This buggy being pulled by two horses is not a very common sight in Lancaster county but occasionally I come across it. Images like this are the result of observation and awareness of your surroundings. I saw this buggy heading into town and quickly decided what might make a nice background. I drove ahead till I found my background and simply waited for them to come into the composition and rattled off a sequence which allows for me to have options. There was a car parked in the driveway that was noticeable in half the shots, but a select few were just right!
A Mennonite buggy passes by a snow covered Lancaster county farm scene with temperatures in the single digits. When you complain about your car heater taking too long, imagine yourself driving this! I had a couple shots with the horse having all 4 feet off the ground at once which no one thought possible till it was captured on film in a test setup long ago.
We finally received a measurable snow and with it came some rather bitter temperatures. What you are seeing here is not snow but Hoarfrost. Hoarfrost Needs certain conditions to develop and these include brutal cold down in the single digits, very little if any wind and water vapor to freeze on objects already cold. I headed out this morning before sunrise and as I started my Jeep the temperature read 14 degrees and I thought to myself that’s not as cold as they had predicted? A mile down the road it had dropped to 9 degrees and I realized 14 degrees was in my garage! So I traversed the back roads looking near creeks and streams and only found very light Hoarfrost. I kept driving and thinking about spots in low lying valleys and this location came to mind. It was 10 miles away but I decided to see if by chance it might and boy was I happy when I came down the hill and all around the creek was coated in a thick layer of hoarfrost and no wind at all to destroy the beauty! I crawled under an electric fence and was waiting for the Amish farmer to yell at me to get out of his pasture but I think he knew I was just trying to capture this unique opportunity plus I kept shaking my frozen hands trying not to scream at the intense pain I was in, so he may have been enjoying my misery from his warm living room. I plan to give them a large print for being understanding. Oh and by the way when I got back in my Jeep I noticed two things, one the temperature was now minus 7 and when I went to put the vehicle in drive, it was already in drive! In my excitement I had pulled off the road, left the Jeep running for the heat when I was done and I never put it in park! Thank goodness I had pulled into a small pile of snow which held everything in place while I was preoccupied shooting for at least a half hour! The crazy thing is if it would have started rolling it was pointed directly at the creek embankment which dropped off 20-30 feet to the creek below.
With temperatures in the teens and single digits these brave souls decided it was time for a sleigh ride through the country. The horses and their passengers all were creating vapor trails as they exhaled their warm breath into the frigid air. I heard the bells jingling in the distance long before I saw them but I knew it meant only one thing was heading my way.
Recently I referenced a snowy night where I stayed out till three in the morning because it was so pretty everywhere. This old farm was owned by a nice guy named Wayne who passed away last year. He had left me photograph the property a time or two and he was always very accommodating. Thirty years ago a photography friend of mine captured this place with an old sleigh in the front yard and that image has lingered in my mind how it was captured and the feeling of it being a place for family to gather. I usually don’t like to do shoot under pitch black skies but this evening had kind of a magical feel and the sky was very luminous!
This is another image from the light snow we got in late December. It is the research library at our local historical society. I noticed the lead research leader was working late and the warm light caught my attention. After I captured the basic shot I knocked and to my surprise she opened the door! We know each other and she kindly allow me to go upstairs to light up the one room and also blast my flash out the front window to create the light Ray’s on the snow!
This old truck has been placed at the entrance to a local park for the last few holiday seasons and serves as a photo spot to capture the season with family and friends. The snow was light but it clung to trees in an awesome show. This little dusting caught me off guard with it’s beauty and I set a new late night shooting record by staying out till three in the morning. To be honest I actually should have shot till the sun came up because there were tons of opportunities but I am not exactly the young stud I used to be!
I photograped this church that is celebrating it’s 275th anniversary. I captured this a week before the actual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, which was most certainly even more beautiful than this!
Let me first say I have been trying to access my site for the last month and only now could do it on my tablet so my apologies!
Hopefully this method works for now! As I have in the past I went out on Christmas Eve to see if I could find any nice scenes despite no snow around. You might be thinking who does this on a night when you should be home celebrating with family? Well this time of year is when depression seems to rear it’s head and for me keeping busy distracts my mind from dwelling on negative things! So now we can move on to this lovely porch scene. This was a scene I noticed in the quaint small town of LItitz, Pa as I was heading home and I simply decided to stop and knock. It was getting late but I was pleasantly surprised when the owner answered the door and gave me her blessing. For the next 45 minutes I lit the scene to capture it in all it’s beautifully decorated style. Hopefully I will be able to share more of my seasonal images despite the login troubles.
This Amish farm had hundreds of large pumpkins leftover in the field after the fall decorating season wound down. Seems to me they would rather make money selling some at a higher price than move all of them out at a bargain price which is no shock really.
We have had a decent fall foliage show despite dry weather, but this year I have seen so many ginkgo trees stealing the show wherever they are. If you see a ginkgo changing color, it is only a matter of days till the whole tree is bright yellow and a few days later the leaves drop in what almost feels like a few hours.
Every once in a while I offer some insights on how I end up with the images I share here and this post is one of those times. I used to drive around for hours looking for subjects, but these days I find it harder to allot time to just look. So this particular day I was hoping to get a couple fall foliage shots and was driving the area when I noticed this tree lined farm lane with maple trees just past prime but still very colorful. I pulled off the road so I could walk over to the entrance to the lane and get a tree framed view of the barns. I snapped a couple angles and was walking back to the car when I saw a buggy coming. I thought this will be awesome with my original composition plus a buggy added to the equation! So I sat in the car camera pre-focused, exposure set, ready to blast a series of shots and the top image is the best result of that series. This is not the first time I have found my calculations for a shot turned out to be way off. First the shots I got with the full buggy showing literally blocks the entire farm scene, and even with a fast shutter speed the buggy moving right to left in front of me had some motion blur.
So as I evaluated my error and considered the lay of the land around me I decided to climb a hill behind me. As I got up the hill I noticed that bright area of fallen leaves to the left of the tree and thought if I could get one more buggy passing, I could get what I was after! I waited maybe five minutes and not only did a buggy come but he actually turned into the farm lane which made him stand out clearly against the fallen leaves giving me more than I had hoped for. Surprisingly this is one of my favorites from this fall season because of several points. First I feel the composition is perfectly balanced, it gives you a feeling of going home, the yellow maples, two red barns and two red maples just make a pleasing autumn scene and the horses eating in the pasture add a nice touch! So explore the options wherever your journey takes you!
This is a fall scene featuring none other than the infamous Asparagus plant. There were varying shades of color depending how the sun was hitting it , or how frost may have affected it. It was a stunning scene with the added bonus of red maples.
The trees around the V.A. hospital are particularly stunning this year. This yellow giant dominates the landscape but is complimented nicely by the smaller trees wearing their brightest hues
This is the last of the mums I found in an overflow area where a greenhouse had been growing mums in a field. They are definitely on their way out but with the yellow trees I thought it was still pretty.
It has been a little while since we had rain around here and we could sure use some! This Shot of my Jeep Hood was taken a few weeks ago when we had a spell of rainy weather. This particular day was a fine misting rain which formed drops of every size on my polished and protected vehicle.
This local farm produce stand sells fruits and vegetables and other delicious treats from spring till fall. Right now they are stocked with all kinds of fall decor. My favorites throughout the year include Sweet Corn, Peaches, Strawberries, Watermelon and on and on.
Not my typical posting but this is a local fair that I shot with a longer lens and a 4 second shutter speed. The funny thing is the few times I have done this, it seems there is always at least one person who is looking directly at me. In this shot there were a couple people who stood fairly still for 4 seconds and right in the mass of people there is one lady beside the big guy in the white shirt who stood fairly still and is looking at me! I am perhaps almost a football field away too.
Donald Reese Photography 