photography – Page 13

September 23, 2010September 23, 2010

You Capture – Flowers

The theme/assignment this week for Beth’s You Capture meme was flowers.

A lot of the stuff I shoot is in or around one of the houses. This week I wanted to be different. I knew I’d be driving up to East Central Pennsylvania on Sunday and thought maybe I’d see a bunch of roadside stands selling mums. It’s that time of year, you know. (Fall. Woo hoo!!!)

I did see some places with flowers for sale, but most if not all of them were Amish-owned and, it being Sunday, closed. Those folk can be sort of funny about you poking around their places, especially in that area where the Amish are a huge tourist attraction. So no mum shots.

After leaving Hawk Mountain, however, I found a cute little town where I could practice some shooting at odd angles and capturing some interesting flower images. I’ve shared my favorites here.

That pot of purple asters alone is not all that interesting. But I loved the green chair sitting beside it and I think the maroon and yellow trim on the building added some interesting color, too.

This poor flower was the last one on the plant. And it is half-eaten. Probably by some dumb, stupid stink bugs. The color of the flower is nice, but the extreme dark green of its leaves are what really make the colors on the flower stand out.

reminds_me_of_grapes — Reminds Me of Grapes

Even though flowers are the subject here, the effect I was going for was all about color. I love the bright-green leaves on the plant to the right of the white flowers (bacopa, I think). But I really like this shot as a whole with the purple bench, blue window trim and reddish coleus(?) leaves in the background.

I have to admit, I was initially drawn to this image because that donkey is funky-cool. Plus, I just loved the colors of the sign against the stone wall. The fact that the donkey is also a flower pot was a bonus.

This last shot is my favorite. I love the crazy color combinations. I also like the angle. Oh yeah, there are giant, paper flowers in that window, too.

You can see more creative genius with flowers at Beth’s blog.

If you would like to see the rest of the images I captured in that cute little town, visit my Flickr page.

September 22, 2010

Visiting Hawk Mountain

A year or so ago, a friend told me about this place in East Central Pennsylvania called Hawk Mountain.

As noted on their Web site…

“Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is one of the best places in the northeastern United States to watch the annual hawk migration, one of nature’s greatest wildlife spectacles. Between August 15 and December 15, an average 20,000 hawks, eagles and falcons pass the Sanctuary’s North Lookout and are identified and counted.”

It would have been cool to see a bunch of migrating raptors. But I happen to live in a part of the country where many hawks over-winter. So we get to see them quite frequently. And if they aren’t hanging around all Winter, they are sure enough passing through in large numbers as they head south and then return north in the Spring.

Ugly road. Cool diner. I think this was somewhere between Reading and Hamburg.

But this post isn’t about birds. It’s about my road trip. Actually, it’s about sharing pictures I took during the trip. The cow shots I shared yesterday are just the tip of the iceberg.

A co-worker’s recent excursion reminded me of the place. She visited recently and had some pretty nice pictures to share. So I decided a road trip was in order.

I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, but I must admit it would have been sooooo much more awesome on the motorcycle.

My favorite stretch of road was PA-10 from Oxford to just north of Honey Brook. I’ll definitely have to head back that way one day. I hit a bit of turnpike-type highway from there to Reading. Then I was on Hwy 61 for a while. That was all interesting, but not nearly as scenic as PA-10 through farm country.

Soon enough I was turning onto Hawk Mountain Road. That’s when I spotted this cool, dilapidated barn.

This old farm looked like a castle ruin.

After a quick drive up my favorite type of mountain road — narrow, winding, and flanked by trees in varying degrees of color change — and a short but strenuous hike, I reached the top of Hawk Mountain.

It was a nice view. But getting to the top? Oh my God. It’s a good thing I am very sure-footed, that’s all I can say. Here are a couple of pictures of the trail. And this is the easier one.

The trail goes right through the middle of the next image. For real. That’s why there’s an orange blaze on the tree.

And when I got to the top, what did I find?

A whole bunch of bird watchers. The guys wearing tan are the ranger-types and spotters who are there to educate folks and count the birds. One day last week, 1,400+ broad-winged hawks flew past. Not all at once, but still.

In addition to the bird watchers, there were also lots and lots of stink bugs. I am sick to death of those darn things.

I did not hang around long, but I did get some nice pictures. I’ll post a few of my favorites here…

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from my Hawk Mountain trip, you’ll have to visit my Flickr photo-sharing site.

September 21, 2010

Bothered Bovines

I’ve mentioned before that I have a thing for cows, right?

I know I’ve also mentioned that cows tend to get a little freaked out when you stop to say hello.

I mean, think about it. Day in and day out, cars, trucks and motorcycles rumble past. Every now and then, if the weather is nice, someone might stick their head out of a window and yell, “Moo!” Or a motorcyclist might honk as they motor past. But most people don’t stop.

Of course, I’m not most people.

The way cows do react when you stop cracks me up.

It's not just the cows that are watching me here.

I haven’t “mooed” or anything. I just stopped my car, got out, and stepped over to the fence to take a picture or two. It was such a pretty day, I couldn’t resist. At least three of the cows and both horses are watching me closely. If you click on the picture, you’ll see a larger image.

That black cow in the center of the frame was definitely the more curious of the lot.

Her mostly white friend was also watching me pretty closely. I wasn’t waving or doing anything menacing. I didn’t even moo. (I’d have no idea what I was saying if I did moo.) I was just snapping a few pictures.

I couldn’t stand beside the field all day, so I snapped one more photo of the curious cows before leaving.

I snapped that last picture from the car. The cow was pretty and I like the red barn in the background, too.

That was the last cow photo of the day. After that, it was on to Hawk Mountain. I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow.

September 16, 2010September 16, 2010

You Capture – Photographer’s Choice

This week’s You Capture assignment should have been easy. Instead of some arbitrary theme, it was photographer’s choice. So I could do whatever I wanted.

What I wanted to do was take my camera into the city (I hadn’t decided which one) and, using my 50mm, fixed-focus lens on manual setting, try to capture cool pictures of stuff at odd angles. Some of the other You Capture participants have shared some really cool, odd-angle shots and I wanted to try to emulate that.

It never happened. Surprise, surprise right?

I did manage to do some shooting this week. After deciding which images to share (there’s even one I captured this morning as I was writing this post thanks to Shannon), I had to come up with a theme.

I call this collection Eye of the Beholder. Because much of what I like about photography is capturing pieces of life that I’ve seen in my own special way.

My daughter, Amy, calls this guy Grasshead. It’s something one or both of her kids did at daycare this year. It’s just a sock stuffed with some medium, topped with grass seed, decorated to look like a man. What a cool idea, eh? The other night, as I sat on her deck staring at the guy, I kept thinking of Kilroy. I think it was the angle, which I did not manage to capture, but I wanted to share this shot anyway.

Photography to me isn’t always about capturing a perfectly focused and lit shot. It’s often capturing something interesting I have seen. I love the label on this bottle of beer (I have a thing for cows). And I thought it looked interesting sitting atop this gatepost with goldenrod as a fuzzy backdrop.

Speaking of fuzzy… I did some post-processing on this one to make the image blurry. I captured it towards the end of our evening yesterday. Shannon had invited her best friends over so we could finally meet all of them and hang out. Shannon made an excellent Thai Red Curry for us (shrimp, broccoli and red peppers in a curry-flavored coconut-milk base). Laura brought some delightful wine to go with it, which we all did a nice job of finishing off. All except for Hubby who prefers beer. Not cow beer. Just plain ole German wheat beer.

Meg, deep in thought. I captured this shot while poking around the backyard looking for something, anything interesting to photograph.

The next image is my favorite capture from that session.

I couldn’t share that shot without sharing this next one.

I never get far without one or more dogs being nearby. That’s how I captured the picture of Meg posted previously. In the image immediately above, you can see K’s leg in the foreground with her body reflected in the frog’s silver ball as she interrupts my shot.

And speaking of frogs… here’s the shot I captured this morning after Shannon popped into my office to say, “There’s a really cute tree frog on my window.”

You can’t really appreciate this guy’s size just by looking at the picture. Even with his (or her) legs extended, it was probably only about 2 inches long from toe to toe. This is the one shot I got before it hopped away.

So those were my choices to share for the week. If you’d like to see what other participants came up with, visit Beth’s site. She hadn’t added this week’s link at the time of this writing, so you may need to check back later. She’s a very busy Mom of three who lives in a time zone at least an hour, maybe two, behind me. So be patient.

Which of my captures, if any, did you like best? Do tell, please. Comments make my day.

September 9, 2010September 9, 2010

You Capture – Signs

One of the cool things about participating in Beth’s You Capture meme is seeing how differently everyone interprets the week’s assignment.

I mean, people DO think differently you know. (Trust me. I am married to an engineer.)

The assignment for this week was SIGNS.

I wonder how many folks will go with the literal interpretation?

u_must_stop — Stopping is not an option.

Imagine the town council discussions around this one. I mean, when does STOP not mean one has to stop. Is that clarification really necessary? And why not use “YOU” on the sign instead of “U”? (This is an actual sign at an intersection in Romney, West Virginia.)

low_water — Would anyone really consider crossing this "bridge" during a flood?

I like the odd road signs approach, but I like my “signs that Fall is coming” take on it, too. Better, actually. Because that’s one thing I like to do each year, watch as the trees slowly start to turn.

fall_is_coming_4 — Signs of Fall (look closely to see the very early signs here)

What about the other signs in nature? You know, signs that there are critters afoot?

snake_signs — Snakeskin = sign that a large snake is living in our woodpile.

fox_signs — Poop on stump = sign that a fox is living in or very close to our yard.

That scat (aka animal crap) is not an isolated incident. Foxes leave droppings to mark their territory. This particular fox (maybe there are more than one?) has left lots of this kind of sign on and around our property.

And we can’t forget signs from a higher power. They come in many forms. The sign I am referring to occurred on Tuesday night. The very first night in my new office (more on the office thing later).

This room used to be Hubby’s office. All the years Hubby was using this room (since 1998), I never saw one of these. Like three seconds after I noticed the little guy, who was only an inch long if that, I saw him eat a bug. How cool is that?

When your name is ToadMama, it’s very cool.

A sign that this office move was a good one? Perhaps. I guess time will tell on that one.

To find out how other people interpreted the You Capture SIGNS assignment, head over to Beth’s blog and follow some of the links.

September 2, 2010September 2, 2010

You Capture – Morning

I’m not a morning person in the sense that it takes my brain a bit of time to start functioning properly after waking. But I AM a morning person when it comes to photography. Like any self-respecting photographer, I LOVE the morning light. Although I haven’t participated in You Capture much recently, I have been looking at and enjoying many of the pictures captured by other participants. S0 I decided it was about time to get some images of my own back into the rotation.

The focus on the above shot is nowhere near as sharp as it should be. I decided to share it anyway because it’s a very good example of the morning light peeking through the trees AND the softness of the light.

While the light is soft, it is often very direct, too. Maybe “selective” is a better word. As the sun rises and pokes through the trees, its rays break through in clusters illuminating individual plants and other things nicely.

Another example of that selective spotlighting I mentioned. Notice how some leaves are lit up nicely while most of the forest remains in shadow.

Every now and then, the sun surprises me as it rises. Here I was trying to capture some other leaves being illuminated when the sun jumped out from behind the leaves and hit me directly. I sort of like the way the shot turned out though.

This next picture isn’t specifically a “morning” shot. I did capture it this morning, but the reason for sharing the image is just to let everyone know that my caterpillar is still hanging around. You’ll have to read more about that caterpillar if you want to know more.

He’s in the exact same tree I moved him to four days ago.

And I just have to share this shot of the caterpillar from last night, which I took right after Hubby said, “Your caterpillar is still in that tree.” (I’d been away for three days.)

Hop on over to Beth’s blog, I Should Be Folding Laundry, to see some more brilliant morning You Capture photographs.