This is yet another butterfly image from last week. No clue what it is,but a real beauty for sure.
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Arriving for Church
This is a quick snapshot from the road of an Amish family arriving together for Church at a farm in their district. I do not know how they decide which farm they are going to each week, but they do alternate. Sometimes you see buggies headed in every direction on a sunday, so it’s all a mystery to me.
All or nothing
This is an old roller mill that I came across while wandering the back roads this past weekend. I started the afternoon off heading to play volleyball but I took my camera gear along in case no one showed. Well no one showed, so I cruised around and came across this locale. I was all excited as Amish buggies, open carts etc were all around the area. I pull in here and realize my tripod is 15 miles away at home.So I head home disgusted with myself and decide to return in the evening. Four hours later I come back and set my gear up on my truck roof to get a better view and I wait almost an hour till these three buggies come by. After they passed, I sat there till dark and not one more buggy came by. If I could somehow get up another 8 ft or so, you could see the entire covered bridge,which is just in sight on the edge of the right side. This evening was a real feast or famine night for shooting, and since I am not the most patient individual, it was driving me crazy missing other opportunities. The late evening light was skimming in nicely, so maybe the delay was worth it. the thumbnail shows my roof setup and laptop inside and it all depends how much height I need, and in this case just a little.
Enchanted Storytime
As promised, here is another view from the Watt mansion property.All one needs is a soft pillow and cushion, a favorite book, a bit of imagination, and your all set to get lost in your own enchanted fairy tale world. I added some flash to accent the ivy covered tree and bench.
Rain clouds forming
This old mill was something I decided to shoot right before the rain left loose the other night. Shot in infrared,the foliage turns white. Might revisit it in full sunlight to see how different it looks.
Survival tactics
Once again I have no clue what this flower is called, but it seems to have a rather ingenious method of catching water for survival. I wanted to photograph it weeks ago because it looks even neater before the flowers shoot skyward, but it still is a rather unique plant. Reminds me of an upside down umbrella.
Hard to Fathom
I have had a real appreciation for the Amish culture for many years, and have captured many images over the years of life in the rural countryside in my area. Generally speaking, the Amish are not very accepting of photography and Usually I try to use long lenses to keep from getting in their face and allowing them to go about their day-to-day life without intruding. The reason I share this is because both myself and my friend saw something the other week that stopped us in our tracks. We went to the mud sale to capture a few images of local culture and we were using long lenses to keep low-key, but as we stood there talking, we saw a group of people heading our way and every person was carrying a camera. The Amish seem to accept the fact that they are at a public venue and that cameras will be there and they may have their photo taken by someone in attendance so they basically ignore the occasional snapshot being taken. This group was different, as dad,mom,brother,son,daughter and everyone else in their entourage was toting a camera. We thought nothing of this till we started seeing the younger kids going right up to Amish children and shooting right in their face, and then to top it off they would show them the image on the lcd screen. The truly baffling thing was the kids seemed to enjoy seeing their picture on the screen and would pose even more. We saw a few older Amish teens stop and look at the fiasco, but did not stop the activity, so we were truly puzzled. They would use wide angles and be feet from them and laugh hysterically as each new frame was shot, and I just stood there thinking I wanted to smack the whole crew. I figured if it was not bothering them, then who was I to intervene, plus I realize we have the right to take photos, but this was about as obnoxious as anything I ever witnessed. My friend walked away at one point because his head was ready to explode, and after I asked one kid where they were from, his parents came over and wanted to be buddy buddy with me,but I basically ignored them as I was growing increasingly irritated with them. Anyway, here is another image from the auction,plus one of a portion of their crew shooting like a hollywood celebrity was passing by. Hopefully they wont be back to our state anytime soon,but i am not counting on that happening as I was sure I saw the main guy here last year,minus his family. They will probably come in a tour bus next year with the relatives.
The Guardian
Since I posted an infrared shot yesterday, I got to thinking about spring and shooting with my good friend Morrie. Each spring, we make a couple of day trips and weekend excursions to shoot some of the amazing cemetery statuary that exists in our region. The statuary is absolutely breath-taking in some of these cemeteries and many people find the images I shoot in infrared to be very moving for some reason.Spring is when the temperatures are most pleasant and the grass greens up to provide great effects in infrared. Todays image features a mausoleum ,with what appears to be a guardian angel on top. One can only imagine the cost of this statue, which has to be at least 8 feet high,by as much wide, much less the building, which is made of granite. Until just a few short years ago, I never knew such beauty even existed in cemeteries, but if you go to most major cities, you can find such places. In Victorian times, cemeteries were places to congregate for picnics and family activities, but today, many cemeteries are being lost to neglect. Benjamin franklin once said, ”show me your cemeteries,and I’ll tell you what kind of people you have”, and once again I think we need many more men like this in charge once again. One trip to a big city cemetery thats abandoned and you quickly realize how right he was.
Banzai Pipeline
During the winter months, Landscape photography can be a bit lackluster at times, so doing a little shooting inside helps to keep things interesting. Todays image features nothing more than liquid dish soap and its intense colors. To do this shot, I filled a tray with soapy liquid, and then used an old tennis racket frame I had, to dip into the liquid. When the racket is carefully lifted, the soap stretches across the frame and starts this interesting swirling motion. Colors and patterns vary greatly,and do not usually last long till it pops. I basically pre focus on a spot and then put the racket in position, and quickly fine tune things. To really bring the color to life, I used a technique called cross polarization,which uses a sheet of polarizing material on the light source and then a polarizer is also placed on the lens. My title references the surfers paradise in Hawaii called the Banzai pipeline because I thought the soap looks like a huge crashing wave.
Classic Victorian
Just wanted to let anyone that might be following my blog to know that I do not just do light painting, so I felt I would share an image of what I consider to be a beautiful old Victorian home . It was shot with a Nikon camera that I had specifically modified to capture only the infrared spectrum. I used to use an expensive filter to do it, but that got to be a real nuisance because the filter was so dark, you had to remove it to focus on every new shot. The modified camera can almost be handheld,but I still insist on the tripod. I mention handheld because with the filter, you had daylight exposures in the 4 second range.
Antique Biscuit Box & Tins
Once again, thanks to the generosity of many people I meet, I am lucky enough to be allowed to photograph items that are a part of their lives, and at the same time, express my creative side through my photography. Sometimes these people own things that are so cool, I just have to ask if I can photograph them. The antique biscuit box and old tins shown here are one such example. Owners Margi and Dan have quite a selection of quality antiques they sell, and they were more than happy to let me capture some that have a personal connection. The grained wood box supporting everything is a family heirloom from the 1800s, many of the tins are early 1900s and were found in old general stores. Margi’s great great uncle was Newton Graybill who operated an old general store until the mid 1900s in Richfield,Pa, and in the late 1980s, a huge public sale was held featuring countless new merchandise items from the 1900s. Margi was able to buy several items from that sale. The old calendar reads 1922, and the american lady shoe sign is early 1900. finishing off the image is a door that is original to the house from around 1790. I light painted the whole scene with deer spotlights that have snoots and diffusion that I added to control the power they have. I use many types of flashlights and flash to do this,but I favor my spotlights the most. small items need more subtle flashlights, so its good to have a variety.
A Life Well Lived
This photograph is one in a series I am doing at an old mill that is literally frozen in time. I picked the title because the man who ran this mill had very conservative beliefs, and knew the value of working hard and saving money. He was so diligent with his finances that he established a foundation that still oversees this mill for tourists to visit to this very day. What you are looking at in this photograph is the mill office/post office that served residents in the small surrounding community for decades. I placed a pair of shoes at the chair to allow the viewer to imagine the man who once sat there, wonder at the tales he could tell, and appreciate how simply he lived, and most likely more fulfilled than the majority of people today. Picture yourself sitting down after a hard day in the mill, snow blowing outside and a warm fire in the stove, as you turn on the old radio, you sip some tea, and rock yourself to sleep by lantern light. A little imagination can take you to great places.
A glimpse back in time
This photograph features the old equipment in a water powered grain mill. This amazing set of machines are still functional, and start right up with the twist of a shaft, which runs two stories to the basement. In the basement there is a huge tank that holds water in reserve, and at a moments notice, the entire operation is ready to go.The date on the machines says patent-1893, and the craftsmanship and build quality is characteristic of an era were necessity was the mother of invention, This is another example of painting with light, and the photography session lasted almost 2 hours and the merging of all the pieces took about 3 hours, but I go in circles sometimes trying to decide which effect I want to pick, so that complicates things a bit. As I have warned in past posts, never bump anything in your shot while doing this, and as usual, I kicked the shovel halfway through, but luckily I had it captured already. Try and find something built to these standards nowadays, and you will be looking a while or digging pretty deep in the pocketbook. The two lower photos represent the base layer on the left, upon which the image is built and that image is a very flat,subdued, dark image,upon which the highlight images are overlayed, and a single light painted sample section,on the right, which includes the flashlight source where I have the arrow pointing. I generally try to keep the light source hidden by my body or simply turned away, so the camera cannot see it. A snoot or shield on the light can help, and even if you see the light source, its irrelevant if that section is not being used.
Donald Reese Photography 