Tag Archives: fire and ice festival

Fire and Ice festival

Posted by reesephoto on

This is the only shot I did this year during the Fire and Ice festival held in Lititz, Pa.  My enthusiasm to go out shooting has been very subdued the last six months due to my medicine but on the upside the negative thoughts I was being bombarded with on a daily basis have become pretty quiet and I have been more social in general. So while I still do enjoy shooting, my creativity seems to get dialed down as well and while I wish I could post photos more often here, It can be a struggle to get motivated to go out, so my apologies for the infrequent shooting right now.

A Warm Seat Awaits

Posted by reesephoto on

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Actually a warm seat awaits across the street at the Tomato Pie Cafe in downtown Lititz ,Pa. I photographed this ice sculpture yesterday and thanks to a stretch of bitter weather, it is still hanging around from last weekends fire and ice festival. The cafe recently added sunday hours and judging by all the footprints in the snow,it seems half the town was headed there. I light painted the scene to add some texture to the snow on an otherwise overcast and flat light morning. I would have preferred fresh untouched snow but folks must have been out and about saturday night leaving all the tracks so it works for a cool shot. This was the first day temperatures climbed to the freezing mark and seemed downright balmy while I shot this.

Cross Your Heart

Posted by reesephoto on

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Another ice sculpture from the Lititz fire and ice festival this past weekend. This particular one was located in front of the post office and despite my complaining over the brutal temperatures,the upside was there was no one else out to get in my way while I did the photo. Brutal cold just makes the whole process more complicated,from batteries that die too quickly to tripods that are harder to operate to fingers that hurt so bad you almost want to scream,but you push on because you love the experience. I guarantee every time I see this image, I will instantly remember the whole experience including the bitter cold.

Lititz Fire & Ice Festival

Posted by reesephoto on

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Last night a light snow moved into the area and since the small town of Lititz,Pa was holding its annual fire and ice festival this weekend I decided to brave the elements and get a few shots. I woke at 5 am today,went back to bed and laid there pondering the choice of staying nice and cozy in bed or going out into 2 degree weather with thirty mile an hour winds that made it feel a wonderful minus 18 degrees. Well I finally mustered the enthusiasm to get bundled up and head out and this shot of old man winter blowing his air was very apropos for the day. I lit this with flash and intentionally did a shot to cast the shadow onto the snow for added interest. Ice is very tricky to light and getting the right angle takes a little work to reveal the carving details.

I shot for about twenty minutes till my two batteries were drained, and then I sat in my truck with the heater warming them up to bring them back to life for a few more shots. I bounce back and forth between really enjoying mother natures intense weather and asking myself what possesses me to go out in weather like this? Inevitably I must take a glove off to change camera settings and today that was a really numbing experience after about a minute of the glove off. The upside was there was only three other brave souls that I encountered taking photos of these things and they all had cell phones. The guys who carve these do a great job using a variety of tools from chain saws to grinders to blow torches and the event is always packed with visitors from near and far.