Tag Archives: Farm

A Life Well Lived

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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 Fleeting Moment

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I was hoping to sleep in this morning, but I woke up early thinking about several photo projects I am planning, so I bundled up and headed out for a potential sunrise. Temperatures were right at 20 degrees,which is not that cold, but when the sunrise is a bust, it seems colder as you wish you were home in a warm bed instead. After conceding the sunrise was not happening, I headed home and suddenly the rays broke through the clouds and side lit the plowed snow along this country road. It only lasted a minute or two, but I had my gear on the seat and captured the fleeting moment.

Old Time Thresher

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This is an antique Messinger Thresher that I photographed this evening using my light painting technique. The machine dates between 1912 and 1920 and was made in Tatamy, Pennsylvania. The image was taken at Burkholders Evergreen Farm in Denver, Pennsylvania, and the owners were gracious enough to give me access to photograph this beautiful old machine. Light painting can be a very involved process and sometimes I  go in circles trying to decide which lighting effect to use from the myriad of shots I do on these images. Tools I incorporate into creating these shots are spotlights [with diffusion], regular flashlights, radio slaved flash, laptop, so I don’t move the tripod mounted camera at all, and a good dose of trial and error. Every subject has certain reflectivity and getting the angle correct between the light source and camera can be tricky sometimes. I think I incorporated about fifty-five different shots into the final result. I prefer to do more shots quicker at exposure times of 20-30 seconds each, instead of locking the shutter open for minutes at a time only to find out you overexposed half the image and just wasted 4 minutes for nothing. The older I get, the more I seem to appreciate the skill and craftsmanship that generations past put into their creations. If you click on my galleries, under Amish, you can look at the middle row, 5th one down and see the amish using a metal version of one of these machines.

Full Moon Rising

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Today was full moon, and It reminded me of a shot I took last month during full moon. As a photographer, I make every effort to plan ahead as much as possible, and by using a free program called – The Photographers Ephemeris, which uses google earth to show you sun/moon locations, I previewed a few potential places I wanted to shoot to see if the full moon would be in the right spot. This farm, complete with a flooded field yielded the perfect opportunity. The key to capturing such an image is to shoot when moonrise happens right at sunset, so exposure can retain detail in the moon and the landscape. It’s a fleeting few minutes.The glow on the water is all real, and a slight breeze almost ruined my shot. Instead of rushing around back roads, I arrived, set up my tripod, aimed exactly where the program said the moon would rise and simply waited for it to appear.The accompanying buggy shot is taken from the same location a few days later. The water just sits here from the summer floods and has covered the road numerous times. I made over two dozen trips to this spot, which is approx 15 miles away to capture this unique double horse-drawn buggy image. A link to the Sun/Moon tool is in my blogroll. Try it on your home address to see its accuracy.