Purple Iris
s we start another new month which signals the end of summer, I traveled thru my hard drive archives and found this wonderful image of a water side Purple Iris. I recall being at the right place at the right time with a decent lens (Nikon 45 mm @f/3 at 250 sec). The sun was rising from behind a mountain peak far off in the background and those first early weak rays just lit up this flower magnificently. The pond in the background was sucking up an extra stop of light and provided a complimentary black drop to the Iris purple petals. I was...
Hoags Corner Web
orning dew on a backlit spider web by a rural roadside of upstate New York. Do you drive this Image daily ? Do you ever just want to get out of your car while commuting and take the time to snap that Image. How do you balance and adjust your time to give you the chance to work on your play. It is a conudrum, yet you are the mystery solver ? So allow yourself time to stop, get up fifteen minutes early, or dont stop for that coffee, take you Image...the work web will take you over if you let it......
She Did It
t was this moment that I knew as a Dad that this daughter of mine had a special drive. A year earlier, we had visited the same park in rural Pennsylvania and try as she might she was skunked by the merry go round and its old fashioned Brass rings. So here we are, a year later, her timing and concentration are at full tilt and she grabbed her first ring. Her face and voice lit up with her reward in hand !! I was impressed and wondered...Had she been thinking about this day since her last visit ? What lessons had she learned from the prior...
2011 Sep Blog
Going into September my personal goals are to train up and get prepared for two workshops that Ill be attending in October. I plan to be in Utah in late October with Moose Petersons so ultra wide panos are on my mind and I just added via Calumet an 85 mm PC-E, to my collection. I have also been working with my Flash Wizards and need a bit more theory and help so Bryant Petersons prerelease on the subject is heading my way in a week or so. Then I need to polish up the photoshop skills as Im heading back to the Maine Media Workshop for another week...
Stagecoach Swamp Lily
he lack of direct sunlight did not stop me from grabbing my gear and heading out. With overcast skies you have a natural softbox of light with few harsh shadows. In order to give my photos some color, Ill set my white balance to Cloudy, Picture Control to Vivid and anytime I am near water or shooting plants, then the Marumi CPOL goes on the glass. I am shooting at a location that I had visited early in the spring, which is an undisturbed swamp nestled in on an old stagecoach road. I set up for this Image using the Nikon 24-120mm, it was raining...
Stagecoach Swamp
ith a lot of rain and overcast skies the most photographed images here in upstate NY are rivers, dams and swamps ? This location is a favorite of mine. It is hidden away on a dead end road. In the past, the road went over the top of the mountain to the valleys on either side. I would have enjoyed seeing that old technology at work. These hills are steep and Im sure the stagecoach and passengers had a difficult time. In any event, fast forward to 2011, this swamp is actually created by an old beaver dam and when it rains it fills up quickly....
Troy Turkeys
waited face down in the grass behind a gravestone for ten minute to get this Image. Yep, I said graveyard. I was traveling thru Troy, NY and found this old graveyard that had a great cityscape view. The elements for the city shot just were not there but as I headed to return my Nikon into my car trunk, out popped a half dozen turkeys. I reached for my other NIkon with 70-200mm glass and began to stalk these birds. Well, Im sixfour: and the term stalking Im using loosely. I must have looked pathetic scampering from tree to tree to keep my...
Clothing Recommendations
I just finished two demanding photo workshops in October and November and have field tested some clothing that you need to consider for the cooler weather. Specifically cotton shirts and wool sweaters and hitech pants. Perhaps you are like me and cannot find standard sizes at your local REI. My frame has somehow expanded over the years and I now hunt for 2xl, tall. However with the internet, you can find just about anything these days. But I found some great clothing surprises, with nice prices from a few obscure suppliers that carry some...
Sweet Suites Tiffen-NIK-OnOne
hotoshop world 2011 @Vegas is over. The sweet news coming out is that the plugins suites from Tiffen, Nik and OnOne have all been upgraded and for a very limited time you can get the upgrades at a reduced price, and save yourself $40-60 bucks (if you own and upgrade all three) TIFFEN Dfx V3 Ill start off with Tiffens Dfx V3. It was the only Suite offered complete and available for immediate purchased/download. The other guys products are available as a discounted pre-order, with a target release in 30-60 days. With Tiffen...
Misty Sunset
ere we go....I can hear Prez saying at work....just what we need..another sunset. With that kind of jaded pressure you better have something special to post. Well, I think I do. This was taken on the shoulder of a very busy RT 2, near Troy , Ny as the weekend travelers were headed to Vermont. Yet I saw this wonderful light and reflecting waterway into the sunset and I immediately pulled over. What was unusuall at the time was as the sun started to set, this misty fog just appeared, far out over the fields and then moved quickly from north...
Bryan Peterson
t was mid-Friday last week... What was I going to do for the weekend ? I happened to check in on my pre-order at Amazon for Bryan Petersons newly release book, Understanding Flash Photography . Damn, the book was backordered, so I figured I would Google Bryans site and see if he was selling this book direct. Nope, no luck, but hey I found a link to a workshop in Massachusetts for Saturday ! I have been following Bryan for three+ years, his books are a cornerstone for my basic training and his weekly email from PPOSP are a constant...
Raindrops on my Web
hanks to a few new tricks and tips that I learned from my recent workshop with Bryan Peterson, I was able to capture this Image. I was headed outside thru the sliding glass doors and found this big old wolf spider setting up camp. I thought...hmmm....lets bring out the 70-200mm and the TC-20e convertor and zoom in and use a who cares aperture of f/11, and bring out the SB-900 speed-light. I set the speed-light at 200mm @ f/11 and dialed in a flash power for a distance of 4 feet, I also set the speed for 1/250 to eliminate the ambient light...
Albany From Lincoln Park
he capital of New York is situated here in Albany. I traveled thru the city looking for a digital Image to capture and the roadways led me to the west side of the capital. I had not been over here for a real long time and this was the first time on an overcast fall day. For the most part, Im traveling around getting myself prepared for some of the shooting trips I have coming up. I was looking for a good opportunity to use the 85mm PC-e. When I saw this cityscape with a landscape foreground, I knew that the 85mm Pc-e would be the lens...
Irene Sewing Machine
saw this old metal sewing machine propped up, busted and rusting away at the Posten Kill Gorge in Troy, NY. I had traveled here to take some images of all the flood waters from Hurricane Irene passing over the rural waterfall. The video posted here shows the power of the Hurricane Irene s deluge over the gorges waterfall. How this machine found its way here must be an interesting story. Here it was amid all the organic debris, this old rusted machine which seemed timeless and still resistant to the elements. Interesting, but it seemed to...
Plymouth Skywolf
e grow up looking for patterns in the sky. This one was very obvious,... it is the wolf. I had found this small cove in Plymouth and drove here at o dark thirty AM. My pre-scouting from the day before had not seen the orange neon light from the distant boat marina. I was a bit perturbed as I set up thinking that the orange artificial light would probably toast my image taking. I had envsioned a blue sky and star patterns. I continued to set up with my NIKON PCe-45mm. It is a manual lens and when you rack it to infinity that is were the...
