I was cruising the backroads of Iowa with my good friend BZ looking for one of my favorite subjects - an Iowa cornfield. The cornfield wasn't hard to find, of course. What is a little more challenging is finding other things that make the corn a little less run-of-the-millIn the case of this photo, the sunrise helped and so did the built-in HDR processor my Canon 5DIII has. I shouldn't point this out, but I think there is a compositional flaw in this photo in that I think it would be better if A) the sun lined up with the rows of corn or B) I had given a little more room to the right of the sun when I framed the shot. But, as they say, "It is what it is." And, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, "It's only a corn field but I like it."Canon 5DIII 1/25s f/18.0 ISO320 200mm
corn field
06-27-12 Sadness
What you see in this photo is a pile of debris in the middle of a cornfield. But what I see is much more, for this pile is all that remains of a farmstead north of Watertown, South Dakota, that had become for me a place of photographic pilgrimage.This farmstead had an old house, a fairly large barn and two other out buildings that were part of the farming operation years ago. The buildings were subjects hundreds of photos I have taken. It was also what I called "the north studio," because I took many of my senior portrait subjects to this location due to its wealth of good locations for pictures. More recently, I took some of my LATI photo students there to share this great location. The photos they took are likely the last photos that were taken of this South Dakota relic.The group Kansas was right when they sang that "Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky." And so I suppose it was inevitable that an abandoned farm would be bulldozed and turned into crop land. But I feel like I've lost a friend. This place had an important place in my personal history and it had a soul that had become part of my soul.But at least I have the photos. . . .
10-11-11 Moonset Over Iowa Corn Field
It was the perfect summer morning to be out north of Lake Okoboji in Iowa hunting for photos. This is one of the three captures I like for the hour I spent looking. I especially like the strong green color of the corn contrasting with the soft, muted color of the pre-sunrise sky.