Historic Rentschler Farm Museum is a popular attraction for the sampling it provides of rural life in Michigan during The Great Depression. Easily visible from Michigan Avenue, its impressive red barn structure makes a great focus for photographs — even for those of us who don’t specialize in the subject category. [1]
The best start for ideal daylight photography is typically between sunrise and mid-morning, any time of year. As lighting moves into the lunch hour then beyond, shadows increasingly move across its sidewall, obscuring character detail and creating distraction.
This is even more pronounced on bright, cloudless afternoons. So again: Morning is the time to go out for this subject.
The photograph above was taken around 9:30am today. Two days ago, there wasn’t a trace of snow, outdoor temperatures comfortable for working here in a light jacket or sweater.
Then came yesterday morning with rain that turned to snow around noon, and that continued steadily well into the night. Despite inch after inch of uninterrupted accumulation, the thermometer danced about freezing, above and below. This made for not only a wet snowcovering, but also one pocked with character created by loosely formed clumps snow that would periodically fall here and there from anything and everything above.
If you’d like to start with the composition you see here, head west on the sidewalk running in front of the property along Michigan Avenue. A camera with a normal lens provides nice options for framing this barn with the Rentschler Farm “kitchen garden” fence providing foreground interest.
Once you’ve made your own photographs, consider sharing them on Instagram.
References
Photographed on March 2, 2018 at 9:38am using Sony RX1R camera with Carl Zeiss 35mm Sonnar T* f/2 lens, set to f/8 at 1/500-second and ISO 100 (hand-held).
- Rentschler Farm (home page).
