The red barn down on Route 22 is one of my favorite photographic subjects, I’ve shot it at just about every angle. This morning, driving to Vermont to do my grocery shopping, I saw the barn and the tree in front of it sitting in the midst.

I feel the emotion coming from this barn. It seems lonely to me. The farm is served is long gone, only the barn is left behind, with nothing to do except wait to fall apart.

Today, I got to capture it in a new and different way.

As you know, I lost my Aperture photo editing program recently and have been experimenting with some new programs. They surprise me, they are new and very different.

I’m playing around with what I call a photoscape. A picture that is part photo and part painting, that fuses the two mediums in a way that was not possible before AI (artificial intelligence) editing systems.

Below is the original shot:

 

Purists and traditionalists – I say this with understanding and respect – find this kind of photograph unnerving, because it isn’t really a photograph any longer, it’s a hybrid, a new thing.

In some respects, I’m a traditionalist myself. I won’t corrupt or Frankenstein a photo in photoshop. The photo is the photo, and I won’t change the subject in ways that are unnatural – like putting two heads where there is one, or moving the barn around.

The viewer has no way of knowing what the truth is, I draw my own line there, I don’t use Photoshop at all.

But this photo is quite faithful to reality. Digital photography is sometimes too literal for me, too cold. I like stretching the boundaries a bit. I like stretching my imagination and asking the reader or viewer to do the same. This photo makes me think.

I not only see the image, I feel the image. I understand everyone doesn’t feel that way, nor do they need to. I don’t mind being challenged or disagreed with, I only go after the nasties, and even that has gotten tiresome for me and pointless.

There are just too many of them to take seriously.

I hope this image makes you think also, no digital image could touch my emotions in the way this image does. I wouldn’t mind hanging it on my wall. It could also be a notecard or postcard.

The tree is where the tree is, the red barn is where the red barn is. My AI picked up where the sun was hiding (it is the red cloud) and gives to me a faithful representation of what I saw – the blue sky emerging, the lonely barn framed by this graceful tree.

I like it. It captures the scene in a way a painting would, but is also structured around what is clearly a photograph, at least to me.

I’m excited to see these changes have not destroyed my ability to creativity interpret a photo or skyscape. I’m trying to learn how to do it well.