Old Barn after a snowfall!

kjs

Man, that's a pretty lame title, isn't it??? :giggle This old, abandoned barn is just down the road from my house. I asked the homeowners if I could take some pictures. They told me the barn is over a 100 years old and part of it used to be an old creamery. Anyway, would love to hear your comments and critques!! Is there a way to make the shots more interesting? I have a couple versions of #1 (different composition... more snow to left of the building.) After looking at the shots, I kind of want to go back and focus more on some of the details (doors, windows, etc..).

#1



#2


#3


#4

photocat

I definitely like the ones with the color red in the most. Number four is very nice. You see door and windows, makes me curious.
What a lovely building, and with the snow, it looks like a fairy tale house.
Great job... Second shot is nice too because there is a bit of red in the sky.
Personally, I would clone out the annoying cables...
Keep shooting!

JWilbur26

1 and 2 are my personal faves. #1, I like the composition . #2, I love the colors and would agree to cloning out the cables and what look like lightning rods?

jdryan3

I like #1 except more contrast between the sky and snow covererd roof.

#3 & #4 are very nice with the red but count me in on cloning out the cables.

Great shots. Give us more.

Elaine

I love old barns, especially old red barns! What a wonderful place to take photos!

#1 - I like the B&W, but after seeing all the great peeling red paint in the other pics, the B&W doesn't have as much impact for me.

#2 - I like seeing the whole barn here, and the sky colors are nice, but the power lines, etc...are distracting.

#3 - I think this is my favorite, although I wish the top weren't cut off, there are some power lines again, and it doesn't seem quite straight? (Although it is an OLD barn!)

#4 - The doors and windows are great to see here. Some detailed pictures would be very interesting, I'm sure. The crop is a little tight for me...I'd like to see more!

Thanks for sharing these, and I hope you can take some more at this location!

Elaine

kjs

Thank you all so much for your feedback! I definitely agree with the power lines issue. Even when I was out there shooting, I was like, "Man, there are a lots of lines out here!!" It was hard to shoot anything without the distracting lines in the shot! I'm brand new to Photoshop (these were all edited in Lightroom), so I'm still learning how to clone... and do everything else! But, these will give me some good practice.

I also liked the peeling red paint on the barnhouses. I think it gives it a lot of character and shows its age. The homeowner said to me, "Someday, if we ever have some money, we'd love to restore the buildings and repaint the barn." I was thinking, "No way! I love them the way they are!"

I made the first picture B/W because the color turned out much more orange and that side of the building didn't have much paint... only near the bottom. I'll try to post the color picture, too, to see what you think. I also agree about it needing more contrast on the roof. I thought of that while editing, but I must've overlooked it in the end.

I do think I'll try to go out this weekend and shoot some more detailed shots of doors, windows, etc... That's what I went there to do capture in the first place, but came home with larger views! I'll be sure to post them on the forum, too.

Kim

kjs

Here's another shot... Looking for advice on cropping this one. Should I crop some off the left and bottom?





And, here is #1 in color (completely unedited to show the color and what I'm working with)...


Thanks again for your help on these!

Kim

W.W. Webster

kjs wrote:

Anyway, would love to hear your comments and critques!!

You're working with excellent subject matter, but difficult technical conditions here. On my monitor, much of the snow (on the roof in pictures 1 and 4 are particular examples) appears to be completely blown out. Did you set your exposure manually, or did you rely on an automatic/program setting? I would deliberately underexpose a scene like this by at least 2 stops and then apply some 'fill light' in developing the RAW to brighten just the non-snow areas.

It's difficult to comment constructively on the compositions, but there may be some excellent closer-up options (to focus on doors and/or windows, etc), possibilities for different perspectives (looking up, etc), and opportunties to capture snow on the trees at close quarters with the barn as a backdrop.

To my eye, the images you have presented are fairly conventional and architectural in style. The subject seems to beg for an innovative approach that will result in some very distinctive images that provide an untypical interpretation.

You've made a great start, but apart from the fact that I'm enjoying a summer at present, I'd love to revisit the area with you to spend an idle hour or two trying to exploit this wonderful subject.

kjs

W.W. Webster- Thank you so much for such a thorough critique. I don't think I overexposed #1 and #4 while shooting, but I think I overexposed them while editing them. (Have I mentioned I'm still learning?) I took a look at the images pre and post processing and it seems (to me anyway) that I overexposed them while processing. I think I should've used more fill light, instead of increasing exposure. So, thanks for pointing that out... it was very helpful!

I shot both images in Program mode (jpeg format... haven't learned RAW yet). I typically use the other manual functions, but since I was losing light, I was having a hard time getting my settings right and was getting dark or blurry shots. So, I switched to Program mode to get the shot. (I'm still quite a beginner when it comes to the technical side of photography!)

Snow is hard to shoot! It's hard to make snow actually look WHITE (not grayish) while still showing contrast and not looking blown out!

"To my eye, the images you have presented are fairly conventional and architectural in style. The subject seems to beg for an innovative approach that will result in some very distinctive images that provide an untypical interpretation."

You're totally right! Thank you! I look forward to shooting again from a different, more creative perspective. When I dropped everything (shoveling) to grab my camera and drive down the road to this barn, the sky had turned this really great yellowish-orange color. I was thinking, "This would be a perfect backdrop to shoot that barn!" By the time I got there, knocked on the homeowners door to ask permission to shoot on their property, got my tripod set up and started shooting, the sky was losing it's color. In fact, I was losing light altogether because it was late in the day. So, I think getting a shot of the barn with the yellow-orange backdrop distracted me from other, more creative shots. (Plus, I was trapsing through a foot of snow without snowpants or gloves!) Aahh, the things we will do to get the shot!

Wisconsin winters are lovely, but I sure miss summer! Hope you're enjoying it to it's fullest! Thanks again for all your helpful feedback.

And, here's one last shot. In hindsight, I think I should've increased the aperture to get the barn more in focus. You mentioned getting some trees in the shot with the barn as a backdrop, so I thought I'd include it...

W.W. Webster

kjs wrote:

Thank you so much for such a thorough critique.

My pleasure, I'm pleased you found it helpful. Good luck. I'm sure others can offer other points of view and advice.

We are all learners, just some have been learning longer than others.

Seneca

Love the pictures....beautiful...if you have PS you should "Heal" the electric lines out of the picture...make it look more 1800's. Beautiful shot tho.