Local Color - Before It's Too Late

Now that spring feels that it has arrived and daffodils are poking up, something else has arrived.  Bulldozers.  Builders are getting ready to take over more farm land to make new landscapes.  Developments.  Progress.

We've been in this area, in this house since 1979 so the change is hard to see.  Little by little, we are becoming part of suburbia.  I do try to remember the time I asked my mother if she knew this part of the Capital District (my family lived in this part of the world until 1946 and then started moving all over).   She explained that since this was nothing but country, they never really traveled out this way.  To put it all in perspective, where I live was once part of a farm and was turned into a development so  - time marches on and things change.

However, before these farms and old homes are gone, I wanted to take some pictures.  That bulldozer told me, I don't have very much time.  I took two photos, and then I played with them.  Oh, did I have fun!

This is the farm down the road.  The field in the foreground is where I first saw the bulldozer.  As I was driving by one day, I fell in love with the sky and the light. 

I cropped and lightened the photo to make the barn more visible.

Then I decided to have fun; isn't this one stunning?  It's winter again . . .

Which I turned into summer. This one would be such fun to paint!  

Then a little later in the week, I stopped to take a picture of one of my favorite oak trees before it leafs out.  I wanted the skeleton of the tree to be visible.  Fortunately, the old farmhouse would necessarily be part of the picture.  That farmhouse has been lovingly brought into the current century. Sadly the land behind and beside the farmhouse has been sold and is already under construction so there's no room for delay.

That oak tree - isn't it wonderful?

Here's the same photo with a "poster" effect.  I like how "posterizing" this picture emphasized what was going on in the sky, made the house with its yellow doors recede, and took away all the tree's competition.  Another possible painting - it would be fun, I think,and a good study.

This one, I really like - a lot!  Is it a painting?  I don't think there's enough color for that, but I like the way the tree glows.

And this is another one that is positively striking. Again, not a painting but a memorable photo.

I can hear some of you already.  You noticed that I am taking these old farms, recording them so they won't be lost, but then turning those photos into a very modern statement.  Well, I will remember these places very well after spending all this time with them.  An";right and proper so to do" because time moves on and things (including photography) change.

It's all progress, and it helps me if I can make it something attractive.