[TroutHunterJohn]

I am interested in how to best capture the feeling and atmosphere of being in some of the old barns in the WA rural areas.

Please give me any advice or comments.

Thanks.

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[Jeff]

Great image. A monument to rural life.

[timedriver]

I am interested in how to best capture the feeling and atmosphere of being in some of the old barns in the WA rural areas.

Please give me any advice or comments.

Thanks.

Nicely done. Did you use lightroom for PP, or other software?

[TroutHunterJohn]

Just some quick touch ups in LR 6.

Any thoughts on hoe to improve it?

[Schraubstock]

Any thoughts on hoe to improve it?

I stick my neck out.


With those old beams and poles it is hard to say, from where I stand what is right and what is wrong. But just looking at the picture here is what I would do.

1) Correct the pincushion effect
2) Skew the wide angle lens falling lines so they are plum
3) Take out the the glare from the main gate so it won't overpower the pic. I like the bright glare through the slats though.

That's about all I can think of.

Cheers

[TroutHunterJohn]

Thanks. Great ideas. I will go back to the barn and reshoot it in better light. Also will check the plumb on the poles. This thing was quite old and what may look like lens distortion may actually be the barn ready to collapse.

Thanks again. It is also helpful to hear from others on these.

[Schraubstock]

This thing was quite old and what may look like lens distortion may actually be the barn ready to collapse.

Hi
Thanks for the reply.
Absolutely, that's why I said it it hard to say what is wrong or eight. But I am talking about the wide angle lens distortion which is reasonably easily detectable. Wide angle lens distortion can be avoided to some degree with framing technique but in your case you would have had to have a step letter to hold the cam high enough. A lot of real estate photographers do that rather then using a Tilt and shift lens.

As to wide angle lens distortion, most folks don't do anything about it in post (even if they have the software to do it) and pass it off as "art", so all their wide shots are then automatically "art".

I don't follow this ideology I would rather be a bit more selective.

Cheers

[goatsNdonkey]

John, your original post sounded to me like the goal of a project, much more than the goal of this one image, and, as such, it got me thinking of many recollections of barn atmospheres. What you have captured resonates with some of those images of mine: light streaming between boards, detail of historical barn architecture, evidence of past use, and decay. Then, too, this particular image, in its spaciousness and grand height, and even the light streaming in through the tracery of its gable end, also evokes the sense of a cathedral.

Of course other barns, which you have, or may want to visit, might simply in what they offer shift the emphasis among these or a different set of atmospheric characteristics. Not all barns have spaced siding boards for ventilation, and therefore the portals for light streaming in will be different. Some have a lot more stuff on the ground so that just going into them kicks up a cloud of dust, particles of which will play in whatever beams of light there are -- you can't get the smell of old barns into the picture, but those motes of dust might tickle the viewer's imagination in that direction. Other barns may have old equipment in them, some system of stalls dividers carving up the space, ladders up to lofts, old leather horse tack hanging on pegs.

Then there is the evidence of decay, a constant across rural America: the missing or split board, the deeply sagging ridgepole, the woodpecker hole, the carpenter ant riddled sill, the bare wood eroded of paint, the rusted metal hinge, hook, hay crane, or animal trough..... It's a big subject, and that's leaving out all of the pretty calendar-picture barns so often photographed. How to let every picture tell a story or ask a question, it seems to me, even more THE question than the photographic technique. In fact, in some cases a group of pictures might be called for -- of different barns or of the same barn from different vantage points.

Keep at it. I certainly would like to see more!

[TroutHunterJohn]

Hi GoatsNDonkey - Thanks so much for putting some words and structure to what I was thinking as I took this shot. You are right. This is more of a project than one image.

I'm am going to give it some thought and see where it goes.

Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.

[atupdate]

I have a couple of suggestions for you to consider. For this image, I would bump the dark side of the histogram to increase the mood of the barn. For future shots, you might want to eliminate the front post on the right. It makes the image look unbalanced and tends to end up as the focal point. If you can't do it shooting landscape, try a few shots using a portrait orientation.

As for the wide angle distortion, sometime it helps make the image and sometime it is better to fix it. It is a personal preference debate.

Here is one where I think the distortion helps tell the story



Here is the same barn with it corrected.



And as you can see, a portrait orientation can work for a barn shot.

Tim