Westover United Methodist Church - Greene County, Virginia

This church was built in 1912 on a hill surrounded by rolling farmland with the Blue Ridge Mountains close on the horizon. The frame building, which cost $1200 to construct, was completed and dedicated in 1913.

The church sanctuary is home to an organ which was donated by Andrew Carnegie, who began donating organs to churches and schools in 1873 and eventually gave away over 8000 organs. The Westover organ was transported by train to Gordonsvillle, Virginia, and was delivered to the church by horse drawn wagon, a distance of about 20 miles.

There is a small cemetery on the church property.

See last Sunday's church

Fence and shed

In this place: Fray's Mountain Road, Albemarle County, Virginia 
Part four -  see part one, part two  and part three of this four part series

Machine shed 

In this place: Fray's Mountain Road, Albemarle County, Virginia 
Part three -  see part one, part two of this series

The snow is melting and running off the shed roof in a steady stream. After weeks of bitter cold, forty degrees seems almost like spring.

Summer foliage will hide the barn from the road, but now, winter vines and thorn bushes screen the view like a lace curtain. The sky is full of clouds the color of dirty snow, and here and there the sun breaks through, and just a touch of blue. No one is about. The surrounding fields are empty.

It is Saturday afternoon; the chores are all done and everything is quiet. Linger a while before the winter night.

Barn

In this place: Fray's Mountain Road, Albemarle County, Virginia
Part two - see yesterday's post for part one of this series

These photos were all shot with the digital camera, and I initially converted them to black and white. While I was shooting, I was thinking in black and white. But as a group of related pictures, I think that color works best. Also, I like the muted, almost monochromatic winter colors.

Click on photos to enlarge

Barn and Field

In this place: Fray's Mountain Road, Albemarle County, Virginia
Part one

We often edit photos to find that "winning" shot that might become a portfolio candidate or a picture to print and display. But if you think of photography as a process of exploration, the editing goals change. Rather than focus on the winners, we look for a series of shots that tells a story or imparts a sense of place. After all, who would send Lewis and Clark to explore the American West with instructions to bring back only the one or two very best discoveries.

Last Saturday, I spotted this barn and machine shed and stopped to take some pictures. When I got home, I had about 40 exposures. Over the next several days, we will explore this place in a series of photos chosen, not because they are "winners," but because they show what I discovered on a cloudy Saturday afternoon with a camera.

Click on photos to enlarge

 

Trees and fence-row - Greene County, Virginia

Winter in the field

I stop beside an old fence-row

to watch the winter shadows

   reach across the snow.

Silent, but for a dog's distant bark

and evening birds

rustling in the dark hedge,

    winter in the breast.

Pleasant Grove Baptist Church - next to Charlottersville-Albemarle Airport, Virginia 

When I took this photo in April, 2008, I had no idea that the airplane coming in over the church posed a threat to the church building's very existence. The Federal Aviation Administration, under revised runway safety rules, has determined that the church, located at the south end of the runway, is in the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport's safety zone, and must be removed.


Sale of the church property and building to the airport was completed last summer and the congregation must move within twelve months. They are building a new church nearby. Unable to meet the criteria for protection as a historic site, the fate of the building is unclear, although it is certain that it must be removed from the property.

Saturday, I drove by the church and took some more pictures. In a few months, photographs and memories may be all that is left of this 135-year-old building.

Click on photos to enlarge. 

See last Sunday's church