Tag Archives: Amish

Arriving by wagon

Posted by reesephoto on

This image is one of those special moments that make being a photographer so rewarding for me. The young girls were riding on this miniature cart and were making their way to sunday church service at a local farm when they passed me at a covered bridge I was photographing with a friend. They headed on their way up the road and I decided to get in my truck and try and get one more photo of something I have never seen before, and figured never would again. They turned down this farm lane with others who were arriving on foot and I took this image through my open car window pretty quickly. Although I am extremely thrilled with the photo, For some reason I have this bad habit of tilting my head and consequently my camera when I shoot handheld,and the image was slightly tilted.My framing was less than ideal in this hurried moment so the image has a touch of tilt yet.

Something I missed was a shot from the front showing the miniature horse that was pulling them,and he must have been a little powerhouse to pull five youngsters. The other thing I really like about this image are the colors the people are wearing,and admittedly I am no expert on Amish ways and I have always wondered how or why they pick certain colors. they are usually very lovely hues and I have seen families dressed in the same color palette on more than one occasion.

Farmland full moon

Posted by reesephoto on

 

This is last nights full moon rising over a pair of farms. I went out with a friend to this spot we had tried for during last months full moon, and after using his cell phone to utilize the program called The Photographers Ephemeris,we were in disagreement over were it said the moon would hit the horizon. I used my compass and the coordinates the program said and as it ended up ,I was in the right spot and my friend was down the road a hundred yards or so in the wrong spot. It takes a little effort to look at the satellite image and decide exactly were you are and need to be,but it is a great tool. The moon was not visible right away,but became stronger as it climbed. I had to shoot from my truck roof because the corn was too high to see the farms.

Here is a screen shot of the program we use. the colored lines show you all the rise/set positions.this is the portland headlight in Maine as an example.

The sky was falling

Posted by reesephoto on

Last week included some strong weather systems moving through, so one evening I headed to this location to hopefully shoot lightning over the farm on the right. I arrived with basically clear skies all around and set up the telephoto to zoom in on the farm. After about an hour, I decided to call my friend who lives about 10 miles away and ask if he saw any black skies? He immediately said the sky was black and winds were howling, but I said yeah right,because this vista offers a view for miles and it was clear. About two minutes later the sky went real black and These amazing clouds rolled in fast. It got so ominous that I feared getting out of my truck to get my camera and tripod,but I made a mad dash anyway. The sky literally looked as if it were coming down on me, and can’t remember seeing anything like it before. This wide-angle shot was out my window and was the best I could muster in short order. Lightning barely made an appearance through the whole event.

Fancy Wheels

Posted by reesephoto on

This is another one of those moments where the planets aligned at just the right instant. I decided to get a photo of the five girls walking and talking, and as I pulled up to the stop sign I saw the horse and cart coming up the road.I pre-visualized the spot they might meet,pre-focused and took 4 images in a row. This was the one that was the winner because the others had too much subject overlap, and I liked the way the horse and driver seem to be looking at the girls. Perhaps this gentleman might be a future husband to one of these young ladies, as his cart was on the fancier side and might have impressed one of them.

A Day of Rest

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I headed out to do some photography with a good friend on sunday morning,and We headed out at 430am in the hopes of a great sunrise,but that was a total flop. As we made our way home, we came across these colorfully dressed members of the local Amish community heading to church. I took this photo from the car using a 400 mm telephoto.

Passing Storm

Posted by reesephoto on

This was shot the same evening as the thunderhead image from yesterday and was pure luck to get the lightning bolts. The evening looked like it was done storming, but as I started the truck to head home, I noticed a flicker off to the right. I set up my tripod just outside my driver’s side window, and hit the shutter every 15 seconds or so in a mini burst. The bolts were very infrequent and miles away, but I happened to get these two on one shot. As mentioned before, daylight lightning is very hard without a lightning trigger, and this image was shot at f32 at a third of a second. I never stop down that far because image quality degrades at small apertures,but my only other choice would be a neutral density filter and with a 400mm lens,quality would drop as well. I captured a couple other bolts,but they were blurred due to me pressing the shutter too hard. There was actually a mini rainbow that appeared off camera for about 15 seconds as well, but disappeared before I decided to shoot it.

Thunder Heads

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Actually I am not sure if these are what are referred to as thunder heads,but there were rumbles of thunder in the distance as I frantically drove around sunday trying to get a shot of these formations. I was hoping for a good lightning show,but only saw an occasional flicker from these clouds. Finding a decent foreground proved to be tougher than I thought, but I am satisfied with this one.

The Road

Posted by reesephoto on

Todays posting features a road I have always thought had possibilities and last sunday I got several images in the span of fifteen minutes. I was out before dawn and got absolutely nothing over the course of three hours, so I decided I was going to just sit somewhere and see what I get. This road leads right by a farm so I set up my tripod real low at the edge of the field and a few minutes later I could hear the clip clop of buggies in the distance. The first two images had buggies turning from the left and the scooter boys coming in on the right from the T road. The last shot was taken from my truck roof after I changed my position and shows the farm better,but not the locals as well.

I pre-focused for all the shots and used a wireless remote when subjects reached a certain spot, and even though I did this, the horse in number two is fairly sharp,even though I was focused about where the scooter boys are. They were moving at a good clip,so they are not razor-sharp. Focal length was probably around 200mm or so.

Sign,Sign,everywhere a Sign

Posted by reesephoto on

This is what I consider to be a very ideal location with the covered bridge, the farm, and the family heading down the road together in the wagon. What drives me crazy are the signs that are needed to warn every idiot that has no common sense. We have weight limit signs, one lane bridge signs,and most recently the addition of the wooden beam that hangs at the entrance to alert trucks not to go through. Most people would say no truck would ever try to go through such a structure, but right here in our county a month ago, some idiot actually drove a tractor-trailer through a covered bridge and got stuck going out the other end because the road went down slightly and his trailer jammed against the roof trusses. As I recall from the news, he blamed his GPS for sending him on a back road. Picture yourself in a big rig at the entrance here and thinking to yourself, I am sure I can fit.

Every time I look at this image,all I hear is the old classic tune from the Five man electric band, Sign,Sign,everywhere a sign,blocking up the scenery,breaking my mind. I found it too exhausting to even try cloning out the signs in Photoshop,so I left them. Too much wood detail to bother trying.Interestingly enough, the weekly newspaper just ran a story about the wooden beam hanging down, and called them headache bars.The intended purpose is to give truck drivers a loud smack to hopefully warn them not to proceed any further.

Barely made it

Posted by reesephoto on

This image was taken recently while I was out shooting with a good friend. We were hoping to get a sunrise shot and I was pretty sure we were not going to get anything till we rounded a bend and saw the foggy valley ready to see the first rays of sunshine. I parked quickly and grabbed my gear and rushed across the road barely in time to frame the shot before the flare overwhelmed the scene. Thirty seconds later,it was hopeless trying to shoot with the sun in the shot.

Hold fast, help is on the way.

Posted by reesephoto on

This was the scene the other day as temps hit the 90 degree mark with stifling humidity. Local farmers were hard at it harvesting wheat the old-fashioned way with hay forks and an honest days effort. Wagons are loaded full and then taken to threshing machines to separate the various components.The men use two prong pitchforks and they basically guide it to the men on top of the pile. To me it looks like you better be on your toes if your on the receiving end of the pitchfork,which comes within inches of face and hands at times. The bottom image shows how high the stacking can go, and both images were taken from the same vantage point looking different directions,all the while  shooting from my truck with the air conditioner running.These were shot with a 400mm telephoto from about a hundred yards or so away. These men are essentially doing the same task as the modern machine Shot from my june 28th post.

Simplicity

Posted by reesephoto on

This is a location I have driven by numerous times and never really gave it much consideration. This evening I turned onto the road and saw the late evening sun hitting the one room school and hilltop farm, and decided to set up and see what develops. Once again I sat for close to an hour as countless buggies went zipping by on the road behind me, each time raising my anticipation and then never turning onto my road. Several times I set a time to leave, and several times extended it because I knew as soon as I moved a convoy would start coming by. My patience paid off as these two buggies came by. I like this scene because it has the one room school, a farm and the locals all in one shot.I utilized my rooftop setup and laptop to operate the camera. The scary thing is several times in recent weeks, I have found the images I am capturing are somehow not downloading to the laptop and are gone forever. I hear my camera firing and then no download, so when you wait an hour for one chance, you pray everything functions as expected and this time it did.