Alexander McQueen feathers.

There is an inherent problem for a photographer living in a small town with rising gas prices. The distance your willing to travel for an afternoon photo jaunt gets less and less as Exxon shares go up.  While I have photographed less farms over the past months, it not for lack of a desire to do so.  This town feels smaller every day.  There’s simply less unknown ground to cover. At the same time, there are more and more faces and personalities that have become familiar to me. The gap between the terrain we all share and its many familiar souls has closed in.  In this thought, I enjoy my self-induced responsibility of linking our common views through photography. While much of what I photograph is on private land, I realize its communal appeal. What I share with you in a photograph comes from a desire to help us all feel connected. For me, a newly explored farm or open space acts as the missing piece of the suburbia puzzle. I enjoy piecing it together, taking in its textures, smells and its contour.  There are few of these crucial pieces left, so they cannot be forgotten. In this round of photos, I was treated to another wonder close to home.  It characters were welcoming on a warm late-winter day. I thoroughly enjoyed the fashion show presented in the chicken coop.  One by one, each lady posed at the top of the rustic wooden runway ruffling her feathers like a model wearing Alexander McQueen. The postal stamp sized farms I’ve come to love are packed with enough pastoral goodness for any soul. My husband, along for the ride, is coming to understand how this keeps me glued together.  While you may question why certain things in life make you happy, just be happy that they do.