Red & Yellow

Colorful lilies from my garden today.

WCM

Wallace-Cross Mill is beautifully restored. A great place for pictures. I got down into the creek to get this great reflection in the water. The day lilies were bursting in color and a great contrast on the red mill.

Old Mill

I decided to do a four image pano in infrared to Baumgardner's mill. I used a long exposure along with a R-72 red filter to get the infrared effect. The four images were then stacked,aligned and blended together in Photoshop CC. I then boosted the contrast and converted the image to black and white.

Giraffe Says " What? "

Animal pictures are always great but if you wait and get that eye connection with the camera you get an even better image. Give me your suggestions on what you think this giraffe is saying or thinking.

Haine's Shoe House

Located east of York in Hallam is the Haine's shoe house. It has been turned in to an ice cream parlor now and touts " The best ice cream this side of the Mississippi ". Wrong haha, but the building is cool. As I was photographing this shoe house the sky started getting ominous and a storm was approaching. Later I found out they had tornado warnings out for that evening and didn't know it. The clouds did add drama to my images and added some additional interest.

Baumgardner Mill

Great find here. Baumgardner Mill and covered bridge is a photographers playground. The property looks abandoned and very neglected which right now makes for really interesting pictures but I fear in the future this place will be lost forever if something isn't done soon. Vines, bushes and tall grasses are taking over the property. The pano in an earlier post ( old House ) is really the mill / house/ farm. The image inside the bridge looks out at the mill house. I wanted to show the trusses inside and the scene outside so I did three exposures at EV -1, 0, +1. I then processed them in Aurora HDR Pro.

Cave Man

Penns Cave Video ( Click Here ) I just want to mention this because sometimes your camera is over its head in ability. This is Penns Cave in Pennsylvania. I stopped just as they were opening for the morning. I had plenty of time to do a four image pano of their beautiful hotel at the entrance without tons of tourists in my image. When I went into the cave...oops maybe I have the wrong camera. I had my Canon Powershot sx50 hs and although its an excellent travel camera and has great lens versatility it's not a good choice for low light without a tripod. In the cave you ride a small narrow skiff through the cave. A little motion, a little rocking made it difficult to get sharp images. Now I am not a video guy but to save the day you may want to use the video on your camera just so you get something to take home. Usually the video will pick up the ambient light better than the camera will. I posted a short clip here just to give an example of what I mean. Be adaptable when in the field.

Big View

If you ever get to York county take some time to hike up High Point Park outside of York, PA. The park overlooks the Susquehanna valley and has spectacular views. I used a tripod to turn my camera vertical and panned eight images to make a panorama. The eight photos were then uploaded to Adobe Camera Raw and then into Photoshop CC. Once in Photoshop CC go to file > to scripts > to load files into stacks. Choose add files from desktop, check off the attempt to align files box. Once the files are stacked go to edit > to auto-blend layers, check off the content fill box. This does an incredible job of merging, aligning, blending your images. In many instances I don't have a tripod handy and you can do your shots hand held and still get great results.

Welcome to Pennsylvania

I merged five images in Photoshop CC to make this pano. A view of the water shed from the Tioga Pennsylvania Welcome Center on route 15 south.

Old House

While traveling through Lancaster county I found this abandoned farm house, mill and covered bridge and decided it would make an excellent pictures. I turned my camera vertical and made five images to use in a panoramic of this scene. I merged the five images in Photoshop CC. Correction, this is Baumgardner mill and barn, the old house is on the left outside the picture.

Hummingbird Series

This hummer is really feeding from a feeder. The leaves in the foreground were strategically placed to mask out the feeder.

An image from my summer hummingbird series. Shot with a Nikon D3, 70-200mm 2.8 lens. I am still desperately seeking to shoot a male ruby throated but I have yet to see one in my garden. I guess sometimes the challenge isn't operating the equipment but patience waiting for the right opportunity.

Automobile

My favorite car a 1996 Chrysler LHS with low milage. I chose to use a R-72 red filter to lighten the foliage on the trees to highlight the black car and give me some separation from the background.

This tree had bent over permanently and looked like it was just to darn tired to stand anymore.

I made an interesting discovery today. I took the three images below and stacked them and merged them in Photoshop CC and got the image above. I didn't realize I could do this with images of different focal lengths. This could open up a lot of new possibilities for my images. I will need to explore this further.

Hummingbird in Flight

Making Progress

Hummer Season

I took some time to try my hand at shooting a few hummingbirds. I found that I need a long lens of 200mm or better to compress the background.

United States Marine Memorial at Fisherman's Park in North Tonawanda.

Always bring your Camera

I have my bicycle modified with a tripod head mounted on the handle bars and a small detachable camera case so I can do photography while out riding. On this particular ride across Grand Island I was passing through Buckhorn State Park when the skies turned ominous. I stopped and made this four shot pano.

On the Turf

Shooting from the stands gives the viewer an over all picture of the action. This particular shot shows the beautiful grounds of the Fort Erie Race Track.

Once you get your exposures correct, your backgrounds clear and your panning down, it takes a bit of luck to get a group of riders in the right positions for a good photo. This image captures the action of the races.

Bald Eagle

Timing is Everything

Shooting horses running at 30 mph isn't easy. It takes a good camera and good panning technique. If you do it right you get a great image.

First Day

Opening day for the 2016 racing season at Fort Erie Race Track. We had a great day at the track, with my boys and my grandson. I got some great images of the races and track people, they are hilarious.

Clinton's Big Ditch

Rode my bike from Niagara Falls to Tonawanda today. I shot four images and made this panorama of the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal divides the twin cities before it empties in to the Niagara river. I liked the reflections in this image.

This is my daughter Christina. She is my stand in model so I can adjust my lights for an upcoming portrait session.

On my way home from a bike ride today I made this image. This is shot from the Lindberg Ave. bridge looking south over Cayuga creek. I focus stacked three images at different focal lengths and merged them with Photoshop CC. I used a R-72 infrared filter on a Canon Powershot sx50 hs.

Lockport falls wasn't much of a falls, more like a cascading stream and that's being kind. I really like this place when the water is flowing so I think I will wait for some rains then make another attempt at this one.

Part of the Spring Waterfall Workshop of 2016. Clarendon falls.

Erie Canal

I found this old building along the Erie canal. I liked the reflections in the water. It almost looks painted. The early morning sun gave this scene a beautiful warming effect. It reminds me of possibly what the canal looked like in the 1800's. I had to crop the image to a 1:1 ratio because the surrounding scene had too many modern structures and wouldn't give this image the same look.

Medina falls - B&W