I thought of calling this image set "Horizons", because each shot contains a horizon placed differently in the frame. I made this minutes after the previous posting of the house (which is in the middle here, viewed from the opposite side).
Memory says I ran around the back purposefully, set up quickly to get the shot. My RAW folder for that day tells me I'm wrong. Eight minutes passed while I got distracted by some piles of barbwire and other junk. Then I turned around, saw the buildings - like three wise men, perfect for the occasion - but there wasn't a virgin in sight. No star, either. Still, the symbolism wasn't lost on me.
And then I scrambled, because the sun was now teetering on the horizon, about to disappear, and I thought a sun star coming through one of the lower window frames would look very cool. At that point I did run to get into position, and it was there for a few seconds - and then gone. Just like that. I missed it.
So why the low horizon? When the sky is filled with storm clouds a low horizon framing often works, may even be obvious, but why frame an empty sky this way? Because it's empty! That's the point. I think that to photograph the prairie well, we have to come to terms with the vastness, the space, the distances between things. I never think about the so-called "rules" of composition; I reject the idea of rules altogether. You have to feel it. You have to be connected. You have to develop a relationship with the land, one that runs deeper than just driving up to a viewpoint, thinking "thirds!" and snapping a photo based on that. Nope. Sorry. That way lies mediocrity. I can't even say I was thinking outside the box here; truthfully, I wasn't thinking at all. But I could feel it.
Of course, not everything I feel translates well; I have a lot of outtakes. Countless. The point being that great photos are seldom the result of an intellectual construct; something else occurs, something deeper. In this case, it manifested as a sun star through a tiny window, surrounded by immense space. And I missed it. All I can do is tell you about it. Too funny!
Photographed in Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2023 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
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