The weather had been wild on our drive to Vermont. Thick angry clouds loomed in the sky while incredible rainfall pounded the car and flooded the surrounding fields. The Mad River was rising over its banks, and the highway patrol had closed VT-100 between Hancock and Granville because of high water. With no cell service, we had to use my Garmin GPS to plot an alternate route through the green mountains on back roads. We were incredibly tired by the time we arrived in Waitsfield, but then the weather started to clear and a little bit of sunlight peaked out in the gloom.

Vermont is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I have always found the sunsets there to be magical. On this summer trip in 2013, I was out and about scouting for a photo during the sunset hours – trying to find that miraculous combination of subject and background. I took several in different spots around this area northeast of Stowe, and it wasn’t until I stumbled across this farm equipment that I finally found my photo.

Right after I wrapped up taking my photo of The Barn at Mountain Valley Farm, the owner suggested I check out the view from his apple orchard up the hill behind the barn. The light was fading quickly, and by the time I made it up the hill, the scenery was lit only by an orangey glow from the setting sun behind the Green Mountains. In my mind, I knew I wanted to compose the barn and mountains against that orangey sky. The question was how exactly to do that?

The red barn at the Mountain Valley Farm in Waitsfield, Vermont has always been one of my favorites. It’s a gorgeous and imposing building, painted in a classic bright red, that has been beautifully maintained and preserved. Each time I pass by, I want to stop and take a photo; but the barn sits tightly next to the road and is hard to frame from the road itself. Fortunately, on this particular visit, the owner was nearby and happily granted me permission to explore the property for a better angle.

The Lincoln Brook stretches from the top of Vermont’s Lincoln Peak and runs all the way down to the Mad River near Warren, Vermont. Towards the bottom of the brook, there is a breathtaking series of waterfalls along a short but popular walking trail. The falls themselves ebb and flow with the seasons, sometimes running heavily and sometimes drying to a trickle. On this particular visit, they were running at full flow after a torrential rainstorm had passed through the area a few days prior.