GLOW! BILL WESTMORELAND CHASES THE LIGHT IN A STUDY OF ITS CHANGES AND ALLURE

A PHOTOGRAPHER KNOWN FOR HIS VIVID PORTRAITS FINDS A JEWEL OF A STATIC SUBJECT: AN OLD BARN

Published on December 9, 2025

by Edward M. Gómez

Bill Westmoreland, “Sunset Barn, August 23, 2022,” 2022, digital color photograph. Courtesy of the artist

Over the years, brutjournal’s visual director, the New York-based photographer Bill Westmoreland, has aimed his camera at a wide range of subjects, from high- kicking Broadway dancers to jazz crooners, rock’n’rollers, elaborately tattooed hipsters, and, in an earlier photo essay for the magazine, big, black trash bags stuffed with garbage, piled up on sidewalks and shimmering in the eerie luminosity of the city’s nocturnal pageant.

Bill Westmoreland, “Barn in Fog, April 4, 2025,” 2025, digital color photograph. Courtesy of the artist

From time to time, Bill has traveled to northeastern Pennsylvania, where, in one area near the Delaware River, which serves as the border with New York State, a certain large barn routinely has caught his eye. Bill has seen it during different seasons of the year and at different times of the day. When he first discovered it, as much as he appreciated its unadorned, minimalist form sitting atop a hill, it was the light that fell upon it — and that, simultaneously, appeared to emanate from it — that seized his imagination.

Bill Westmoreland, “Snow Barn, December 23, 2020,” 2020, digital color photograph. Courtesy of the artist

Bill recalled, “I started photographing this particular barn in 2019, when I first saw it on my way to a friend’s house. I was inspired by the simplicity of its silhouette on the horizon line. There were no trees or other buildings. Over time, I photographed it in different weather conditions — in bright sunlight, on cloudy days, in the rain and in the fog. I became curious about how it would appear each day.”

One of Bill Westmoreland’s Pennsylvania barn photos shot in 2025; digital color photograph. Courtesy of the artist

For Bill, who, throughout his career, in addition to his portraits, has shot both fashion and what are known as health-and-beauty photos, this barn held a special allure. He said, “My barn photos are more about the lighting than the look or character of the building itself.

They represent a ‘fashion show’ of sorts, in which I’ve watched the same model — the barn — wearing many different outfits, all of which have been the light itself, in its endless variations.”

[Scroll down to see more of Bill Westmoreland’s photos of a barn in Pennsylvania.]