Backroads Drive: Good Thunder Area (Original Photography)
Howdy!
Last week's photography club meeting was a little bit of a fiasco. The television decided not to process JPEG files, and we were unable to show our work! When our speaker arrived, she found herself in the same situation. Still, she was a good speaker, and it was a fun meeting.
It turns out that one of our speakers' masters projects for her photography degree was to take photos of barns, which would have gone well with our assignment, if the television had worked. Anyway, to make a long story short-ish, we are going to meet as a group at her barn-turned-studio in July and I have until then to get another barn photo that I like.
Which is where the backroads drive begins. These were taken southeast of Mankato, Minnesota (USA) around Good Thunder and Rapidan.
Road-Through-A-Lake
What do you do when you're tasked with putting roads in and find a lake? Build a bridge? Nah! Just put the road right through it. This is a shallow lake formed by the receding glaciers at the end of the last ice age. There was a fun surprise on this lake, though!
Pelican!
It's been years since I've seen a pelican! It was so cool to see him fly past, in full nose-bump season, that I almost missed the rest of the flock having a family reunion under a patch of trees.
I've found that the best old barns are along the rivers and lakes on small parcels of land. Whether this is because large corporate farms find small, odd-shaped fields less lucrative, or the abundance of trees providing a little more protection, I'm not sure.
"Paint Me... Paint Me..."
This one is not beyond hope, but it doesn't look like the owner is going to make repairs and paint it. Keeping a barn in good shape is not inexpensive, but it's sad to see them fall to ruin.
Eaten by the Forest
This one didn't make it. It almost appears as if the forest is consuming it.
Broken Heart
This barn would have really been beautiful, once, with it's twin gables and impressive craftsmanship. Now, it stands as a reminder of better days. The farm house was long gone.
Take II
I've taken several shots of this one, trying to get a good exposure of both sky and barn. It's a tricky lighting situation, especially for a decade-old camera, but this one seems a little more balanced. Bringing up the shadow lighting gives it a bit of an HDR look, but not too bad.
And, then, it was time to head back to Mankato and start processing!
Thank you for taking a look! If you enjoy my work, please click the upvote button. Comments are also greatly appreciated.
@fotosdenada
Canon... pf... hate you! :) I like the perpective from the last shot. From what I see, it was a tele lens?
Ha. Well, I wish Canon would come out with some more innovative bodies, but I can't afford any upgrades right now anyway. I've worked with Nikon, Fuji, and Minolta in the past, but the Canon lenses are the nicest I've used.
The last is at 200mm, so about as tele as I can get at the moment. I'd love to have a nice 400mm someday. Maybe after grad school.
Hi fotosdenada,
LEARN MORE: Join Curie on Discord chat and check the pinned notes (pushpin icon, upper right) for Curie Whitepaper, FAQ and most recent guidelines.
Thank you for kindly the support and votes! It is very much appreciated. :-)
Look at you getting a curie vote!!! Wahoo! Great post! Loving the look of the barns and the pelicans. How cool to see some in real life. I like the red barn - so cool! If these barns could talk, I can only imagine the stories they'd tell. I can only wonder how old they are. Wooden stuff here gets eaten really quickly by termites and destroyed by the rain. We brought a playset and hope it will last a few years!
Thanks! My best guess for the red barn is that it was probably built in the early 1900's. i'm basing that on the gables and the architectural style, more than the condition. When they aren't maintained well and painted, they decline fairly quickly here, too. Our winters can be pretty hard on them. Termites, though... Yikes!
By where my parents live, we have carpenter ants. You have to be careful to clear downed hardwood trees too near th house. I doubt they work as fast as termites, but they can definitely do some serious damage.
You got curied!!!! ding ding ding!!!! Awesome!!!
These photos are beautiful Mark. I love the way you captured the field too. And the barns - all of them. I love love old barns. And yes that one does look like it's being pulled into the forest.....
I didn't know pelicans flew this north? Now I do :) And I will expect more photos of said birds.
Thanks! There are a lot of pelicans in South Dakota, but they migrate through. We'll see if I can get more photos of them. They're also shy and avoid human activity. Maybe if I dress up like a big pelican, they'll let me get close... Lol
We want a selfie if you dress up like a big pelican!!!
Congrats on the Curie!!!!
One thing I really enjoyed about your part of the country was straight lines. You can find straight roads that go on and on like in the first photo. And in fields of crops, straight lines. Here in the mountains you don't have that. There's always a curve forcing things to be all over the place or hidden from view.
This area gets a bit of both. The plains are so incredibly flat, but the rivers that cut through create bluffs. The city of Mankato has some really twisty streets and hills everywhere but, right up the road, there are little towns laid out in perfect grids.
I actually miss the cities and towns of southern Spain a lot, for having crazy twists and odd angles. The villages that are based on medieval city plans are nuts to try and figure your way around, until you know the place well. Three right turns do not equal a left! :-)
Wow, wow WOW! I went from wowED (LOVE the road through the lake) to OMG those are the giant white pelicans! (they are 2x's the size of regular pelicans in Florida. The white ones group gather whereas the regular pelicans are pretty much loners. Then, I had the giggles with the titles of your photos (priceless, especially eaten by the forest!), followed by my mouth gaping open with your Take II (STunnING!) I'm glad there were no flys buzzing around with my mouth gaping open like that! I finished your post with an ohhhhhhhh to the photo of your camera and gear!! I was just looking at cameras today. I'm going to upvote your tomorrow when my SP is better. Jeezzz such an emotional post. lol :)
Thanks! I was really surprised to see the pelicans here. When I lived in Watertown, South Dakota, there were a bunch of them in the aptly-naed Lake Pelican. When I first bought this camera, and had just the kit lens and a telephoto, I took it out there to practice on them! They do some weird things, too. Under the super moon, I saw them floating together like an island. As they got too close to the shore, the ones on that side would fly up and over to the other side, creating a sort of sideways white tornado.
It's sad to see the barns falling apart like this, but there are some well-kept ones out there, yet. I may take some photos of those, but the combination of structure and decay is more interesting from a photography perspective.
The red barn with the holes in the roof was kind of on its own on an otherwise vacant lot. I "may" have done a little trespassing, but I checked for ticks and bullet holes when I got home and seem to be ok! :-)