When you are the only one out at 3am you get the benefit of solitude in a Winter Wonderland!

This was the last little snowstorm we got and it stuck to everything quite nicely. I went to bed at 11:00pm, got up two hours later and looked out and just felt like I had to go out and shoot something. By 7am I felt like I was going to drop over from lack of sleep which reminded me I am no spring chicken anymore! This is Lititz, Pa which they hang these edison lights along the shopping district sometimes in the winter. They are tough to shoot because they are so bright and everything else is so dim. Waiting for the morning ambient light to climb helps but they always seem to have a glow around them that makes it tricky to use a different exposure to blend them in.

I shot this scene after it caught my attention because it had a look that seemed a little bit different than regular storms. Just a simple peaceful winter scene.

After a week of milder temperatures, the snow started to melt in earnest till this past weekend when we got another four to six inches of fluffy sticky snow. I went to bed at 11pm on Sunday Night, Got up at 1:30 to use the bathroom and looked out and despite only having an hour and a half of sleep at that point I just felt like I needed to head out. Very close to 2:00 AM I loaded up and headed out. I got several good shots in the wee hours and was getting close to work at daybreak when this scene caught my eye. All the details from the fence to the gorgeous porch to the barn just made for a nice shot. after 5 hours out shooting I was like a walking zombie with a serious desire for some shut eye. Old Faithful is the title because I have gotten several good shots of this property over the years thanks to the owners being very welcoming. I returned the same evening thinking the snowy fence would be intact but high wind cleared it completely but I did a shot anyway which you will see coming up.

This image was taken on Tuesday Evening and two days later I still can’t shake the experience! This farm is one that has been on my radar for a while and I like it because of the long lane leading in and the multitude of structures that stack up in a long lens shot. I headed here because I thought the sun would be a big subdued orange circle due to the misty air resulting from snow melt. Shortly after this shot the sun faded behind heavy clouds and never showed itself again. So all was well and good and their is a house to the right just out of frame. A Mother, father and their young daughter came out and walked up the lane to get their mail which was right in front of me by the road. I snapped a few shots of them walking toward me because they were all holding hands and I thought it added a nice touch to the shot.

We had some casual conversation, they asked what I was shooting for and I said just myself and off they went back to the house. I am terrible at self promotion so I never mentioned my website if they cared to look at my work and possibly the shot I was taking at that moment. So the husband leaves in an RV, we wave to each other and I am killing time till the farmhouse lights start recording on the farm. I decided that I might as well go knock and tell her my website while I am waiting. I knock two or three times, wonder why no one is answering and back to my camera I head. Now mind you I am out in the country and sound travels for miles, so in the distance I hear a police car siren screaming on the roads and wonder What might be going on? An accident, a fire, a car chase, it’s anyone’s guess until just up the road I see the flashing lights coming my way and I do mean coming “my way”. The cruiser pulls up right in the middle of the road and out springs the officer, only to be backed up by a second officer a minute later?

They proceed to start questioning me what I was doing, why am I here, asking for I.D., taking my license plate and I am completely taken aback and to be honest getting more defensive as the minutes rolled by! I am pro law enforcement but put yourself in this situation, you are just enjoying photographing the local landscape, not parking on anyone’s property and suddenly being accosted like you just committed the crime of the century! So one officer stands with me while the other goes to the house where the friendly family lives. He must have been in there 10 minutes and all the while I have no clue what is up and getting more frustrated as the minutes pass. Finally that officer returns to us and tells me the woman was scared out of her mind when I knocked so she called 911! He goes on to tell me that the dispatch call came across as a home invasion in progress, hence the screaming sirens!

I get some people scare easy but after talking personally with them for a few minutes at the mailbox, I was a little confused how she made the jump to me being some nut job. When the officer was speaking with me I just kept thinking how did we get to this moment? The thing that really bothers me is wondering if the officers even believe my side of the story and how something so innocent has the potential to tarnish a reputation. I plan to request all bodycam footage from initial incident to after I left the scene to see if any malicious comments were made concerning me or the facts of what actually happened!

I understand the tough job police officers deal with daily but me being put on the defensive like I was just keeps being replayed in my mind and wondering if my reaction was understandable in the way a persons character gets called into question undeservedly? For me it is hard to just move on to the point I can’t think of much beside this and feel out of sorts so to speak.

With temperatures starting to warm up, the snow is disappearing quickly so I have been trying to capture what I can before Winter fades. It was around twenty degrees this evening and the sun sets pretty quickly if you don’t have a spot already planned. The snow in the field behind me had multiple little drifts that were catching the sun on the edges so I grabbed my tripod, put the camera and lens on it and started out across the snow. You could walk ten feet and not break through, then the next ten every step went through. this seemed to alternate over and over until of course I was in a rush and when I expected to break through, instead I got the solid ice and immediately went down with my tripod mounted lens going straight into the snow. the lens hood is like 6 inches long and was filled solid with snow but it was primarily fluff so a quick cleaning of the hood and lens glass and all was well! this sunset was very nice but I think I counted at least twelve contrails at one point, so this must be a popular route. I wish the farm was a little more prominent but it is what it is!

I have driven past this local College Chapel several times thinking I want to try a shot sometime. Well with the frigid temperatures our area has endured the pond here was frozen nice and thick and despite wishing it were clear ice I can’t complain. I arrived early hoping to get a sunset shot but that fizzled out. Since I was warmly dressed I decided to plop down in the snow surrounding the pond and set up my tripod and sit and wait. I sat in the snow unfazed by the cold for at least a half hour and the only thing stopping me from leaving was I could just begin to see the room inside the chapel was lit. As it got progressively darker, obviously the light in the chapel started to record more nicely in the ice. I was not completely satisfied that the image I captured was nice enough and was debating heading home when all of a sudden all the lamp posts around the chapel lit up and all the streaks of yellow lit up the ice! I did return the next night and have a second view I will post soon.

This view of the Historic Ephrata Cloister includes the cemetery surrounded by the stone wall. The one thing I always remember about their sleeping habits is they used wooden blocks as pillows. Try that sometime!

This image was taken last evening and despite being nowhere near the temperatures we had this past weekend, it ranked right up there with the most excruciating pain my hands ever experienced. Yesterday was much milder through the day so I got a bit complacent when I went out to shoot the sunset. I got safely pulled off into a snow pile along the road and then hiked across this farm field with camera, 2 lenses and tripod. I had a very thin pair of gloves on and till I was finished it was close to an hour standing out in the cold. I kept prolonging it because I wanted the interior lights to show up and I was too lazy to walk to my truck for better gloves. When I got back in my vehicle my hands hurt so bad I just sat there rocking in my seat fighting the pain. It was only 25 degrees but as soon as the sun went down you could feel the cold settling in.

This barn has undergone a serious renovation and has quickly been added to my list of favorites. With the additional windows it strikes me as it might be available as an event space?

I started this morning by driving to this cemetery to try a sunrise shot. It was exactly 5 degrees here this morning at 6am but I was actually comfortable except a few times taking the gloves off to adjust settings. When I was leaving I noticed this scene as a potential shot for sunset tonight and this was the result of going back tonight. The small bench was a nice touch and I am happy I made the return trip!

It is currently 18 degrees here in Lancaster county with winds between 20 and 50 mph making wind chill -10. This set of Nutcracker figures seem to be guarding against the intrusion of mother nature going beyond the blue door. This small village is known as Stoudtburg Village and was originally built as a combination Home and business idea. I believe the original concept came about because the owner loved to travel to Europe so he modeled this to resemble that. It is a neat layout but you rarely see any businesses open so there is not much incentive to visit.

This is the very first place I worked as a teenager and the snowy area in the foreground was actually at the rear of the apartment we lived in when I was in Elementary school. When I look at this scene I am immediately transported back over 50 years to a time when myself and a few friends used to throw sweet Chestnuts at passing cars on the main road that is running between the building and the foreground snow. If you ever handled the thorny shell of sweet chestnuts they are no joke. I always heard them called horse chestnuts but a quick google search clearly shows sweet chestnuts as the prickly ones. I can’t even tell you the last time I saw these chestnut anywhere but I assume they are still around.

This is a home along a fairly busy road that always seems to grab my attention when driving by. They simply have a nice set of warm inviting string lights on the porch that just sends a message welcome home! I have seen them in every season but I finally decided to stop and ask if they would allow me to do a shot? I rang the bell and two large dogs came charging as if their dinner was waiting just outside the door. The owner came and calmed them down and said sure, go for it. I did struggle a bit on this one because the lights are so warm they turn the whole porch into one big yellow glow, so I tamed them down a bit. I shot a variety of ideas for this image, ranging from shining light out onto the snow from the porch to casting long shadows on the snow from the bushes, but in the end the simple glow onto the cold snow was the direction I took. OH and the owners were gracious enough to turn lights on to create that warm inviting feel. The title is in reference to me being invited in after standing in freezing temps for over an hour and immediately feeling that toasty warm feeling only a fireplace can give.

I shot this last night while kneeling in the snow in the middle of a farm field. I used an app called the Photographers Ephemeris which will show you were the sun, moon will rise and set. Due to user error I missed the moon rise location by a hundred yards, so I had to dash through the snow to get to the right alignment. A bonus was the farmers had lights on in the barns.

This Church has always struck me as one you might see in New England, not Pennsylvania. First impression might lead you to believe this in a rural setting but it is actually beside one of the busiest roads in the county. I was driving by when the late afternoon light was hitting it so I decided to shoot it.The road which I hide by staying low is actually about a third of the way up from the bottom where the dark and light strip runs. This was shot on Friday during rush hour and trust me when I say getting a clean no car 2 second exposure was an exercise in frustration. Of course to make things more exciting I actually went out on the road a few times to light the snow for some texture. I always felt the building on the left needed a steeple but I do not know the history of this church and wheather or not one might have been on years ago.

This past weekend we got a little over 13 inches of snow plus another inch or two of sleet. Temperatures are staying put right now hovering anywhere from almost zero to a balmy twenty. This storm was not the prettiest because it was very fluffy and did not cling to anything. This covered bridge was taken in the early morning when it was around 15 degrees and as you can see parts of the stream are already frozen. A possible 2nd nor’easter this coming weekend seems to be heavily favored at this point. Looks like its time for more bread and milk. We had one day where travel was iffy but to watch people stock up you would think we were going to be hunkered down for weeks!

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.