This farm wagon is overflowing with a variety of unique pumpkins for fall decorating. From the green one that looks like an apple to the white ones devoid of color,there is one for every taste.They say this was a great year for pumpkins,so prices should stay very reasonable.
I passed this field yesterday as they were harvesting soybeans and asked if I could climb on top of the tractor-trailer as it was being loaded. The machine that off loads to the truck, empties at an incredible rate and then heads to the combine in the field for the next load. The crew is what are referred to as custom harvesters,which are professional hired hands who earn their living helping farmers harvest their fields. This crew is Groffdale custom harvesters and they are the picture of efficiency. The owner of the farm is seen on his little John Deere tractor in the middle of the field as he oversees the operation.
Stopped at a local produce auction to get a few shots and came across this pair of hand painted beauties. I was rather impressed with the time someone took to paint these and the pair sold for under thirty dollars,which was a deal in my opinion.
Mom takes the boys for a ride out to the mailbox to retrieve the mail. The keen youngsters heard my car slow up and turned to see what the sound was. A long lens helped get the shot.
An older Amish man heads back towards the barn while a young whipper snapper guides an empty wagon up the field.Notice the bare feet on the closer driver.
This Amish family is hard at work on a warm september day harvesting their corn crop. One wagon moves along to catch the freshly cut stalks until it is full, and the next empty wagon is heading up the field to take its place when needed. This year has been a banner year for corn and fields will be a buzz with activity in the coming weeks.
Each year around this time I find myself scanning the landscape for fall displays to photograph. I passed this farm stand on my travels and stopped to get permission to try a shot. The owner was more than willing to allow the endeavor and said to stop anytime. I decided to try a shot before sunrise this past weekend and assumed I would be there in the dark all by myself for a while, but to my surprise and delight,work was already under way in preparation for customers when I arrived. The owner was washing the driveway down,and to be honest I was originally going to crop the building on the right off my shot,but when the wet surface reflected the stand light,it seemed time to change my plan. So with sunrise still an hour away,I began to compose and fine tune things before the light got good.
The gorgeous sky lit up first and lasted maybe 5 minutes,but that was more than enough time to capture it and the expanse of mums that stretch toward the barn. While I was waiting for the light to begin shooting, the owner pulled up with a large produce wagon pulled by two horses and he backed that wagon into the second door as easily as driving a car,which really impressed me. Between the sky,the reflection, and the mums,I was very happy with my result. The bottom image is the angle I originally wanted to shoot for comparison and you can see the horse and wagon sitting in the field on the left.
A long lens helps compress this farm country scene, which includes a one room school down the hill on the right and two Amish farms in the distance. Sheer luck found me passing this spot at the end of the school day as the kids and their teachers headed for home. I never really stop and consciously think about composition at this point in my career, but the old rule of thirds can be seen in this shot and that helps create a pleasing arrangement for the eye to move around the image.
An Amish farmer heads down the road with a freshly cut load of tobacco. I highly doubt he will exceed the speed limit.
The two large trees on the right are destined for the chain saw,so I decided to record them before they fall in the next few weeks. I am sorry to see them go,but they are supposedly on their last leg and the time has come to remove them. Light painting with my flash at dusk helped reveal the details.
This little fellow was safely sandwiched between his older sisters as they went for a trip to town on their fancy cart. This youngster wasn’t going anywhere without his sisters approval and he probably will fondly remember taking trips like this as he grows older.
This image was taken at the same location as yesterdays harvest shot. I noticed the family heading toward me on a crisp autumn day, so I leaned against a telephone pole,pre-focused the camera and snapped a frame as they passed. They were laughing and talking as the made their way up the road,and if you can believe it,not one person was talking,texting or otherwise wasting their precious time on the latest gadget designed to drain our wallets and minds.
This is one time of the year I find very enjoyable for a variety of reasons. First,you can feel a change in the air and you know fall color is getting closer and the cold winds of the north will soon be bringing snow. It’s also a time to reflect on the summer gone by and watch local farmers harvesting their crops in the fields. As I have mentioned in the past,I like to find images of harvesting in which the workers are shown against a backdrop of farms to help tell a complete story. It’s a lot harder to find these scenarios but worth the effort in my opinion. Shown are Amish farmers cutting field corn to feed their cows over winter.
Birdhouses in a variety of colorful hues brighten this backyard garden.
Not sure if this is boredom of just exhaustion from playing hard,but this young fellow looks like he is ready for a nap.
I passed this display on my travels and just had to return and shoot it. This is the result of many pops of my flash,and several ambient exposures. The main ball on the carriage is covered in plastic, which at first kind of made me wish it was off,but after dusk,the plastic helped with the glowing effect,so it all worked out. The owner told me this setup cost $17,000, and they are going to do tourist rides and weddings, using a real horse of course. It supposedly was in a popular TV series based in New York City. I am sure many cinderella’s will be drawn to take a ride.
While this looks like two steam tractors racing,it actually is a competition to back up and hook up to something. This was shot at the rough and tumble reunion in Pennsylvania and the event includes all kinds of powerful machines from the past. You should see the drivers work the steering mechanism on these things,as it’s a real workout.
This Amish wagon was loaded with harvested corn yesterday as it headed up the road to the silo. He had to pause at this bend in the road to let the buggy pass. Sights like this will become common in the month ahead.
This was my third subject to light paint on the evening I was allowed to shoot at the air show. It is a lovingly restored and highly polished C-47 named Miss Virginia. A moon rising in the background added an extra detail to the shot. According to web sources,this restoration took over 7000 hours and the aircraft was named Miss Virginia to honor both the military and the state of Virginia. Miss Virginia was the name of the P-38 lightning that shot down Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in 1943.
Unfortunately I do not have any info on this plane from the air show, but I gave it my best attempt to show it off in a good light so to speak. I use a wireless flash setup on a pole to reach higher than my arm can reach. In this case it allowed me to position the flash high enough to throw light into the interior of the plane to give it an appearance of being ready to take off with a crew on board.
A quick addition thanks to friend Dan at the airport, this is the collings foundation B-17G “Nine o Nine”
Our local airport was the sight for a community event showcasing numerous airplanes and flying machines in a celebration of flight this past weekend. I am not a big fan of plane photos with a ton of people standing around,so I inquired whether there was any chance to come out after the show closed and do some light painting images of planes on the tarmac. Thankfully,I spoke to one of the gentlemen in charge and he was willing to trust me and allow me to give it a whirl. I returned later than I had hoped to,and that forced me to make quick decisions about what I could shoot in a short time frame till it was pitch dark out. The sunset was a huge disappointment for my background,but I lit the plane with about twelve pops of the flash at various angles and this was the result. Special thanks to Austin for the opportunity to shoot these special vehicles.
The plane shown above is the only restored flying B-24j in the world and is owned by the Collings foundation. Read more about it at http://www.collingsfoundation.org
It’s the time of year when farmers are kept busy harvesting a variety of crops. Freshly cut rows await the horse-drawn baler to make its way through the field. A german shepherd runs beside the machine for exercise.
Captured this Amish youth heading down the road on a tractor and upon closer examination,you can see he is hauling his transportation with him on the back. The two-wheeled scooter is the transportation of choice for Amish youth,as bikes are frowned upon. Last year I spoke to an Amish guy who I noticed coming up a hill at a rather fast pace,and it puzzled me how he was doing it? Turns out he had an electric motor added and it was all hidden on the frame. It intrigued me enough to think about buying one since he said it ran about $400 for everything. Well in the year since he got his,price went up to near a $1000 so I will stick with the bike for now.
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.
Not sure if this qualifies as horse and buggy parking but its in the ballpark. This pint-sized horse made an easy job out of hauling these two around.
This is a typical one room school in Lancaster County ,with the one exception that it still has a nice white fence around it. Many schools have been encircled with chain link fence or something similar after the tragedy at nickel mines a few years ago. As a photographer trying to capture the uniqueness of the landscape,it is much harder to get a shot like this anymore. Storm clouds in the background are what I had been following and when I spotted this foreground,I had to stop. A lovely farm is located a short distance away.
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.
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.
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?
Thomas the tank engine made another appearance at Lancaster counties Strasburg Railroad recently and I was lucky enough to be driving by on a side road when I noticed this group of Amish boys waiting for the train to come. The entire crew of youngsters had just placed multiple pennies on the tracks as I was getting out of my car,and if you look closely at the boy in the pink shirt,you can see him looking at his penny on the tracks as Thomas approaches. I walked up behind them with my attention looking down the tracks so as to act uninterested and as the train got closer, I got into position to capture them enjoying the passing locomotive.
Donald Reese Photography 