In my Tuesday Thoughts post last month, “How I Made Walkabout,” I wrote about taking a daily three-mile walk when I lived in my former home and how I would walk past a farm and make photographs of it. Here’s a similar but snowy image made in the same place of that far, but the tire is gone. You’ll notice that this is not a purely monochrome image but that’s just a preview of what Monochrome Mondays will be like in 2025.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again'”—Lewis Carroll aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
The earliest first snowfall in the Denver area is usually around the beginning of September. The average first “real” snowfall is typically mid-October and last year on October 18, Denver got its first snowfall of the season. This year it was on November 8th.
Daisy Hill is located about 30 miles or so Southeast of Denver. My home sits at an elevation of 6,100-feet, above Denver’s famed 5,280-feet mark, and it’s not uncommon that we have snow here while it’s just raining in nearby Parker (at 5,869-feet.) This Fall we’ve had little snow. As I type this, it’s 38 degrees F (3 degrees C) with some light cloud cover. Alexa tell me no snow is forecast for the next seven days but that can change in a blink of an eye.
How I Made This shot: While maybe not a true monochrome images—there is that dash of color—this is still one of my favorite images that I made before moving to Daisy Hill more than thirteen years ago, Then and now, whenever I get a new camera or lens, I like to test it by photographing a favorite location. These days I walk around O’Brien Park often photographing the gazebo there but before then I would walk past this farm on my daily walk and, more often than not ,make a photograph, as I did on this snowy day.
Over many years that Mary and I live in our former home, I photographed this farm many times, including this snowy image that was shot using a four-megapixel Olympus E-10 DSLR. The camera was part of the company’s Four-thirds system, predecessor to today’s mirrorless Micro Four-thirds system. It used a 8.8 x 6.6mm Kodak CCD sensor. (See text box below.) The lens used was Oly’s 9-18mm f/4-5.6 (at 9mm) with an exposure of 1/640 sec at f/5.6 and ISO 80. The image was processed in Vivenza, then converted into (sorta) monochrome using Topaz B&W Effects.
Photographing barns was part of an ongoing self-assignment but this was the one that I photographed the most over the years.
Copes of my book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects are available from Amazon for $16.16 with used copies starting at affordable prices—around seven bucks—right now. Pick up a copy now while they’re cheaper than your next “cup of joe” at Starbucks.