“McDougall Road Farmhouse”

Location: Dayton, Oregon (2020)

Light from sunrise illuminates a farmhouse and vineyards off McDougall Road after the first hard frost of the season.

It was bitterly cold. The kind of cold that turns your ears red and makes you sniff back the mucus ready to drip from your Rudolph red nose. Mud in the shape of tire tracks was frozen beneath my boots. I was setup at the end of a gravel driveway next to the edge of a large field. My camera and tripod resting on frostbitten earth.

Behind me, across McDougall Road, a chimney was billowing smoke from a wood stove. Commuters occasionally passed by on their way to the intersection of 99W. Clouds overhead were illuminated pink and orange by the rising sun. I stood, waiting for the moment when the sun would shine its warmth and glow on scene in this photograph. It was the first hard frost of the season.