more red stepstools

Here are some of the other results from the photo shoot. You can probably see what I was trying to achieve in each shot.



Black and white just didn't seem to work.



A black and white version of yesterday's shot.



The wall and ceiling to the right of the open window were in serious and interesting decay. The chair seems quite small and toy-like however.



A cropped version of the same photo.



In this version I wasn't happy with the stepstool being in the middle of the frame.

So that's it. That's the process of shooting and weeding through 130 photos, which in the world of photography is a very conservative photo shoot. Imagine wading through 1,000 or so.

red stepstool

A vintage red stepstool shot inside the old farmhouse on Hughes Road. The deterioration has changed the place since the last time I visited.

This photo is an entry for Thursday's Spun With Tears Challenge - "Furniture"

Follow the link, scroll down and click on each entry to view the photos.

What's involved in producing an image: The above image was a result of a photo shoot at a local farmhouse that is in a very advanced stage of decay. I'm always aware of the inherent dangers of shooting in these locations. There are hidden wells and cisterns, sometimes the covers are missing and covered with vegetation. The house itself poses danger. I did venture onto the second floor one time, but the flooring was not safe so I haven't been back up there. The basement....well, I'm a little too spooked to venture there.

I brought the vintage red stepstool with me and dragged it up the muddy driveway. I felt the strong color would work well against the aging wallpaper. I took approximately 130 frames, moving the stool around the room, changing exposures, shooting from the floor, through the broken kitchen window from the outside and every combination you could imagine. When I returned home that meant I had 130 images to cull through, choosing the one I felt were most interesting. Omigosh, I could never work as a photo editor, the choices would fry my brain! After choosing 6 images I processed the photos and came up with this image.

I liked the way the stool was highlighted by the light from the window, casting a shadow on the wall. The curtains were billowing in the strong breeze throught the broken window. The light from the window is very strong and bright which would normally mean that your eye would only be drawn to the strong white, but I felt the red was vivid enough to hold it's own in the image.

What do you think?

barn side

This barn has obviously been abandoned for many years. Vines and saplings have made their way up the side of the barn. Nature reclaims her own.

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." - Francis Bacon 1561-1626

young visitors

We've had lots of deer on the property in the last few months. Our land was once a horse pasture and it's located between two forested areas which provide them more protection. So they don't linger long here. Thankfully not long enough to eat my landscaping.

I'm not very knowledgable about deer but these seem to be youngsters, perhaps teenagers. They're smaller and more playful than the others. At this moment I forgot that my camera has a movie mode or I would have taken shots of them romping and playing.

waiting

While running errands on Thursday I found myself on the road past an old farmhouse in Elburn. It been sitting like this for awhile, you might remember the first photo I took. It stands precariously on it's temporary wheeled base, waiting to be moved to another site for rehab.

The large white farmhouse that was moved from the latest Shodeen development has been relocated and the rehab completely. Unfortunately it was positioned on a very busy corner and as yet hastn't sold.

tropics

Nothing beats the end-of-winter blues better than a change of scenery.

Just a couple weeks ago we were viewing the eagles along the frozen Illinois river. Last week we escaped to St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The tropical colors are fantastic and lift your spirits. As you know, I'm always drawn to old structures in their various stages of sucumbing to wind and weather.

This is the old barrel house at Fort Christiansted, the original Danish fort. The Danes certainly didn't attempt to camouflage their fortresses. In addtion the this fort painted a bright ochre yellow, the fort at Frederiksted is painted a tomatoe red.