That’s right I found a new barn! Okay it’s not earth shattering news but for me it’s kind of exciting, for a couple of reasons. First off I love photographing barns. Each one tells a different story and they are an iconic symbol of the west. They symbolize settling down in a new area and making the most of the land. That’s why I love composing with as much open area around each barn as I can. Second this is a barn I could work, which is important because many I can’t.
Now this barn, while it has character, had a couple of challenges. The biggest being that it was on the corner of a busy intersection. Great place to be standing and shooting right? I got a lot of looks that afternoon. It was worth it. But it did make for some challenging compositions because there was so much town that I really didn’t want in the background. One shot simply wasn’t enough to get the real background that was needed.
The answer was a two image Pano. Now you might be asking why not just go wider? Well for two reason. First this was shot at 24mm and with that road behind me, I couldn’t back up. Second, if I did go wider that would bring in more sky which was boring at that point. All of these little details I was thinking about when I was making those clicks and it’s what you need to do too. Now I mentioned the sky not being great, which means I’m not super thrilled with this image. It could be better. But now I know where the barn is so I can go back, which is another important lesson.
Images Captured with Nikon D4, 24-70 AF-S, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film