Middle Ground: Harvesting equipment.
Background: Digue Dyke (a bulwark preventing Lake Erie from flooding this very fertile farmland).
First, a confession: I am utter crap at the technical aspect of photography. I know the basics, know my DSLR and its lenses inside-out, know what I like, but beyond that…. For me, the benefit of this challenge was an awareness of my artistic shortcomings. I realize that in many (too many?) shots, there is a distinct fore and middle ground, but the background is always sky. Lots and lots of sky. Solution: Whilst out shooting this year I am going to concentrate more on framing and composition. I am going to work on having a much more interesting background.
Being a relative new-comer to the Lens Artist Challenges, what you might not know about me is that I am mad-keen on farms, farm animals (especially cows), farm equipment, barns, silos… Indeed, all things agriculture.
Image #1
Luckily no one was behind me because, as I came across this farmyard, I slammed on the brakes and pulled off the road. I knew Cam (who grew up on a farm) would love the old Case tractor, and I thought the old barns were exquisite. I shot quite a lot of images that morning, from various angles.
Foreground: The farm equipment.
Middle ground: The barns.
Background: “Big cloud blue sky weather”† (good things always seem to happen to me on those days).
Image #2
One of the happiest and prettiest spring sights in farm country is a Canola field in full bloom, and that is what initially caught my eye on this day. Then I saw the old roof with its patina of weathered rust and that spoke to my aesthetic as well. Here in south-west Ontario we have one of the biggest wind farms in Canada and North America. It was a surprise to us when we moved here. A lot of folks aren’t crazy about the giant windmills but I find them stately and beautiful and, if that’s not enough, they produce clean, renewable energy – and lots of it.
Foreground: Blooming Canola.
Middle ground: Farm building nestled into the tree line.
Background: Windmill.
Image #3
When we were living in Cobourg, nearly every time I took myself off on a rural ramble, I’d pass this farm either coming or going. Indeed, I had amassed a few hundred shots of it throughout all four seasons (no exaggeration, promise!), before we moved.
Foreground: Fledgling crops.
Middle ground: Old barn and silos.
Background: The rolling hills for which Northumberland County is so well-known.
Thank you to Patti for suggesting this challenge. You can read her post here:
’Til next time, y’all.
†One of my all time favourite quotes is from Megan Giddings’ novel “Lakewood” — page 5, Chapter 1, full text below.
The day before she’d died, the three of them were in the hospital room, and her grandmother had said, What I wouldn’t give for one more June day. She wanted to talk with her friends on the porch, eat a bowl of raspberries with whipped cream on top, grill out, stay up late playing cards with the two of them. And the weather would be warm, not hot. Big cloud, blue sky weather. Lena had excused herself, went to get tea, and hoped that at the end of her own life, she would only want one more good, but not special, day.
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