I drove by this spot and saw there might be potential if I could get down in the water itself. I gingerly crawled down the hill on the right and stepped in wearing only muck boots which are about a foot high and on my 9th or 10th step I was in water that was 12.5 inches deep, so I walked faster, got a little wet and that was that. I slapped a polarizer on the lens which brought out the blue sky and also helped the ripples to show as well. I like the way the ripples kind of fade away were the warm reflection begins.

Morning sun illuminates a pair of trees that have reached peak color along a country road in Lancaster county. When I first saw this, there was a nice big circle of fallen leaves on the road as well, but till I turned around to try and park off the road, the family was already hard at work with backpack blowers cleaning up.

This is the front entrance to Cafe Chocolate in Lititz, Pa. They had some blue lighting mixed in the scene and I added some blue flash to match. The big pumpkin was on a turntable so I had to freeze him with flash. They were closed or I would have gotten a cup.

Todays post features my property which is located along a rails to trails path. For those who are not from my area, I have built what has affectionately become known as the Gnome village. It is a hillside display of hand built buildings that function as the backdrop in which the gnomes reside. It has become somewhat of a destination for trail users looking for a place to let their imagination run wild as they check what the gnomes are up too and how things might have changed from month to month. Last year my issues with depression found me with zero desire to decorate for fall, which by the way is my favorite time of year. Sensing that my ability to keep up my old pace is waning, I felt it was time to do an autumn display again. The hill leading down to the trail presents some real challenges and keeping things in place takes extra planning. I am proud to say that this years layout was done all by myself and has gotten a lot of appreciative comments. If you are on Facebook, you can see more of my village at https://www.facebook.com/railtrailgnomes/

I was out shooting when I spotted this tractor and baler working a field, so I climbed a ten foot bank across the road to hopefully get a good perspective. Well sometimes what you visualize does not pan out and this was the case here. As the machinery kept working toward the edges of the field, I began to realize it was going to block all the bales laying scattered behind him that I also wanted in the shot. About the same time frustration was setting in, I heard this buggy coming down the road and thanks to my high vantage point, everything came together after all.

For the past 34 years I have had to try and capture the local town fair where I live as part of my job. I put way too much pressure on myself to deliver good shots and I have missed out on family time there because of this. Well this year I decided to ride my bike out on the last night to just relax and shoot a few frames for myself. I strapped all my photo gear on to avoid the parking/traffic nightmares and I had two possible shots I wanted to try and the one shown here was my main goal. I got there at dusk to set up and wait for lower light and I chose a wide angle to avoid all the junk piled around. I wanted to play around with motion and color and this ride was very colorful.

I literally just finished setting up my tripod and doing two test frames when this younger mom comes up to me and nicely asks what I am shooting?  I respond nicely some time exposures to get motion blur. Well suffice it to say the conversation quickly went downhill when she told me she is not comfortable with me taking a picture of her kid and then says she does not believe me and wanted to see the images on my camera. Well since I only had two test shots taken and wasn’t in the mood to be interrogated, I told her forget it, thats not happening. She walked away but could not let it go and for the next ten minutes she kept pacing back and forth with her phone to her ear. I figured she was trying to get the police involved and finally a fair worker stopped to check and all was good. The crazy thing was there was a whole crew of models and photographers roaming the midway with soft boxes etc to shoot various scenes and no one bothered them at all. It seems these things always happen just when the light is getting good and then I end up being distracted when I need to stay focused. I am pleased with the swirling motion of color and light despite the drama.