Last Look

These two sit up on a hill not far from my house. It's a really beautiful location, the view from the long gone farmhouse must have been breathtaking. I have shot these from the road but not up close. The other day as I was going by I thought "you need to go ask to go up there and shoot those". The feeling was really strong. So I pulled into the closest farm, feeling a little guilty because it was definitely dinner time for most people, and there was a young man mowing the around the farm buildings. He shut down his mower and I asked if the barn and silo belonged to them. He said no. I thought "Darn it". But I went ahead and told him I was trying to find the owner to ask permission to take some pictures. He looked at me kinda funny and said "you just want to take some pictures"? I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders.....well long story short, he was good friends with the owner and decided it would be ok if I took some pictures but he would go with me so if anyone saw me he could explain he gave me permission. It was a little awkward because he literally was 6 feet behind me watching and following me the whole time. Eventually though we started talking. His name was Ross and he was 23. I asked him if he remembered what the farm house had looked like and he said no, he only had seen the basement but that he had a dream of building his own house where it used to be because of the view. Then he got real quiet for a minute, when he spoke again he said he probably would have said no when I asked to take pictures except that the owner had told him that they were going to bulldoze both these buildings in the next couple of weeks. He asked me if I had noticed the very top window in the barn, I said I had, and he said the barn used to be a church. I told him I had always wondered about that. So I finished taking pictures, not near as many as I wanted because it felt like Ross was stalking me....LOL.....all kidding aside, I appreciated that he let me and did not want to take advantage by making him stay while I took 500 pictures.
It was refreshing to meet such a nice young man who was sad that they were going to tear them down, more local history gone. I wish he could buy that land and build his house and make it a working farm again.
I guess the moral of this story is, follow your instincts. If I had just driven by yet again and not asked permission to drive in and shoot these I would have never gotten to because yesterday I noticed there is a dozer and excavator sitting next to these 2. I suspect by Monday they will be gone.
Read less