South Dakota
A major winter storm moved through our part of the state, bringing about a foot of snow and high winds. Sadly, classes at Lake Area Technical Institute were cancelled.
This is the third photo of the same abandoned farmstead I have posted recently. And having posted this today, I am abandoning the abandoned farm theme. At least for a while.
This is a closer view of one of the two buildings pictured yesterday. This photo was taken right around sunrise and it occurs to me that this old building has lived to see a lot more sunrises than I have.I asked my first year photography students recently to tell me what they thought a photographer was and Bjorn, a person whom I think has great promise, suggested that a photographer is a person who engages in time travel - that photographers have the power to take those who view their photos to a particular place in time. It was an astounding and unexpected answer. And of course, Bjorn's answer has me thinking. . . .I realize, for example, that while my photos allow me to do my own kind of time travel in that they help me remember things that I have seen and experienced, they also have the power to do the same for the viewer. You may have never been to this particular place, but it may remind you of similar places.Photos like this may have another emotive power, too. It's not hard to see the ghosts of those who lived at this farmstead. I look at this scene and can see the farmer's wife stepping through the door to check for fresh eggs, I can see the children playing in the tall, prairie grass and I can see the farmer working the distant field with his simple tractor.To me, this way of life exists in my imagination as I am a "city boy." But to many South Dakotans, this life still exists. It is as real and predictable as the the South Dakota sunrise.Canon 1DII 1/6s f/9.0 ISO100 17mm
I took this photo on September 5, 2004, and it's been in a virtual shoebox ever since. As my regular readers perhaps know, I am a photo packrat and from time to time I go digging for stuff I did a long time ago. You will also know that I return to the same places again and again. And this old farmstead is a good example.What I like about this particular photo is the sense of loneliness it conveys. The black and white treatment and the odd, dull sky help with this. And speaking of the sky, the real reason I converted to black and white is that the interesting bands that seem to emanate from the right hand side, were not really visible in the original color version. These buildings still stand after all these years, though I suspect that someday they will be torn down."Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky." Kansas - "Dust In the Wind"Canon 1DII 1/2s f/11.0 ISO200 29mm
Most photos of sunflower fields show them in full bloom. But I found that sunflowers about to bloom photographed at sunrise have an amazing character and beauty.
Nature provides the canvas, the subject and the paint. The photographer furnishes the frame. And the technological medium applied by the photographer sometimes enhances what nature provides and often diminishes it.You'll make your own judgements about this particular photo. All I can say is that this place is one of my favorite places on earth and my feelings affect what I see and do here. Every time.
That's me on the left (sitting backwards on the big tortoise) and my brother Mike on the right. I think the photographer is our mom. And the tortoises were residents at the Reptile Gardens in the Black Hills. Or maybe they were an attraction at Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota?
Here's another one from my distant, digital past. I remember taking this photo, along with about 100 others of these reeds. I liked the reflection, of course, but I also like the way the tops of the reeds curve. Finally, I also like the contrast between the brown of the plants and the blue of the lake.
One of my new year's resolutions is to go through old photos that I have on DVDs and see if there is anything worth salvaging. I have found a few, including this one. Though I am also amazed by the number of really bad photos I took with my first high end digital camera (a Canon 1D). It is proof that it isn't the camera that takes the photo. The photographer makes the photo.
I went wading through snow that was calf deep to get this shot. Twice. Was it worth it? I'd say so, but only because the drive north of town in mysterious winter fog, the trek through snow and the framing of the frost lined trees was a small adventure and it got me out of the house on a gray winter day.Whether I was successful in my adventure or not wasn't the most important thing. Sometimes it's the concept and the process that matter most; it's the journey, not the destination. Or, in the words of Harry Chapin in his song Greyhound, "It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good."
Yes, I repeat myself. But it isn't because I'm being lazy today. It's because I couldn't decided if I liked the color version of this photo (yesterday's post) or the black and white version. So I offer both.
This is another HDR photo taken on the same outing as "Back To Lonesome Lake." This one was taken 15 minutes before the Lonesome lake photo. At sunset, a minute or can be significant in the look you get. And, as I think you can see, 15 minutes can be worlds apart as far and the light and cloud cover are concerned.