Summer Reruns

I took this photo late Saturday afternoon following a much-welcomed slow rain. As the sky began to clear, I happened upon a familiar scene and took advantage of the soaked and saturated landscape to catch a second view of a familiar location in its summer wardrobe.

This small milkhouse and a non-descript shed are the only remnants of a once working farm. Things change! Maybe that's the reason why some of us enjoy revisiting certain scenes to photograph them a second or third time. I believe that it is a behavior related to adults watching reruns of favorite television shows and small children choosing to have their parents read the same books to them over and over again. Because things change rapidly, we may resist it by clinging to the past as our security blanket.  I'm not sure that is a bad approach to the present but is it realistic?   

I believe that first impressions are important in photos and that those initial impressions are created by little nuances that perhaps lie at a subconscious level in our mind.  We shoot a photo for some reason that tells us we should because it elicits a feeling that we get from the subject. As that photo is post processed and we have more time to live with it, that feeling or reason becomes more transparent to our minds.  

When I photographed (see below) a winter version of this scene, I was physically cold and the blue tones and the bleak surroundings added a measure of loneliness that we all experience during the winter months. I remember thinking about whether to include or exclude the telephone poles and I kept them as part of the scene because they conveyed hope in the form of connecting with others just down the line.  Placing the horizon lower in the frame exposed more of the monotone sky which added to the feeling of desolation.

The summer version surprised me when I came upon it.  The hours of rain earlier that day saturated the the colors and the weathered sides of the building.  My first impression was how the vines, grasses, and wildflowers embraced the building, almost to the point of swallowing it up.  No suggestions of loneliness now. The sky was overcast but now a brighter shade of those same tones within the winter scene.  Giving little thought about the horizon, I subconsciously placed it higher in the frame to showcase the foliage that was nearly covering the little milkhouse.  This unconsidered thought gave the scene a vibrant and energetic feel.  Again, I kept the telephone pole and lines in the frame but they do not play the same role as they did in that first winter visit.

I titled this weeks blog Summer Reruns because in writing it,  I considered the question of whether reruns are a good or bad thing in photography. I enjoy returning to familiar places and sometimes I discover something new but rarely experience that same intense feelings that surfaced during  my original visit. Photography can bring satisfaction in the form of new insights into the ordinary life all about us and a measure of mental playfulness that grows creativity.  However, I feel that revisiting the same scenes and photographing the same content may lead to photographic atrophy and loss of spontaneity.  I'm not sure that there is a formula  that would fit all of us.  What I am sure of is that there is a level of tension that is right for each of us when it comes to living with our photographic past while still venturing into the present.