Susquehanna River

Today I met a few friends on the banks of the Susquehanna River in hopes of a beautiful sunrise and low water. Well, sometimes just just can't have what you want! The water was low about 45 minute before sunrise when we arrived and then it started rising quickly as the gates at the Conowingo Dam were opened. We scrambled for the high ground as we heard the sound of rushing water over the river rocks we had hoped to photograph and watched them disappear beneath the water. I had just enough time to make a couple shots before the water rose.

After getting run off the river bed, I headed to the footpath and just looked around. The forest was losing leaves quickly but still had enough remaining to attract my attention. I made some shots of the forest, a fisherman that showed up and the other side of the river, as the gulls circled. All of the forest  images below I processed with Snapart2.

Simple Subjects Color Compliments

Its been a really pretty fall day here in the Mid-Atlantic but I really needed an office day and before filing away images from my New York City day trip on Thursday, I processed these images. Simultaneously I took another booking for my New York Photo Day Trip, which is great; it should be a fun day!
These images were made in Central Park, where a curved stainless steel slide in a children's playground area caught my eye. I love reflections and the smooth surface of the well worn stainless was reflecting the blue in the sky and yellow of the Locust tree leaves overhead. I look to employ complimentary colors in my images whenever I get a chance, it makes an image pop! In addition to blue and yellow there are some other complimentary pairings in the RGB color model , where primary colors and secondary colors are paired, are red and cyan,  green and magenta.
These  images were made with the Lensbaby Composer fitted with the Double Glass Optic. The first image was processed using Topaz Adjust to gain the color pop, all the images were run through onOne Photoframe twice and processed in Photoshop. And no I didn't throw those yellow leaves on the slide, they fell into the picture and kept on sliding down! I love serendipity......

Finger Lakes

Just doing some sorting and filing, of work today and thought I would share this triptych of images from three separate shots I made while on the shore of Lake Cayuga in New York, at sundown. The sky was pretty bare so I focused my lens on the stones on the shore, as the wind whipped water of the lake washed over them. For each shot I moved my camera along the shore, to get some overlap in each image with the idea of making this work when cropping into a square format for the triptych. Now back to work!

PDN New York City

 

Yesterday I took the Megabus to New York City for the PDN show at the Jacob Javits Center. It was a mad house, and if it is any indication of the economy then things are looking up! I took a quick spin through the very crowded show floor where I ran into Tony Sweet and Susan Milestone. Tony has two beautiful images on display in the Nikon space. I Stopped at the Lensbay booth and they talked me into a fisheye shot, not pretty but fun, its on Facebook. I left the show at noon to do some street shooting and take a trip up to the Met. It was an awesome day in New York City. Blue skies, warm temps and a slight breeze. I was shooting with the Lensbaby Double glass Optic all day, to keep it light and simple. When I stopped to chat with some NYPD, I said it's a great day to be in New York City, and he said every day was great to be in NYC! I thought, what a great attitude. So from 8th ave and 28th in the garment district to 5th ave. and 82nd, it was great to be in NYC. Did I mention I love NEW York! Such diversity! I enjoyed shooting the skyscrapers, thinking yes this is Gotham City! I also enjoyed walking around Central Park and making some images around the grounds near the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This shot is a Lensbaby multiple exposure. I was only disappointed when I could not make an image I had in my mind that I saw last year when I was leaving of the rail yards with all the tracks coming together, as the sun was low in the western sky lighting up all the converging tracks, when I stopped to shoot it I was quickly told by the gate guard I could not........OK, I get it, especially with all the recent activity in the news. I wish those d___  terrorists would stop it! and lets have some peace in the world!

Prime Hook Marsh

Just a few shots from Prime Hook yesterday I made before sundown. Its flat land down here with the occasional snag of trees. Don't know how long these three sisters will be standing so I thought I would get another shot before they fall. It was a beautiful blue sky day. Too bad the clouds blew out before sundown. Heading back to Baltimore in a short while, for my Hopkins field shoot tomorrow morning and to do some catch up work at home.I am sure there are plenty of leaves to be raked!

Other good things at the Beach

I think I like the marsh as much as I do the beach itself. I headed north today to visit Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. When I was there on Monday showing Teri the territory I saw a flock of snow geese lift up out of the marsh only to settle back down. Sometimes the marsh hawk spooks them into this behavior. I checked out both areas I have known them to visit and could not find them so they must have been way out in the marsh, but they have arrived! Winter can not be far away.  I was hoping today, to see them a little closer in the pools of water in the hook. I did see a group a long way off as their white bodies created a white line against the edge of the water. I goofed around a bit waiting for sundown watching the Pintail ducks rummage for food on the bottom of the marsh bobbing their heads  in and out of the water. I then began my drive out of the marsh. Well there were the snow geese in a farmers field settling down for the night, Hundreds if not thousands.
So I pulled off the road and put on the 300mm 2.8 and began to make a few images in the fading light of day into night. The light was very low, but I wanted to at least get some shots to say YES the snow geese have arrived...so here's a few from tonight!

Rainy Day at the Beach: St. Peter's Church Lewes, De.

By noon I was ready to head out and see what the Fenwick Winecellars was about, hoping it really had established a functioning processing facility I could photograph. But no, it was just a storefront, I was invited for a tasting but it was just a little too early. They are planning on getting set up in the next year or so after getting all the legal stuff done. So right now all their products are made in their vineyards in Pa.

So I drove down Ocean Highway heading for the commercial fishing area in West Ocean City in the pouring rain. The old sea worthy fishing ships were unloading but it was so rainy I just could not find cover enough to get a shot; instead,  I found a beauty salon, got my hair cut, a manicure and pedicure. It was a great thing to do on a rainy beach day. I left feeling like I should have a Pumpkin Chariot outside with Prince Charming driving!  I went in a ragged rained on photographer and came out all fixed up!
; - )

Having no shots from today I revisited some I made in Lewes, Delaware on the grounds of the very historic St. Peter's Church. Maybe I should have saved them for Halloween. The church is very charming and the stones in the cemetery date back to the 1700's. I have added a Join My Mailing List button on the blog. I will be conducting workshops when I can fit some in the schedule between my Penn Camera Workshops and my Hopkins Classes. I will be happy to add you to the notify list. Check out the New York day trip on November 19, and the beach workshop scheduled for April 2011. I have one spot left for the November Beach workshop, if anyone is interested.

Beach Plum Antiques

Beach Plum Antiques is an eclectic little store in Bethany Beach, displaying items from decades ago mixed with decorative buoys, and furniture. I stopped there on the way north to Lewes on Monday as it looked like a store Teri would like. I decided to shoot with the Lensbaby. Wandering around among the oldies was fun and interesting.

Who wouldn't like a big blue painted tin Marlin? and how about an old porcelain bowl, or some rusty golf clubs with Walter Hagen's name on them, some glass 7-up bottles and some handmade table runners!

 

Well I had fun shooting there! These images were all made with the Lensbaby single glass optic at 5.6 and then treated with an image overlay in Photoshop and run through onOne Photo Frame software for some fun edge treatments. Oh and its raining here at the beach so I have had a morning processing. Now I am going to check out Fenwick Wine Cellars.

Water Colors at Cape Henlopen

Monday evening I took Teri Lou Dantzler to Cape Henlopen, De. There is a hook on the shore and the orientation faces west so sunsets often can be spectacular there with the light house as a subject of interest. But this night we had a moderate sun set and I enjoyed the colors in the water more than the actual sunset. The soft blue and pinks charmed me into capturing some images.

The first two images here are landscape swipes, the opening image is of the Hook of sand on the cape and the image above is of the western shore dissecting the flat landscape of the Delaware bay. The images below reflect the simplicity of the landscape and the colors that reflect into the waters surface as currents run below, creating different color tones on the surface.

The image below is the Delaware Breakwater East End Lighthouse.

 Here the beach grasses are shot back-lit against the western sky.

Sunrise and Sunset

Today I caught up on a little sleep as it was raining in the morning. I also processed a few more images from the last few days. I am still working on the pier and sunrise collection, so here's a few I worked on today.

The image above was created when I was on the pier shooting; this man sat down on the bench, and I decided to take his picture. Today when I developed it, more emotion came from it as I reviewed the image. When I shot it, I was thinking, yes, an elder gentleman, resting at sundown, observing the sea. Today when I looked at it some more, I realized that, my dad had worn the very same hat and coat and had the same white hair before passing eight years ago. While my dad had a little bigger stature it still stirred memories of his presence. Later on a family that was at the end of the pier came walking back and in fact it was their dad, who weary I am sure from the day decided to sit while the rest went to the end of the pier. I mistakenly thought when my eyes first fell on him, that he was just an old man alone by the sea, instead he had his family

This image I loved the repetition of the waves as they hit the shore from the overhead view on the pier, as well as the life below on the shore of the fisherman and the children building a sandcastle by the sea.

This image is a swipe of the pier pilings as the sun lit them up before sun down.

This image is from the sunrise shoot with Teri, when the sun had not come up over the horizon, the orange light of dawn was reflecting brightly  in the large windows of the ocean front beach houses. I used an image overlay in Photoshop to create the texture and finished it with a frame from onOne.

Beach Time

It has been a busy couple of days. I made it to the beach on Sunday by about 1:00 and met Teri-Lou Dantzler. She is on a whirlwind tour of the East Coast from New England and south. She fit in an overnight stay here in South Bethany. We made it down to the OC Pier for sundown and had fun composing images there. Today we made it out for sunrise and hit some towns heading north with our final stop in Cape Henlopen State Park for sundown. We had a fun two days before Teri headed north to meet a friend in New York.

 

 The opening image is a landscape swipe at the pier in OC, Md. 

The second image is a multiple exposure of a bench that was on the fishing pier.

Pier Reflections is a straight shot.

The last two images are long exposures on the shore at sunrise.

Color Riot

Today was a fun day working with workshop participants in the Susquehanna State Park. But boy it was windy, my face is still red from the wind. We were very lucky to have a little red canoe with fisherman show up and the group had fun making images. I did not because once again I was working, but the fisherman found me and asked for some images so I have e-mailed the participants and asked them for some red canoe files, to send on to the fisherman.

After the workshop, I came home and washed the Jeep, cut the grass and chilled tonight, playing with some images from the Tioga Forest where I have seen the best fall colors ever! I never, in my entire working life, had a chance to get out and really see fall's beauty because in retail at this time of year, you are rearranging selling floors, unpacking 40 foot trailers, holding and attending meetings and in general working 80 hours a week, six days a week, so I am so grateful to be able now to get out and really enjoy the beauty of the season!

Heading to the beach tomorrow for a few days..then back for the field shoot with he Hopkins students on Saturday.The first two images here are processed in snapart2 Impasto. The last image is two images blended in Photoshop. One is a blur zoom and the other a straight shot. The frames are processed in onOne software.

Delicate Fall

Fall and all its glory is here. I enjoy the delicate way in which leaves scatter themselves along the surface of streams, rocky ledges and the forest floor, creating lacy textures, and colorful patterns with their shapes. This collection of images was made in the New York State's Finger lakes area and in Maryland's Susquehanna State Park. All the images were run through snapart2 for a soft impressionist feeling.

I have had the pleasure of tutoring one on one with some very talented women photographers this week. That is always fun. On Wednesday I went to Fells Point and was very fortunate to witness the Great Schooners in the harbor, set sail for a parade of sails before the race out of Baltimore on Thursday morning to Norfolk. My student was photographing the event for her lesson and I was kicking myself for not having my camera! But I was working and it was about her not me, but it was still pretty cool to witness!

I am looking forward to my workshop tomorrow for Penn Camera at  the Susquehanna State Park and meeting Teri-Lou at the beach on Sunday.