VN #054: Expressions of an Old Barn
Posted December 15, 2024
Expressions of an Old Barn
It was exactly fifty years ago, that I learned my first and most valuable lesson in photography.
I was on one of Freeman Patterson’s earliest workshops held at his home in Shampers Bluff, New Brunswick. While working on an assignment, I realized I had run out of ideas. I was stuck, I had exhausted all the ways I could photograph a fern, when Freeman came to my aid. After looking through my viewfinder, he politely asked if he could make a suggestion. I obliged. He then moved my camera and tripod a few inches and asked me to have another look. I took a look, and my life shifted.
The 105 barn.
From that day on, I knew I could never say, or even think of saying, “been there, done that”. I knew there was always more; always more ways to express myself and my subject.
The very familiar 105 barn is on the road on which I live; I pass it hundreds of times a year. Occasionally, I visit the barn to express it in new ways; always using in-camera techniques.
By approaching classic art movements through photography, I have made this image after the Impressionists.
A post-impressionist expression.
A barn door repainted with camera and imagination
The inside of the barn door had been painted white, and was too dominant for this composition. To create a new and more pleasing reality, I repainted it with a palette made from the barn itself.
The barn’s log construction; abstract
By examining the log construction in detail, I noticed that each log contained dozens of cracks and nuances of colour. Geometric abstract.
As I mentioned above in the lesson I learned from Freeman, there is always a new way to express yourself and your subject.
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