This past weekend felt as much like a vacation as any weekend I’ve had in a very long time. Most weekends feel like jam packed workfests, trying to get everything done before Monday comes. For some reason, most likely Saturday’s leisurely riding in the sun-warmed countryside, I felt like we were off somewhere for a holiday. It was exceptionally nice.
Friday night consisted of dinner with Mom and staying up way too late prepping for the next day. We finally climbed into bed in the wee hours of the morning, which we paid for when the alarm rang at six thirty. We gathered at a bagel shop with a contingent of the Raleigh Flickr Group for a long drive through Granville County, NC. The goal was to find and photograph “rural decay”, specifically, dilapitated barns, abandoned houses, and boarded-up gas stations. I brought all my gear, but spent most of the trip wrestling with a Pentax 67 which I’d rented for the weekend from Southeastern Camera (who are, by the way, great guys). There were 12 of us in the group, spread among an SUV, a sport-wagon, a sedan, and two motorcycles. It was a fun and diverse set of people, and I believe we all had a really good time. T & I were beat by the time we got home, and the post trip margaritas were the last straw in making an afternoon nap mandatory. After long cool showers and the nap, we dashed up to Wake Forest to visit with friends and watch the Hurricanes fumble their way into a seventh game for the Stanley Cup.
On Sunday, after sleeping in and downloading/reviewing Saturday’s pictures, we went out for brunch at Porter’s. I then spent some time helping David build a website for his agency. It took a bit longer than I’d expected for such a minimalist design, but it turned out okay. Part of the early evening went toward a tour of a house we are thinking of putting an offer in on. We both really liked it, it’s close to Mom’s place, and it has room to grow into… although it’s a bit outside of our price range. I’ll look into it some more today. We were able to have Father’s Day dinner with my Dad & Billie Sue. This probably doesn’t sound so special to most folks, but it’s notable because they live in Florida. It turns out they were passing through the RDU airport on their way home from a trip, and got bumped off their flight. So we were able to take them out to dinner and spend some time talking. It was a nice night, and a great surprise. Once we got home, I think it took us about 10 minutes to fall asleep.
IMAGE: Speeding along a country road, we blew right past this property at first and had to circle back. The lake, barn, and farmhouse were picture perfect. Don & Sean went up to speak with the lady of the house, who was enjoying the afternoon on her front porch. She gave us permission to make a few photos, and laughed when they offered to send her prints. Apparently she had lots and lots of pictures inside the house. I guess we weren’t the first photographers to come along. I was learning to work with the Pentax, which lends itself to a slower, methodical process, so I decided to make only one shot. I set up to capture the reeds, lake, and barn with full depth of field and a diagonal composition line . After getting it on film, I popped off a few similar shots with the 20d, and then grabbed a group picture while everyone rested under a shady tree waiting for me to finish. Hop over to my flickr set to read my favorite quote from that day, which came up while I was shooting this image.
