This barn, located near Price Lake on the Blue Ridge Parkway just south of Blowing Rock, is
one of the subjects I've photographed most often. Long before I began a part-time career as
a professional photographer, I burned many rolls of film on the basic scene depicted here.
Over the years, both the barn and I have aged, but the barn seems to have endured the
process much more gracefully. I made this photograph on an early spring morning when the
overnight fog was just beginning to lift from the tree tops, allowing them to almost shyly reveal
the soft greens, rusts and reds of their new leaves. The following year, the barn was
repainted and given a new roof, this time one of shiny metal. The improvements undoubtedly
added years to the structure's useful life, but to me they robbed the old barn of its inherent
character, not to mention much of its photogenic quality.