Big Sky Barn #14928

The Story

This big sky barn is now retired but the farm landscape around it is still worked, most likely by another farmer who has leased it. The barn sits well in a great lay of land and scenery with the summer clouds high above topping it all off. I had been shooting details and other smaller landscape views around the property then backed away downhill to open the view to this wide-angle version. I was trying for the sun lighting up the gable end of the barn under a big sky arching high above.

To create more drama, this was shot in black and white infrared to increase the contrast between image elements. Sky blue goes black in infrared, so those white clouds stand out even more and every wisp shows. You get all the structure and wonderfully so. There’s nothing quite like a good infrared sky and I look to shoot them whenever possible. Naturally, the trick is to find something interesting to put in front of it! This time it was right here in front of me.

This big summer sky with clouds, an interesting barn landscape, and a wide-angle lens on the infrared camera were the basic ingredients for this image. Creating an expanded view like this puts the viewer in the entire envelope of land and sky. The reach for the sky, that’s the domain of the wide-angle view in a landscape image. As a small part of a very large scene spread before them, a person diminishes in the scheme of the Big Look but they also take more in. In my experience, wide-angle work can be fascinating because it generates another visual world to experience.

A big sky barn image was the thing to add to other shots taken in this beautiful bit of farm landscape. For adding variety, the black and white worked well too. There are other views taken around this place such as Out Back #14919. That colorful shot of the overgrown barnyard was done by the gate seen at the lower right of the barn. If you’d enjoy another black and white view of this barn, see Sunny Side #14927.

Location: outside Thurmont, Frederick County, Maryland. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks