Old Barn, New Summer

When barns are no longer needed, they so rarely seem to be torn down. Rather, they sink slowly back into the earth, like tree stumps. New life is bursting forth around an old barn, and it does start to seem like just another feature of the natural landscape.

It’s been strange to see the degree to which the seasons and cycles of the Northeast have started to influence my photography. I don’t know that I thought as much about the passage of time and the seasons when I was in California with its nearly-unchanging conditions (pick between rainy or dry, but that’s about it.) Doing landscape photography in a place with drastic seasonal swings makes me more aware of them than ever before.

Old Barn, New Summer

Hillside Paddock

Out in rural Vermont, down the road from where I took this photo, is the farm of Vermont Ponies. Though they have a bit of barn space, the majority of the farm is paddocks on grassy hillsides like the one you see here. When a storm is brewing (as it was on this muggy June afternoon) or snow is fall (as it definitely wasn’t), the ponies have run-in sheds like the one on the left side of the picture, where they can find some shelter from the weather. (And of course, some food, too.)

Hillside Paddock