Category Archives: Spring

Majestic Grape Hyacinth Blooming in Lavender/Purple

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I was driving the back roads when I glanced between houses and noticed this lavender/purple flowering plant growing in a large patch amongst the trees. They went very high up and I found them quite appealing. The top image is taken from the road and that was as wide a shot as I could get without including houses on each side. The Azalea was much bigger on the left but I needed to crop off the bricks of the house showing through. The second image was looking up the stream towards the neighbors property where you can just see the bridge shown in the bottom photo looking the opposite direction. I had to talk to three separate homeowners to get access to shoot but all were very gracious. I am leaning toward it being Grape Hyacinth but I may be wrong.

Spring in Bloom

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Spring is continuing to unfold day by day and being observant helped me get this shot. You see this is located on a dead end road in the country and as I was driving on a connecting road I caught a glimpse of a dash of pink in the distance. I made my way to this road and was treated to not only the tree in full bloom but the old barn and the patch of daffodils! I maximized the impact of the small patch of flowers by getting in close with a wide angle creating what I thought was a well balanced spring composition!

Farm field beauty

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This was a gorgeous field of flowers that the family that lives here told me was clover? I missed the reason it was here but I thought they mentioned it was simply something planted between regular crops? Whatever the reason I am glad I happened upon it and got to capture it! The complementary blue sky rounds out the shot.

Mother’s Day Flowers

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This image is one I captured at an Amish roadside flower stand right here in Lancaster County. What you are looking at is a small wagon full of Mother’s day flowers and was shot with a wide angle to fill the foreground with color. The flowering trees and red barn helped to round out the composition. The one thing that puzzled me was when the mother came out to ask if I got a nice picture? She then proceeds to say my name and she actually remembered it from 15 years ago when I had shot tulips here!

Fog Shrouded Morning

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The fog on this particular day was quite thick and made it very hard to see what was on the road ahead. I was capturing the trees and fence here when in the Distance I could hear the familiar clippity clop of an Amish horse and buggy approaching. I had to make a quick decision on how to frame the image and then wait for buggy to hit the spot I wanted him in.

Spring Paints a Lovely Canvas!

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This local field was just popping with this purple flower which might be a weed but I am not sure. At certain angles it would appear almost without color but with right angle of sun and a low perspective, this section was just beautiful and very colorful. There is a main road just to the right but it seemed barely a single soul even glanced at the natural spectacle.

Springtime Reflections

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If you follow my blog, you know I enjoy capturing images on rainy evenings. Two simple reasons and they include the fact that no one else is usually outside getting in the picture and the added reflectivity brings an extra element to the scene. This particular night my gear was being very finicky which made holding a tablet, flash, remote and umbrella a veritable disaster! Sometimes rain seems to interfere with the wireless image transfer to my tablet, so dropped connections, images taking minutes to download etc etc were all happening this night. Out of frustration trying to juggle everything, I ditched the umbrella and till I got the shot there was barely anything left dry on me. By adding some extra flash to illuminate things I was able to get the colorful trees to reflect on the driveway which I found nice. This is the Moravian church in Lititz,Pa. Just imagine if the sanctuary lights had been on!

Beauty by the Mill

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This old mill is now a private residence and the home to the left of the flowering trees is very tastefully decorated with numerous nice touches and places you just want to sit and enjoy a tall glass of lemonade. I will be sharing a shot soon including the house which is visually just perfect sitting beside the old mill. The flowering trees are what caught my eye and with an old victorian home and a mill on either side, it was too hard to resist.

Silent Beauty

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A normal bustling street is now devoid of people, an eerie calm surrounds you as you feel like the last person on earth. Similar scenes are playing out across the globe as we all deal with the coronavirus threat. The flowering trees with their heavenly scent take your mind off the fear swirling in your head for just a moment, then in the distance you hear someone sneeze and you make a bee line to your car and hit the gas to get out of town.

Amish Cutie Pie

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I happened upon this little cutie at a public fishing spot where her Amish family was having a picnic. The parking is literally 15 feet from the picnic tables, but as I have said before the Amish have very good radar for photographers, and I did give my best performance of acting uninterested in them, but the dad was glancing at me every two minutes,so I knew his spidey sense was tingling. The little girl made eye contact at one point and I smiled at her which seemed to keep her fixated on me. I played a little peek a boo from my car and got this cute shot of her as she reacted.

A Painterly Reflection

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This is another image I captured after looking for water collecting in fields this spring. This old mill sits right along the road and with just a short walk down the bank here,I was rewarded with the morning sun creating this lovely reflection in the ice.A barn across the street adds to the composition in this country scene that would make a gorgeous painting.

Feeding Trough Fiasco

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The old goat seems to have decided he needs to not only eat some hay,but he also chose to take a siesta in the food trough while he was at it. The one young lamb seems to want to call him out on his rude behavior ,but after seeing the horns,he decided to just give him the stare down.It was a bit breezy this day,so maybe the trough gave a little wind relief.

Glistening Terrain

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These two images were shot on the same evening,so I figured I would share them together. Heavy rains were punctuated by brief times of no rain,which kept the roads glistening and a bit reflective,which I used to my advantage in getting the shots. I actually went out for lightning,but it did not flash once all evening.One trick I use when leaving my tripod and camera set up in rainy weather is to put my trucks rubber floor mat over the gear to keep it from getting wet. That works in all but the rainiest or windiest times.

The Waiting Game

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amish-farm-fenceThis farm and fence shot proves that a mediocre scene can become a winner with the right light. I have driven past this spot dozens of times and never gave it a thought before,but late evening sidelight and a dark sky behind the barn made me pull over on this occasion. I liked the leading line of the fence but hated the empty road,so I decided to sit till dark if necessary to get a buggy or something interesting passing by. Well I sat and sat,and thought you got to be kidding me that no buggies are out tonight,and an hour in this lone buggy came trotting by just as the youngster was coming to feed the horses. He looked so serious,I thought he was going to say get lost,but he merely fed the mother and colt.

One thing I remember about this evening was the group of Amish kids at the farm behind me who were watching me from behind the raspberry bushes and when I would turn they would duck,as if I had no clue they were there.Finally one got brave enough to move closer and smile and wave.They are always intrigued by the camera on the tripod and must have wondered what this idiot saw that was worth waiting so long for.It was the only shot I got that night but was well worth the drive in my opinion.

The Shindig

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Hopefully anyone that reads this will know what a shindig is, but if you don’t, it is another word for a get together or party. Not that the Amish are party people but they do know how to have fun too. In this image I could see volleyball nets,guys talking around the back of the barn and a group of girls laying in a circle on the grass chit chatting. I was driving around looking for scenery and saw this lane leading in,and as I debated whether to shoot it or not,I saw a group of 4 girls heading toward me with walking sticks. I waited till they headed down the lane to snap any photos and although they are a small part of the shot,I think it turned out nicely. Sweet corn is growing on each side of the lane and should be in abundant supply this year.

The Red Roof

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Some followers have mentioned they like hearing the stories behind my images,so I will share a slightly long story if you care to read. This Amish farm recently had a new roof put on and a red one at that,which immediately caught my eye. I decided to head out on a sunday morning and compose a shot that might include Amish buggies passing by,and this image is the result of waiting for the right moment with several buggies on the road. Tripod is on my truck roof and I am inside the truck with my laptop controlling the camera.

The memorable part of this day began with the actual Amish man who owns the farm stopping at my window as he drove by in his buggy,and asking whats up? I told him I was shooting the nice barn and left out the part about the buggies,and off he went. Three hours later I was down the road shooting buggies passing and much to my surprise,he pulls up to my window again and says,now seriously whats up?  I quickly came up with a viable possibility and He says he was wondering if I was filming for the Amish Mafia TV series?  This absolutely stunned me that he even knew such a show existed,but I assured him I hated the show and we talked a little while longer and off he went. I made him a 12×18 print of his farm and matted it for him and he was very happy with the gift.

One thing that puzzles me is about fifty percent of the horses that see my rooftop tripod have a slightly scared look as they see it, and one Amish guy told me horses don’t like things higher than their head. Why does my tripod appear any different to them than trees,telephone poles,etc? It is not moving at all and should be of no concern. Amazingly enough in the days since I composed this post, I witnessed a horse at a railroad crossing  who seemed terrified of the crossing sign support and took several cracks of the whip till he moved passed them,which seems to confirm this hypothesis.

Different Directions?

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This Lancaster county scene is one that is repeated each sunday morning as buggies head to church at rotating farms.Shots like this always involve a little bit of luck and I was pretty excited to see an open buggy heading up the hill and was very focused on capturing it at the right point in the frame,but when the other one came from behind,I was really excited. If you look closely there is one coming out the lane and one on the far hill. The one in the lane stopped and asked what I was shooting and I said the nice farm down there,which brought a slight smile. Every once in a while I run into a passing motorist who stops and wants to question me about what I am shooting and that happened this morning. A large van pulled up beside me,asked what I was shooting and when I said the farm down there,they said did you get permission?  I then asked if he was with the photography police?,to which he rolled up his window and drove away. The buggy heading down the hill was the one and only headed that direction,and that is one thing that is very hard to figure out. Everybody and their brother is heading north and this lone guy heads south?

A Great Evening

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I never post this many shots at once,but I wanted to show the different images I captured at one location on a stormy afternoon. I had been hanging out with friends one sunday afternoon and right near supper time these amazing clouds started moving in so I grabbed my gear and headed out. The top image is what I was after and I barely got the shot because the sky was changing so fast and the time between the first and second image is around ten minutes. After the storm blew over and poured down buckets of rain, I decided to try and get ahead of the storm and drove about twenty miles to get to the leading edge of the storm and gave up because I was getting into an area that was not very scenic. Next I turned around to head home and as sunset got closer,I decided to retrace my route and as I got back to the farm again,rain was stopping which left the road glistening and reflecting the colorful sky. The last shot was taken very close to the spot I shot the first image from, and all in all turned out to be a great afternoon of shooting.

Toe to Toe

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This scene is one I have seen played out countless times over the years, but only recently did I decide to capture it. I never gave it much thought till I stopped and evaluated my image, and it is not too hard to imagine that this could potentially turn ugly if the puller in front slipped, and the pusher did not stop soon enough. Maybe its the way he is leaning to go up hill that made me pause,but she can’t be more than 4 feet in front,but she still has ten toes,so they have a system.

Personally I am getting more frustrated every day with the direction I see our country headed,but maybe old age is just making me more irritable.Here is one example in contrast to the Amish. Our local elementary school has now decided that they are removing all the swings sets because they are a liability issue. For over 200 years,children have been able to handle this dangerous item, but now we must protect them from this danger. Life is meant to be lived and taking responsibility for our choices and the results of those choices is all part of it.I say If you want to mow your grass in bare feet, have at it,because its your decision. these siblings really are going toe to toe in their chores together as they get a firm lesson in team work.