Niagara Falls welcomes Wallenda

Nik Wallenda will attempt to walk a wire from USA to Canada on June 15th, 2012. The event will be nationally televised and should give our city a major boost in tourism. Mr Wallenda has set up a pratice wire at the Seneca Niagara Casino. Open to the public, people can watch his daily practices in front of the casino. I took a few captures today. He makes it look so easy but in no way is it. He usually makes several trips on the inclined wire , sometimes walking forward and backwards.Afterwards, he talks with the media and answers questions to the public. Today he had his good friend Bello Nock, who is also an accomplished wire artist, and New York State Senator George Maziarz with him.

Niagara Falls Bike Path

I've been getting depressed lately because I don't feel our city does enough to make it appealing to our citizens and visitors. Today they changed my mind a bit when I decided to take a bike ride along the the Robert Moses. They now have bird houses set up along the river for tree swallows. These tiny metalic blue and white birds dart back and forth chasing bugs to eat along the river. It's quite fasinating to watch and quite difficult to photograph the little guys while they are flying so fast. Fortunately the winds sweep off the river and if you time it right you can catch them in a head wind and get that great shot. Today I got one.

Fort Erie Opening Day

It was opening day at Fort Erie Race Track on Sunday. I love the horses. I always go to Fort Erie on the first day of the season. It is a great experience. It is also a major challenge to photograph the track, horses and people at mid day with bright sun. You will literally need to use every trick in the book to pull it off. Check out these images and see if I met the challenge.

Waterfall Shoot

Clarendon falls - Clarendon - New York

Indian falls - Lockport - New york

Lockport falls - Lockport - New York

Holley falls - Holley - New York

Holley falls - Holley - New York in black & white..... 2012 spring waterfall shoot.

Waterfall Workshop was a blast.

Wow! Wow! Wow! Is all I can say. Our 2012 spring waterfall workshop was a huge success. If you missed our anual spring waterfall workshop then shame on you. What a great time we had. We managed to shoot six waterfalls out of the seven we had planned. Royalton falls was just to hazardous to get near it, but we did get to shoot Lockport falls,Medina falls, Clarendon falls, Holley falls, Indian falls, and Akron falls. One hundred and thirty miles and eight hours of the best waterfall shooting ever. The weather was perfect, we got a slightly overcast day, excellent waterfall shooting weather. We managed some great hiking. We took a lunch break at Sam's Diner in Holley for a wonderful meal with great old time ambiance. The water levels were perfect. Here I have added some sample images from the shoot. Click on any image to enlarge. I will be posting more images shortly.

Cunningham Falls

This is a nice close up of Cunnungham falls, Frederick county, Maryland. We still have two openings left for our May 2nd waterfall workshop. This is a great opportunity to learn. The cost is $200 and we will start at 9 am, tour five local waterfalls with a new bonus waterfall this year to make it six. Includes transportation from Niagara Falls and lunch. Get personal hands on training with camera techniques. Call 716-297-3387 for more details.

The battle that saved Washington D.C.

We took some time out to visit the historic Monocacy battlefeild in Frederick county, Maryland. Monocacy is famously known as the battle that saved Washington D.C. During the civil war General Lee devised a plan to send 15,000 Confederate soldiers up the Shenandoah Valley to Monocacy Junction and then move east to attack the Union captital. This would alleviate the pressure on General Lee's march on Gettysburg. The Union troops were eventually defeated in Monacacy and forced to retreat. Although the battle was a military victory for the Conferates and their only victory in the north, it was also a defeat, because the time spent fighting the battle cost the Confederates a crucial day of marching and provided the Union time to send reinforcements to Washington D.C. The battlefeild now lies quiet and peaceful with rolling hills and wild flowers. We were lucky enough to to catch some civil war re-enactors at the visitors center to give us a signal corps demonstration on how the soldiers communicated during battle.