I love it when a plan comes together. Planning my string of photos for the week, I had this concept in mind regarding a macro type shot of a barbed wire fence for today's photo. Transitioning from concept to reality proved to be quite the challenge, however. You see, there just aren't that many barbed wire fences in existence, these days. At least, not in Rhode Island. It turns out there are a ton of laws that govern barbed wire fencing. Gone are the days where you could use barbed wire to fence a pasture, for instance. Barbed wire can only be use as a border with a neighbor if you have written consent from that neighbor. Fences built prior to 1906 are grandfathered, but everything else falls under the general laws that severely restrict its use.
So with all those restrictions, I still managed to find this beauty! For the record, it's not a macro shot. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It was taken with a 200mm lens for a couple of reasons. The ribbon of barbed wire is at the top of a 6-foot high fence. Well, I'm 5' 4" tall, so using a macro lens just wasn't happening! I also wanted the extreme depth of field you see here where the trees merged with the blue sky, and my 200 mm at f/2.8 does a great job with that effect. Of course, given that the property had a bunch of natural gas tankers parked there and I'm standing on the edge shooting with a 200 mm lens, I do have to wonder what the owners were thinking.
I didn't do much with this in post processing. I used a brilliant warm filter in Topaz Adjust, and then adjusted the levels slightly in PSE. No other filters were used since I got the desired effect right out of the camera.
I grew up on a farm and was familiar with this type barbed wire... I had no idea there was laws regulating them. My Dad had a collection of different types of old wire fencing that had some paperwork with a description, but I'm not sure where it has ended up. Nice focus on the barb, love the old rust, and a great background!
