I went to Hartland Lake near Woodstock, VT, this morning, hoping for a little fog on the water, and maybe some red light at sunrise, and maybe a few pink clouds from the approaching storm. It looked good on the map. The lake stretches from west to east, surrounded by hills, and I hoped the warm sunlight would rake the trees.
I guess they only grant one wish at a time, and mine was for fog. I never saw the lake. After trudging out to the dam and back, I shot some pine trees, some milkweed, and a misty marsh.
Then I drove up Clay Hill Road toward Woodstock and found this row of maple saplings. They made a surreal sight, fading into nothing. I included the road and a mailbox to give them some context.
In Woodstock I realized that, while the lake was fogged in, the rest of the world was sunny. The village looked great, and I headed up to Cloudland Road to catch the last foliage shots on the farms there. For a while I played leapfrog with three other photographers. It's Thursday, and I could hear the line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: "Who ARE these guys?" And why don't they have day jobs? Yesterday someone told me that there were 40 photographers at the Jenne Farm last Sunday, so I was ok with only three.
There's a storm coming in tonight, a whopper. The Weather Channel says it will bring down all the foliage. The Vermont weatherguy said the same thing. Whoosh, most of New England will be bare. So these may be the last images I'll shoot in Vermont or New Hampshire. There's still hope for Massachusetts.
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I have a problem. There's a barn, it's a beauty. My caption says it's in Pomfret, VT but I can't find it. I think I've eliminated about half the roads in Pomfret. But I haven't eliminated the possibility that the barn is in Barnard or Sharon or Timbuktu. Please let me know if you see it anywhere.
The red barn above is next to this big white house. If I remember right, the barn is recessed down the driveway when you're driving in one direction, but really stands out (like the picture) in the other direction.