I wanted to print a few of my favorite photos from last year so I went through my top ten or so and decided I just loved this barn in the Palouse. Here is how I made this photo.
Look: We were on a Jack Graham workshop and if I recall, this was our last set up before a sunset shoot. Mary thought the scene so boring she did not even take out her camera and many others dashed in several directions. I tried several compositions and thought this one so obvious and beautiful, I could not go wrong.
See: The light was pretty flat and the shadows were pretty soft. I wish I had made a color photo because the colors were really muted and the clouds did not look this good to the naked eye. I went for my infrared camera. The infrared light really made the texture in the clouds and the grass pop.
Imagine: When I got home, I processed the photo into the monotone cover photo. I also switched the red and blue channels in Photoshop to make this color infrared. These colors look so much better than what it actually looked like. The brown in the barn and fence posts are pretty accurate, but the grass was green.
Create: For my final print, I really fussed with the black and white and just thought it was not “warm” enough for such a scene. I used Silver Efex Pro to add a bit of a sepia tone. It is quite subtle, but compare it to the black and white and you might see why I liked it better.
Re-visiting old photos and re-working them even a bit can be so revealing. We are constantly learning and changing. When we see or re-process a photo, we are not the same person who made it in the field. Our perspectives change.
Like barns? Search for barns on our blog and you will find several posts from locations around the country.
To see more of (and buy) our photos, please go to www.pamphotography.com.
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