This was another one of the bitter cold mornings we had last week. I saw the mist rising from the warm creek and the fence added a little bit of interest. For an image like this I will compose the shot while using a branch to block the sun and then ever so slowly lean in until I just barely catch the edge of the sun peeking through. Getting the full sun usually will just result in lens flare that degrades the contrast. Also, shooting on manual to get the overall exposure looking like you want it is critical.
I took this image last weekend as I was heading to do another shot. The farther I drove on the back roads, the more this low level fog seemed to be building in the small valleys in the farm fields. I had to make a snap decision which house I was going to ask to shoot from their yard and I picked a good one willing to let me have at it. This was like a half mile away and there was a lot of atmosphere between my camera and the farm. The intense backlit color was actually better when the sun was higher but that created so much flare I had to wait for the sun to subdue lower on the horizon. It is surprising how fast the sun goes down almost seemingly on fast forward. Tomorrow night we are set to see the arrival of 12-18 inches or more and I am hopeful to get out and get some shots. I am hoping to get my winch back on my jeep tomorrow which offers a bit of reassurance if I need to pull myself out or help someone stranded somewhere. the last time we got that much snow, a snow emergency was declared and I went out anyway and got some good shots that had deep pristine snow. It can be a little unnerving out on your own when the conditions are a bit dicey but I carry a shovel, drinks, hand warmers, blankets etc, just in case.
Where is an old sleigh when you need one? That’s what was going through my mind as I was shooting this over the weekend. This local chapel has always been something I wanted to shoot in winter but it has been elusive. This was a disaster trying to capture this scene as I could only park on a side street up hill where the bright street light is. That meant I had to carry my tripod with camera attached, my tablet, my umbrella and the pole the umbrella mounts in down the hill basically walking on the road and getting over every 5 seconds for cars going up the hill. I finally got set up and of course my wifi box decided it was not going to communicate with my tablet, which means every frame had to be fired from the camera button which oft times will add the possibility of the tripod moving ever so little. I am happy with the shot but If I had been able to use my tablet to fire the camera and flash, I could have gone across the street to add light. I really wanted to have light glowing out from the windows, which I would have accomplished by putting my flash on full power on the opposite side and sending light through the windows across the interior and out the windows you can see. The other thing that helped was it was fairly cold and flurries were flying all day which helped keep the road a little snowy instead of bare blacktop.
This old Inn is located right beside Railroad tracks which you can just make out under the snow. I shot this tonight after we had a couple inches of snow cover the area last night. I arrived here later than I wanted because there were heavy patches of fog in the valleys which sidetracked me a bit, so I may revisit it sometime in the future.
This is a former train station in a nearby town and I shot this a couple weeks ago on a quiet snowy Sunday Morning. I had been shooting in a light snow for about an hour when it suddenly stopped and you could just make out a hint of blue as sunrise drew closer. This right here is about the perfect time to shoot when the sky has gotten just bright enough that everything looks perfect. There are parking spaces all along that curb and usually you will see people park their cars here overnight. I hit the luck trifecta as 1, there were zero cars, 2, no plows had come through, and 3, there was no wind blowing to ruin the tree.
The building shown here was once an elementary school and my mother actually attended here as a child. It has been used for businesses for quite some time and my very first job was here almost 50 plus years ago. I mowed the lawn, chopped firewood and just about whatever I was told to do. Back when I was working here Legionnaires disease was a huge cause for concern across the country because people were dying and no one knew what caused it? There were all kinds of possible causes tossed about but one of them had my mother in a tizzy. At one point Pigeons in large numbers nesting in attics and stirring up dust were rumored as the cause because there was one confirmed situation where this did happen. So this old school had an attic that was like a welcome center for pigeons and when you were upstairs you could easily hear them in the attic above. So my boss wanted to do some cleanup up there and when I told the family medical expert,{my mother} she about lost her mind and told me I am not to go up there! Well that directive went in one ear and out the other and the next time I worked, the boss ushered me up to the ladder which came down from the ceiling and had to be at least twenty foot long. I was somewhat nervous as I climbed step by step because the pigeons were flying around making their trademark cooing sound. When I got to the top and poked my head up to look around, there was a full size Wolf standing there looking at me. Obviously it was stuffed but it scared the daylights out of me at 12 years old! I never did return to the attic but the boss had a good laugh at my reaction.
Another image from the Christmas decorating event I participated in this year. This display was done by a local doll club. Their is a little Dog in front of the fireplace that has been in their scenes for over ten years and it’s like seeing an old friend each time. He has managed to maintain his youthful physique all these years though.
Donald Reese Photography 