Category: Architecture

Day 20 – Round Barn

RoundBarn

Autumn dream of a Country Road

Autumn’s dream of a country road
Where houses are few and moving slowed.
Leaves are turning gold_ red_ burgundy.
Inside a warm home apples are candy.
In a barn or cellar cold winter foods quickly stowed
Against winter’s coming and inches snowed.
Autumn dreams of snuggling nights when windy
Breeze carries tune;close by snacks_ hot chocolate handy.

                          -Sara Kendrick

This round red barn is just one of the many buildings preserved at the Shelburne Museum. Another good reason to return to Vermont. All manner of art, folk art, crafts, quilts, and yes, buildings were collected by an heiress in the early 20th century and are now available for viewing at this 45 acre museum.

Day 11 – Bright Lights Big City

Paramountw

Bright Lights, Big City

Bright lights
Big City
She’s wearing hope around her neck tonight
In golden letters on a string
To make up for the darkness
To make up for the void within

Bright lights 
Big City
This girl could always sing you the blues
This girl is always passing through

Bright lights 
Big City
Don’t stay up
Don’t go waiting for her

Bright lights
Big City
This girl 
She’s always going somewhere

Bright lights
Big City
And when she goes away
She’s leaving you here

– Natascha Kracheel

Not exactly an autumn theme but it was this or the airplanes on the tarmac at SFO and I like this so much better. And this is my life on this day. And I love the poem, just a little edgy and something I can relate to. I love that I live in a small town where life is quiet and peaceful but I do like having a big city experience now and then. More often than I do now really…but I’m working on that. So, I am really stoked that I have two days to explore Boston on my own and one more with the tour group. This scene was about a block from my hotel. I had this vision that when I arrived at 8 pm on a Saturday everything would be dead and dark. So wrong, vibrant neighborhood, people everywhere. I even had trouble finding a restaurant where I didn’t have to wait for an hour to get some food.

Rooflines

Rooflines

I have been dragging my feet on posting an image of the week because I didn’t have anything new I really liked. I kept going back to so barn photos I captured this week and trying different processing and finally came up with this one of a barn I love with lots of crazy intersecting rooflines treated in Topaz impressions with a Van Gough preset with opacity reduced a little to let more detail through.

Glendalough – County Wicklow,Ireland

GlendaloughBack when I lived in Missoula, Montana I took some classes at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography. They had a sort of mantra “No, white skies!” In Ireland with it’s almost always cloudy skies this proved to be a challenge. In this image I had almost the holy grail of ancient site photography: A round tower, a celtic cross and the ruins of an old church all in one photo and the tower was framed in a window. Doesn’t get much better than that compositionally. But the sky in the upper corner was a very flat white. So, I turned to Topaz Texture Effects to help me out. I actually found several looks I liked but most were more monotone and I was grooving on the orange color of the lichens so I chose this one which gave me some color in the sky and a kind of crusty look which suited the old ruins well. And, of course, a nice purplely blue sky with texture

St. Kevin’s Church

I don’t know if St_Kevins_TEanyone noticed but I was so busy keeping up with my travel blog that I did not get an image of the week posted. I am only just starting to shift gears from documenting my trip to creating art so here is an early attempt that was shot last week in Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland. There is a lot worthy of photographing in Ireland and being tied to a tour bus is not the best way to go about it. But, I fear I would not be able to drive on the left side of the road and I’m a little too old for hitchhiking so short of hiring a driver I’m not sure how to make it happen.

In any case, I liked the colors of the mountains and the field in this one. I tried it as an impressionist painting but I liked a little more realism so ended up with a texture effect that gave it a border and helped to emphasize the stone church.

Grunge Abstract

Grunge_Abstract

There’s not a whole lot of grunge left in Ashland’s now trendy Railroad District but there is one building down about 1st and A that has corrugated iron in all stages of rustiness with old wood underneath and patches on the patches. And a kind of spooky face painted on one side. I just keep going back for more.

Windows

Windows

Nothing like a nice graphic black and white. I was scrolling through the archives looking for inspiration when I came upon this one that didn’t do much for me in color and had some weird distracting things coming through the windows so I went for a different look in black and white and came up with something I really love.

Fountain

Fountain

I have been experimenting with black and white lately. This image is a closeup of the base of the fountain across from the band shell in Lithia Park. I can’t say how many times I have walk by it and photographed either the whole fountain or the statuette on top but it never occurred to me until now to photograph the detail at the base. You can also see how badly it is crumbling when looked at up close. But part of the beauty of the 100 days project is I go back to places I’ve been before and see things I’ve missed or from a new perspective.