This Historic Inn is called The Smithton Inn and is located in Lancaster County, Pa. It is a bed and breakfast that really feels like your home away from home. The owners inquired if I might have time to capture it in it’s Holiday best and I said all I could do was keep it on my radar. Well days kept slipping by and although I wanted snow, that was not in the cards this year so I knew there was a day coming up that was calling for rain all day! I should have taken a picture of my camera setup that was needed to pull this shot off. First it was very cold and raw with constant rain blowing in 20-30 mph winds. I set my tripod fairly low to get the reflection and then had to set another heavy bag against the tripod with an umbrella on top that got velcroed tight to my tripod, and then finally another bag with weights in it hung on the tripod to keep everything from moving! That umbrella bounced around violently but all the images were in register so the weight kept it rock solid.

To look at the shot you would think that no cars were on the road, but there is a stop light just to the right and it was right at rush hour so I would watch the light go green , pray all cars would get through and then shoot as many frames as I could till the next line of cars blocked my view. A couple times I sat through three light cycles till I had a clear view. The other issue is shooting 6 and 10 second exposures that basically eat up the only segment of time with no cars, so one shot and wait. Till I was done I was soaked and my hands were screaming from the cold because it is problematic wearing gloves, operating my tablet and carrying a large flash all at the same time.