Tag Archives: Nature

Calling All Snowblowers!

Posted by reesephoto on

For those who enjoy my little stories, this one may be one for the record books! Our region got hammered with about thirteen inches of snow, some sleet and brutal cold temperatures from last weekend to currently. I headed out last Monday to look for photo opportunities after my work closed due to the bad conditions. I drove around for a while catching some general snow photos but I was still hoping for something that would be unlike most Winter photos. Well I started down this hill out in the rural countryside and off in the distance I could see snow being launched but was not sure what was going on. I slowed to a stop and with my longest lens I could see there was a project underway as shown in the top image. Now this is an Amish farm so I figured there was no way I would be welcome here to snap photos.

So I had just turned into the lane when I see a Bobcat headed my way figuring I was about to be told, hit the road buddy! As he stopped to talk to me, I gingerly asked if there was any possibility I could go down to the pond to snap some photos of the snow blower crew in action? To my absolute surprise he said sure your welcome to head on down. There was snow flying in every direction but there was a methodical approach that was well orchestrated. in the long distance photo there are five guys following each other to progressively clear the pond. The second image is my personal favorite because of the sheer number of teens and men at work throwing snow and the two in the middle doing a criss cross pattern were icing on the cake. Something else I started to notice was the younger boys were starting to move in front of me and they would watch where I was pointing my camera so they could slip into as many shots as possible. At one point it was starting to ruin many good shots so I would point my camera one way and as they were moving I would swing toward the real subject and capture the real subject.

I was here well over an hour snapping away and at one point, one of the snow blowers found a thin spot so they backed away and basically created a no go zone. The water started slowing flowing onto the ice and at one point a young man about mid twenties got my attention and asked me to move away from the wet area. I had seen some potential shots with the farm reflecting in the water so I was looking for cool shots. The third photo shows the watery area on the right where I was standing in the water. So as you look at the photo, that patch of snow eventually had water around it on the left side as well so it literally looked like an island as you can see from the actual on my stomach shot before I got reprimanded. So as usual I am focused on potential photos and when the water covered the left side I ended up crawling on my stomach across the snow to get the farm reflecting shot. It was at this point I heard a serious SIR, would you please move off that section, SIR, this is the second time I had to tell you to stay off and I do not want you to fall in and have to be rescued! That section you are on is starting to slowly sink. In his defense, he was wearing a fire fighting jacket so he probably has been trained in potentially dicey situations. I honestly did not have any fear of going through the ice but when he noted it was slowly sinking, I made a hasty retreat. All in all one of those photo memories that I will remember for a long time

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It actually Happened!

Posted by reesephoto on

Hello again, I finally captured a few new photos to share. I had a scheduled evening photo shoot at a township park here in Lancaster county and I had just completed the shoot. As I got to my vehicle, a van pulled in beside me and out climbed 6 exuberant young Amish girls who headed toward the back of the park. Now out pops the driver, who is an older gentleman carrying a camera headed where they were last seen. I can’t remember in all my time in Lancaster county ever seeing Amish having what appeared to be a photo session? I watched from a distance as they each posed for photos in several locations.

My wheels were turning wondering if it’s possible they may head to the opposite side of the park where there is a nice covered bridge? I decided I was going to go there and wait and see if I might get lucky. I had envisioned getting brave and asking them to walk holding hands through the bridge and perhaps do a simple silhouette of them if they ever came to the bridge? I grabbed my camera and went and sat on the concrete abutment at the entrance to the bridge. Fifteen minutes went by and I started thinking this isn’t happening when all of a sudden I hear voices from the other end of the bridge. They could not see me sitting there but Trust me this next part blew my mind! There was some giggling and chit chat when all of a sudden I hear one say “why don’t we hold hands and walk side by side to the other end? Tell me what the odds are that they literally spoke my idea into existence as I was sitting there? I made up my mind I was going to wait out of sight till they were in the middle of the bridge and then pop out and get the shot I wanted! Well of course my camera decided to miss focus and every single one was fuzzy!

So they hung around deciding what to do next so I said any chance you will repeat the walk? They hesitated but said sure and I got them walking, then they came back to the photographer and an impromptu piggy back session started which I also captured! The only thing I could think of was maybe it was Rumspringa time which as I understand it is a time of seeing what the world has to offer with little restraint from the elders. Years ago I watched beer cans get tossed by the dozens out of a buggy and that I know was Rumspringa time.

Scenic Church and Dogwood Trees: A Captivating View

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This small town Church and the Dogwood trees framing the view beckoned me for a shot. What you don’t see are the ridiculous amount of power lines I had to remove to end up with this undistracting result. While it can be a tedious effort to remove them, I decided it was better done on the computer than with a chain saw! The property where the dogwood is located required me to step into the yard a few feet. A lady was walking out a connected driveway there and I asked is this your home? She said no but followed it up with what did you want? I said just permission to step in the yard to photograph the dogwood and Church and instantly she says go ahead? She says to me ” isn’t that beautiful”, I respond except for the obnoxious wires, and she says you can do it if you want it bad enough. She gave me the kick in the pants I needed to indeed make it happen. By the way I think she lived there!

Nature’s Dazzling Display

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Fall is my favorite time of the year,and even though this years spectacle of color seems a bit lackluster,one can still find pockets of beauty if you look a bit. Despite the fact that I traveled thirteen hundred miles this month to see foliage,this scene was among my favorites and it was less than ten miles from home. If anyone wants suggestions on shooting foliage,I would say mix it up and try some tight shots like this using a telephoto to compress the scene and keep sky out of the shot. It wont be long till old man winter starts to blow and just between you and me,I hope its one of the snowiest and coldest winters.I just got four new snow tires on the truck and I am itching to get out and explore.

Persistence pays off

Posted by reesephoto on

Several people who know me have commented that they enjoy my light painting photos, but want to see more of my nature and scenic photography, so I will appease them with a shot I did in Acadia National Park one fall morning. I really love traveling to the New England states in autumn, because the landscapes and quaint villages make for some terrific possibilities. Many times in the past I have made the trek to Vermont and New Hampshire, only to find a nasty batch of bad weather has destroyed most of the fall color, or I am slightly early or late. After suffering through that situation several times, I started to have a back up plan each trip, and that turned out to be the great state of Maine. The beauty of Maine is the fact that even if the color is a flop, you can hit places like Acadia National Park, which is really quite spectacular. It features a rugged rock lined coast, lovely pines, crashing surf and more. The title of my post refers to the fact that I headed to this mountaintop overlook Four days in a row, and on the very last day I was rewarded with this sunrise. This view is from Cadillac mountain in Acadia, which is the highest point along the atlantic seaboard and the first place you can see the sunrise in the United States. Each day before this one was full of nasty winds, rain, thick fog,etc, but this day awoke to the ocean being covered in a spectacular wave of rolling fog. The Sun made an appearance and provided the finishing touch to the scene. All the mornings of getting up an hour and a half before dawn for nothing great, were soon forgotten as I took in the awesome scene before me.

A few tidbits of info for anyone contemplating visiting Acadia or anywhere along the coast of maine. First take plenty of high-capacity memory cards, wake early and see things that 99 percent of tourists miss by sleeping in. Next, if you are one that likes to get unique perspectives, be aware that if you fall in the surf or get washed out in Maine, chances are fairly good that you are finished. Maine pretty much figures if you are brave or stupid enough to be pulled in, that’s your problem. I basically like that view and will tell two simple stories of my escapades in Maine.

The first is from a trip I took to Acadia years ago, and as I was working the rocky coast, I made my way along a ledge that lead to a small cove of rocks that was almost ten feet high by about twenty feet wide. I was dazzled by the crashing surf on the rocks below,which were at least 8 feet below me,and even though I knew the tide was coming in, I was oblivious to that fact. After about thirty minutes of shooting, I noticed the ledge I came in on, was now under two feet of water. If you ever had a scare where you feel your heart racing, then you know what I felt at that moment. My only possible way out was to climb the sheer walls in this cove, and I did that by using my Gitzo tripod,which is very strong,and I literally stood on it to reach the top. All this while The surf was spraying me occasionally and getting closer. It was a real eye opener, because had The surf got me, that would have been all she wrote.

My next memory of Maine involves a trip to the Portland Headlight, which in my view is a very gorgeous lighthouse. Anyway, as usual,they have a fence to kind of keep you off the rocks, but again, if you are after that special image, you most certainly feel the call to jump that fence. I have ventured into this usually very safe landscape of granite many times, and gotten great images over the years. On this particular trip I was somewhat close to the ocean, but I was standing on a mountain of a rock that no kidding was at least 25 feet high and 20 feet square.This rock was far enough and high enough from the crashing surf that the incoming waves were only just nipping at the rock next to mine. To get a clear picture, imagine you are on a 25 foot high rock and there is a two foot gap to the next rock and you can look down and see surf at the bottom. wave after wave mildly washed around the bottom few feet of these house sized monsters. As I was looking through the viewfinder, I hear a thunderous crash and look up to see the entire rock next to mine covered, the 25 ft deep crevasse filled with water and water washing up to my ankles. If you have never heard the term, rogue wave, familiarize yourself with it, before hitting Maine. Those memories are forever etched in my mind because of the intensity of the experience.

Okay, one more funny one,to me anyway. I was photographing at the pemaquid lighthouse one fall morning. There was only one other guy there shooting. I said hi and noticed a small sticker on his tripod that said John Shaw. I asked why he had a John Shaw sticker and he said well, it’s because I am John Shaw. For anyone who does not know him, he is a fairly well-known nature photographer who has published numerous books. I had all his books, but in person, he looked different than I remembered. He was very cordial, left me load a roll of 220 velvia slide film in his fuji panoramic camera and shoot a series with it. I was dazzled by the meeting and even had my wife snap our picture together.