Lead Foot #1: The Farmstead

Whenever my husband and I travel south, we tend to take the same route. It leads us past several rural farms, and I'm always seeing old barns that I'd love to take pictures of. We never stop so I can do that, though, because of a variety of reasons: we don't have time; our son will want to get out; there's no place to pull over; etc.

It tends to drive me nuts, though. My mind is capturing all these great photos, but my camera remains snuggled away, lens cap on.

I was excited when I saw that this shot turned out fairly well despite our cruising speed of 60mph. I'm quite infatuated with the whiteness of this barn and its overall structure. The corn crib next to it is a nice element that I never really noticed before. And I'm glad I captured the "window" at the barn's peak. Not really for looking out and enjoying the view, these "windows" allow air into the hay loft so you don't spark a fire in the summer when the hot (and sometimes damp) hay is being stacked. The air also prevents the hay from rotting. Not even cows want to eat rotten food.

When I pulled the picture up in Photoshop, the first thing I wanted to do was to get rid of the power lines. In some cases, I have enjoyed the added touch of electrical lines, but I thought they were overwhelming and distracting in this case. Getting rid of them, however, would have left an empty mass, so I simply traded them for a great texture from Distressed Jewell. I think this is one of my favorite textures that she's created.

That done, and with the background looking like an aged oil painting, I added an overlay texture by Jerry Jones at Shadowhouse Creations (see my blogroll). I love the way you get the impression of brush strokes and more aging across the entire photo.

Throw in my favorite bird brushes and a signature and voila! I'm reasonably satisfied with the outcome!