Stillness in the Square

Andrea B Denney

Sometimes, the simplest shapes hold the most strength, you know? Squares don’t stretch or sprawl. They just—stand. Solid. Certain. Like that barn, sitting quiet behind its fence. Its shape wasn’t shouting for attention—there was no need to look, but, still, I couldn’t look away.

Andrea B Denney

It made me think about how much of life feels like we’re... reaching, pushing forward to be seen, to be enough. But this barn—this square shape—it wasn’t built for that. It wasn’t performing. It just belonged. Like it had always known exactly where it was meant to be.

Andrea B Denney

And the way it was weathered, cracked, softened by time—that didn’t make it weaker. If anything, it stood sturdier because of those marks, those scars. Like it trusted the passing seasons, like it understood its purpose was never to resist time but to endure it. Quietly.

Andrea B Denney

I remember stepping out of the car that day. My eyes met this unassuming shape, and my hands were steady as I picked up my camera. Pressing the shutter didn’t just capture the barn—it captured a feeling. Stillness. Rest. Like the barn itself was saying, “This is enough.”

Andrea B Denney

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to places like these—barns, storefronts, these forgotten frames of life. They remind me there’s an honesty in just standing as you are. No pretending. No reaching. Just, being.

Andrea B Denney

What makes a place sacred? I’ve asked myself that question more times than I could count. Especially when I see something—simple, quiet—that seems to hold more meaning than its pieces should.

Andrea B Denney

Like patterns in the landscape. The way broken fences weave with open fields, or how shadows carve across a wall at just the right angle. They tell stories without speaking. And when you stop to notice—really notice—you see a kind of rhythm there, a harmony most people don’t pause long enough to feel.

Andrea B Denney

I think that’s one reason I’ve always, always returned to black and white photography. Some might say it’s basic—it’s old. But there’s truth in those two tones, you know? No colors to distract, just contrast and texture. The patterns emerge clearer. What’s lasting, what isn’t. It’s all right there.

Andrea B Denney

And living here in Tennessee, every field, every barn, every small-town storefront—I see them like memory. Like they’re holding something for us, even when we don’t realize it. It’s... it’s like a kind of remembrance that the land carries. These patterns, woven into fading wood or the way fog dips low over a barn roof—they remind me that some things we think are forgotten aren’t gone. They’re just waiting to be remembered.

Andrea B Denney

Sometimes, I think stillness itself speaks the loudest. Not because it shouts, but because it lingers. And if we let it—I mean, if we really, really let it—stillness can show us the truth that busy living hides. That’s why these patterns—they aren’t just marks on a building or a field. They’re maps. Maps to meaning. To what lasts.

Andrea B Denney

When I hold my camera and frame a place, I’m not just taking a picture. I’m—for lack of a better word—preserving something. It’s like saying, “I see you. You matter. You won’t be forgotten.” You know, especially with places that seem small or quiet, like that square barn. It felt like it already carried stories within its walls, but placing it in a photograph made it part of a larger story. Part of a legacy.

Andrea B Denney

I remember working on a project I called "The Barn That Stayed." This barn—oh, I wasn’t planning on stopping when I first drove by it. It was weathered, bent at the seams, with sunlight slipping through a missing slat in the roof. But it stood. It stood as if to say, “No matter what the world sends my way, I’ll still be here.”

Andrea B Denney

Capturing it in that moment—fog resting across the fields, the light so soft it felt weighted—it wasn’t just an image. It was a reminder. A reminder that strength doesn’t mean perfection. It means presence. And that’s what I wanted to share with others—this unexpected beauty in places we’re too quick to pass by.

Andrea B Denney

That’s kind of what drives all my photography, really. The prints, the commissions—they’re not just about preserving a scene. They’re about making memory tangible. Whether it’s a rural landscape, a forgotten storefront, or even a piece someone commissions, it all comes back to creating something that lasts. Something meanin’ful. Something that says—this matters.

Andrea B Denney

And when I think about why that’s so important—why I want to share these quiet places with others—it’s because I know how fragile memory can be. How easy it is for time to pull apart the threads and let them fade. But photography—it refuses to let that happen. It captures and keeps. It allows us to carry these moments, these places, forward. It preserves the soul of them.

Andrea B Denney

So as I close today, I want to leave you with this. What you see, what you notice, what you choose to honor—it’s a kind of legacy. When we pause to capture something, whether it’s through a camera, a memory, or even just a moment of stillness—we’re saying to that something, “You still belong.” And maybe, just maybe, we’re saying it to ourselves, too.