of the valley outside and the summer sky.

Your message here, redux

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It may not be obvious from this angle, but this sign stands along busy Washington Street in north Bismarck. In fact, there’s one tower hidden behind the pole and one just out of the frame to the right. Just over the hill is the Boulder Ridge housing development. Given all the unwanted urban objects in the background, this was a challenging photo to get.

Step one was to crouch in the grass, hiding the houses just over the hill. That introduced another problem, however. Because the sun was off to my right, the side of the sign that I wanted in my photo is actually in the shadows. No problem, just use a flash, right? Sure…except that crouching low made my flash blast the grass in front of me as well as the sign. Not desirable.

Then I realized that I had my remote flash cable in the truck as well as my monopod. I attached the camera to the monopod, then tethered my Speedlite to the camera using the aforementioned cable, and I was in business. The monopod helped me steady the camera with one hand. With the other I held my flash high and aimed it at the sign. A few clicks later, I had the photo I wanted. The sign was no longer a dark shadow, and the grass wasn’t illuminated. Then it was time to go home, get on a motorcycle, and enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

I like old weathered signs like this. My favorite one appears in this post from almost exactly three years ago.

Test Drive Thursday

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Thursday I was able to hang out with my friend Ken for a while and enjoy a brief photography trip. The cherry on top is that Ken let me test drive his new Canon 7D digital camera, the very one I hope to get later this Spring! Needless to say, I was very excited.

We set our sights on this barn north of Wilton and arrived just before the sun began to set. That gave us some pretty nice “Golden Hour” sunlight despite the clouds encroaching on the horizon.

I was absolutely blown away by the image quality of this camera. The fleeting sunlight didn’t allow me time to play around with the camera settings much except for the usual exposure, shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. I was amazed at the photos this camera was producing.

The colors and dynamic range of the 7D are phenomenal, and I was able to take low-light shots that would send my 20D packing. I love my 20D, but cameras have obviously come a long ways since 2005!

Naturally, having a photogenic test subject doesn’t hurt. Combine that with the onset of color from the imminent sunset, and you have an ideal circumstance for running a camera through its paces.

Can you tell it was shady here? Is it apparent that I used a blast from my fill flash? I didn’t think so. I was flabbergasted by the results I got here; it was a photo I didn’t think was possible, yet it came out very nicely.

I shot these in JPEG mode, not camera RAW, so there isn’t much I could do in post-processing. That means that the photos you see here have very little adjustment to them, if any. This shot was taken after the sun was going down. It had a little bit of a blue tone to it due to the shade, and I warmed it up a little. The exposure, however, does not indicate how dark and shady it was when I clicked the shutter.

On the way home we stopped to catch this windmill with a splash of color behind it. I switched the lens over to my 20D and shot this with the same settings, and none of the color appeared. The shadows were much darker as well. That’s the big difference (aside from features) between the two cameras: I can make some amazing photos with my 20D, but in many situations I have to do a lot more processing to bring out the color and detail that the camera has captured. It doesn’t hurt that I just upgraded my Photoshop!

I love my 20D and will never set it aside. Since I bought it in 2005 and started this blog a while later, Canon has released a 30D. Then a 40D. Then a 50D. Each time I looked at ’em and could not declare them a significant enough upgrade for me to spend that kind of money (which I don’t have, by the way). Then came the 7D. Now I’m ready. With a little blessing to make the money part come together, I will be expanding my digital capabilities!

The 20D will still be in my camera bag as a backup, though. I love it. It’s been faithful and trouble-free for almost 55,000 photos so far and it’s got plenty left in it.

Fallen Farm #39693

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No, I don’t number them sequential. I lost track of where I was in my Fallen Farm series of photos, so instead I decided to use the number of the actual exposure. It’s much easier that way.

This barn sits south of Glen Ullin, but I can’t remember how far. It may actually be closer to Elgin. In any case, it isn’t far from where a friend and I managed to take a pheasant straight through the grille of the Subaru at highway speed. Bummer. We got plenty of amazing photos along the way, however.

It almost seems weird to post a photo with snow in it, but according to the National Weather Service we are in for some more of the white stuff tonight. Early in the day today I checked the forecast page to see total snow accumulations predicted at up to one inch. Later in the day it had been revised to “one to three inches.” Now I see that they’re back to the “up to one inch” prediction. Does that put us over the record? I sure hope so.

A friend’s brother talked to a guy in the Dickinson area that reads onions to predict the weather. According to this guy, he has nailed EVERY major snow event in Dickinson this year. He also claims that we’re in for a fantastic blizzard “next weekend.” I don’t know the exact time this conversation took place, so I don’t know if he means the weekend that’s approaching us now (April 25th-26th) or the next one (May 2nd-3rd). I wonder if he’ll be right? I mean, whoever heard of the National Weather Service being wrong?

The Old Rugged Cross

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I love to use music references in the titles of my blog posts. Sometimes pop music fits the bill, other times those old hymns are the ticket. I have to say, I prefer the hymns.

I don’t do much black and white photography, but this just seemed to fit.

I’m actually out of words right now; I got up at 5 o’clock this morning to prepare four pages of testimony for a committee meeting in the House of Representatives later this week. So for the most part all you get today is the picture!

Golden Hour pays off big…but the Sweet Hour pays off bigger

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I’m sure there comes a point in every photographer’s life when they discover the Golden Hour, a photography term for the first hour before sunrise and the last hour after sunset. That’s when the light gets really cool, painting your outdoor subjects with an array of color.

Only a severe case of cabin fever could have kicked this man’s butt out of bed this morning at somewhere before six o’clock. I’ve really needed to get out with my camera, and my little boys (ages one and two years) have been giving me some hectic nights and very little sleep. I finally had one morning in which to try sleeping in, with no work or church to contend with…and I got up earlier than ever. I must really love photography! That I do, as well as just getting in the truck and roaming. This time bore plenty of fruit.

I found this barn along a gravel road. I bundled up and followed some packed-in snowmobile tracks up to it for a Golden Hour capture that made my early awakening worthwhile. I have plenty of other angles and other photos from other scenes discovered along the way, but I think I’ve already found my favorite. It’s facing south so the impending sunrise is not visible, but its color is unmistakably present.

When the sun has set, your sunset and evening photo opportunities have just begun. In the morning, don’t wait for the sun to rise to get stunning sunrise pictures. Bismarck and Mandan have plenty of sights that look entirely differently when painted from the palette of the morning or evening sun!

I’ve been working on my Bible reading habits lately. In the Bible, tithing (which we Americans tend to think of in a monetary context) is often considered with the “firstfruits” of one’s substance. I don’t consider tithing simply in the context of putting a check in the offering plate; we should give to God the first fruits of other important things, such as our time. Because of that, and in kind of a Psalm 63 sort of way (“O God, thou are my God; early will I seek thee…”), I have begun a habit of reading my Bible first thing in the morning.

This morning I woke early, but not as early as I’d hoped. As I readied my gear in my office for a mad dash outside, I saw my Bible on the desk. Thankfully I was able to stop and set things down, sit and read as I usually do, and to pray before I left. Among my prayers was something along the lines of “Lord, please show me something beautiful through my camera today.” Well, in that respect He certainly answered my prayer. I saw some really wonderful things on my trek today, capturing most of them with my camera.

This reminded me of the hymn “Sweet Hour of Prayer” although I don’t pray for an hour every morning. I had that “Sweet Hour” before I even set out for the “Golden Hour.” By doing so I got the morning off to a fantastic start, one far better than if I’d simply dashed to the truck and hurried out on my own.

What…MORE snow?

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I’m actually glad we got more snow today. I finally caved and bought a beefy snowblower this year, after 30+ years of shoveling, and I was itchin’ to get some more use out of it. We always get drifts along our property, so it doesn’t take much snow to require such a beast. After all…if it’s this cold, it might as well be snowing too, right? Besides, as shown above, it can provide some very lovely pictures at sunrise and sunset.

Fallen Farm #37667

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My friend Tony was in town from the great Palin state of Alaska a few weeks ago, during our last nice stretch of warm weather. He brought his camera and lenses with him, so we took a Saturday to go poking around the outskirts of town. One of the places we stopped to visit was this falling farmhouse north of Bismarck.

I’ve wanted to get a closer look at this building for a long time. I’ve taken many photos of it from afar, actually. This year it seemed to suddenly lurch to one side, as if its days were coming to an end in the near future. With that in mind, we took our gear and hiked in for a closer look.

If I may get all abstract on y’all for a minute, here’s a shot of the roof of a fallen outbuilding that has long since gone away. Only this roof remains. I thought it pretty neat that the nails had found their way up, forming a little cluster of sorts. I took several shots before I found an angle I liked.

I never tire of photographing windmills and old farmsteads. Some days I think they seem cliche’ or that I’m overdoing it, but I have to remind myself that each one of them is special. They’re an endangered species of sorts, too. Tony pointed out that even in Alaska, one can tire of a certain type of photo. For example, you can only take so many Alaska mountain shots before one tires of it. Unique photos are elusive, and need to be hunted down…that’s part of what makes them special.

Variety is the key, I suppose…that’s why I’ve tried to vary my subject matter a bit lately. It’s important to keep a diverse palette of photo styles and subjects, so that none of them ever seem tired. That’s especially true of the North Dakota features which are so near and dear to my heart, and which inspired this website in the first place.