Different Season. Same Photo

At sunset, for the last week or so I've driven by the Yarnell Farm looking to make the photo above.

The major requirements were snow on the ground and bright sun at sunset. It’s been too cloudy almost every day, and the ones with any light at sunset had a thin cloud layer and weren’t as contrasty as I wanted. Would have liked more snow but didn’t want to wait any longer.

Today was the day to try and match the photo, below, which I made July 2, 2023, for My Final Photo as soybeans began their growth in the lower field.

The shadows falling across the field had oblique light from the north giving depth to the composition. If the field did not have these dark shafts falling across it the photo would have looked two-dimensional, without any sense of depth. You can see the angle of the light by looking at the tree at the left with its shadow falling across the field just below the barn.

The larger shadow at the bottom fills the lower half of the photo. The barns are at the intersection of the center and top thirds creating a dynamic composition employing the rule of thirds and balancing elements.

If you were one of those people who drove by me on Cleveland Ave. and wondered why that photographer seemed to be just standing around instead of making photos you would have been right to ask.

I did stand around, waiting for the light to match the July photo. Only it would be from a different angle, further south. There would still be a tree’s shadow. The shadow for the tree at the right but without leaves.

Made my first photo of the barn at 5:01. The photo above was made at 5:26. I stayed until the last photo at 5:44 just to see how the light changed and what other shadows might fall across the field.

The composition is almost identical. If I’d been very anal, I would have looked at the older photo’s EXIF and seen what focal length lens I used. Then I could have perfectly matched the original. But that wasn’t important. (The July photo was made at 7:47, about two hours later than today’s photo. Think summer and Daylight-Saving Time.)

What was important was the light and the shadows both of which worked well to make today’s photo.

Today’s My Final Photo was made at 5:33 using the trees across Cleveland Ave. as framing devices. There’s no shadow across the field in that photo.