Title is from the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost. Actually, until I researched for a link for this, I had thought it came from the novel "Shane", which is where I recall hearing this quote when I read that book in high school. It seemed a better title than my original "Somewhere in Texas", which I didn't like because it didn't seem very creative and narrowed down the possible members this could be an entry from. (As if I have refrained from using "Dallas" and "Fort Worth" in my titles before!)
Periodic trips to Stephenville, where my daughter is going to college, is proving to be good for my landscapes. This is an effort at trying to improve my black and whites. I like the eye leading perspective, and the whole scene came out with a lot of dimension to me.
I fussed and experimented with numerous treatments using layers, but in the end, just a plain b/w seemed to work best. Some clarify and high radius USm to give it some pop, and a little dodging around the V shape at the top of the trees. Cloned out a couple of telephone poles and a small sign in the background.
Pre-challenge notes:
Not expecting too much this month. I think this is a pretty good landscape, but there's not much to wow anyone. Probably good for a low to mid 5 and not a lot of comments.
Post challenge notes:
Did about as expected and hoped. I did find it interesting that a few of the comments seemed to conflict on their opinion of my composition of this shot.
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The Frost quote comes from (as you noted) "Mending Wall", which begins: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that sends the frozen ground-swell under it..." and is concerned, in its entirety, with the fieldstone pasture walls of the harsh Northeast. Every winter the cycle of freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw thrusts the ground up and down, breaking down the stone walls and also bringing to the surface in the fields yet more stones that must be added to them. This is why the NE "fields" are so small and so many, actually; the largest practical size for a field was how far a man could walk carrying a fieldstone, because every spring as long as he was working the land he'd have to take these stones and move them onto his walls.
In the poem the narrator and his neighbor stand, each on their own side of the wall, and, working together, replace the broken sections and increase the wall as they move along. That's the "good neighbors" aspect of the poem; that our fences/walls bring us together as much as they keep us apart :-)
Maybe info you already had, or info you don't care to know, but there it is :-)
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