The Barn Dance: A Step Back In Time

UPDATE 6/26/2012: This photo won the Best of the Month “Small Town” Photography Contest in the Briar Chapel Photography Group:


“We stepped back in time, my friends and I, to a place where all generations young and old knew all the calls. The fiddle tunes, mandolin, banjo and our own Hal on guitar, this 18th century working barn knew them all, and rocked them all, that sleepy North Carolina town, under the full moon that night.”

The Villains (excerpt)
by Merle Braley

I took a total of 23 pictures using my iPhone in several bursts of shots of this one couple at the barn dance. Out of those 23 I chose this one as my favorite.

Using an iPhone app called ProCamera I was able to control the exposure and capture more light than with the iPhone’s built-in camera app.

I also used ProCamera in post-processing to, among several other adjustments, change it to b&w. I found that black and white, especially with a lot of contrast, was more powerful than the original color or even b&w “normal” gray scale.

What was lost in the details, was repaid with interest in graphical strength. But, it wasn’t done there. It needed an edge.

So, I used another iPhone app Rotate & Crop to, you guessed it, to rotate the picture and crop it. It may sound strange, but I struggled to find the exact rotation and cropping that seemed perfect. Perfect to me, that is.

I knew I was done editing when I found that sweet spot, when I couldn’t stop looking at the picture. I discovered that even just one degree angle either way didn’t seem right. It didn’t hold my gaze.

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