"Floating Leaf" - Centre County, PA

Floating Leaf - Centre County, PA

This is another one of my favorites from my "Black & White Period".  At the time I was heavily involved in trying to teach myself the "Zone System" (a system of determining exposure and film development) practiced and perfected by Ansel Adams. 

On late-fall a walk through the woods looking for subjects that would lend themselves well to experimenting with these techniques... I saw this leaf floating on the surface of a slow moving stream. 

I was attracted to the various textures and the range of tones... from a few near white grains of sand here and there to the deep blacks along the corners... all forming a frame for the remains of this decaying leaf.

Shot with a Nikon F2 with 55/3.5 Micro-Nikkor on Tri-x film.

"Mirror Image in Sand" - Starfish, St. Augustine, FL

Another image from early in my career as a photographer and a perfect example of what I've always said... "Some of your best photos will always be the result of complete accidents, dumb luck... or both".

Mirror Image in Sand - St. Augustine, FL.

This was shot made during a family vacation to St. Augustine, Florida.  I was about 18 at the time and our family had been staying at the Kon Tiki campground outside St. Augustine.

We'd been collecting shells and other treasures from the sea at the beach one day and set them all aside on the picnic table to dry out.

The next morning as we were packing up for the return trip home to Pennsylvania... I picked up this starfish and was delightfully surprised to see this image magically materialize right before my eyes.

I immediately grabbed my camera (which I think was a Yashica TL Electro-X the time) from the car and started shooting away.  It had a relatively decent quality Soligor zoom lens on it with a macro capability that I didn't use much due to the challenge of holding it steady enough to get good results.  But In this case I got lucky and was able to hand hold it well enough to capture this image on Kodak Plus-X film.  

As an aside I think this also might have been the first time I really had to make a photo under the pressure of a "deadline".  As I recall the family car with pop-up camper attached was pulling out of the campsite as I was shooting :-)

"Abandoned Farmhouse" - Pine Grove Mills, PA

Abandoned Farmhouse - Pine Grove Mills, PA 

I've always been really fond of this photograph... shot early on in my career as a photographer.

I used to drive past this abandoned farmhouse quite frequently on my way to work and was always attracted to it because of the (apparently) freshly painted white posts which stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the house.

Since I was "studying" the zone system at the time (a method of determining exposure and processing developed and perfected by Ansel Adams) this scene made for the perfect challenge to my rudimentary skills with camera, film and darkroom technique.  My goal was to capture the "glow" of the posts, the details in the shadows of each window pane and bring to life on paper what I saw in my mind.

Looking at this image 35 years later I feel like I succeeded :-)

Photographed with a Graflex 4x5 camera using Kodak Tri-x film processed in D-76 and printed on Agfa Brovira glossy surface paper.

"Sunset Stroll" - Bunche Beach, Fort Myers, FL

Sunset Stroll - Bunche Beach, Fort Myers, FL

This shot was made a couple of years ago during a casual evening of shooting at the beach.  It’s an example of what can happen with a little luck.

I had made about a dozen shots of this fairly dramatic sunset… trying to catch different patterns in ripples of water to play off the composition and shape of the clouds above.  All were good, but not great shots.  Something was missing but I wasn’t quite sure what.

However as soon as this young girl came into the left of my frame and continued walking down the beach… I knew that the missing element was the “human” element.  She added a sense of scale, motion and tranquility to the photo.

I shot 3 frames of her walking away from me down the beach… with this being the best.  The playful position of her arms, foot just catching the splash of a passing ripple and her reflection in the water make this photograph complete.

Shot with a Nikon D90 and 18-105 Nikkor lens.  

Capital - Old Main, Penn State University

Capital - Old Main, Penn State University

This photo was shot one day while working on the main campus of Penn State University.

I had done a series of photographs a few days earlier featuring some of the interesting architectural details found on many of the older buildings on campus.

Unfortunately that day the lighting hadn't been right to make this photograph and in fact it took me two more days of trying before I was able to shoot under the hazy overcast skies necessary to bring out the textures and details in this photograph of a capital on the columns of the main administration building know as Old Main.

Shot with a Nikon D90 and 400mm lens.

"Barnacle Encrusted Shell" - Sanibel Island, FL

Barnacle Encrusted Shell - Sanibel Island, FL

This photo was shot on an early morning walk along the "City Beach" on Sanibel Island.

I had forgotten to pick-up my cameras before driving from Fort Myers to the beach and only discovered I didn't have them when I got there.

"Midly" upset and armed with only an Android device I decided to try and make the best with what I had.

Although not of nearly the technical quality I would have gotten with my DSLR's... I still think this is a decent shot and an example of what can be done by anyone with the technology commonly available today.

Follow the Leader...

"Follow the Leader" - Sanibel Island, FL

This is one of my favorite images from a trip to Sanibel Island off Florida's gulf coast a couple years ago.

It was comical to watch this little bird follow around the gull... imitating it's every move.

It was like watching a kids game of "Simon Say's" or "Follow the Leader".  That, or the little bird was thinking "I want to be just like you when I grow up".

Either way I spent about five minutes photographing this "bird ballet" with a Nikon D90 and 300mm lens before the gull finally broke off and flew away.  

This photograph incorporates different elements of composition including the use of a shallow depth of field, 3/4 lighting and a low angle of view to bring you down to eye level with the gull.

"Colorful Plantings" - Old Main, Penn State University

Plantings - Old Main, Penn State University

This photo was taken on a slightly overcast day while photographing on the main campus of Penn State University.

I had already spent a fair amount of time shooting one of the most iconic landmarks at Penn State, "Old Main" which is the primary administration building on campus.

During a bit of a break I noticed these colorful, leafy plantings behind me.  They looked like they had promise, but something was lacking at the time so I went back to shooting the building.

Satisfied I had done what I could to catch some new angles on an already over-photographed subject, I turned around and went to pick-up my camera bag.  Just then the sun broke through a high overcast and created a mild back-lighting on these leaves.  That was all they needed to break into the vibrant and unusual colors you see in the photo here.

I used a Nikon D90 DSLR with a 180/2.8 ED lens close to wide-open to make this image.  This created the both shallow depth of field (which draws your eye to the main subject) as well as the vibrant and well saturated colors.  The back-lighting effect adds to the photo by creating a 3-dimensional feeling and is what really caused the colors to "pop".

And no, this was not PhotoShopped :-) 

Mt. Moosilauke - Aplenglow

M

Mt. Moosilauke - Warren, NH

t. Moosilauke - Alpenglow.

This photo of the last rays of sunshine falling on the western slopes of Mt. Moosilauke was shot on a cold and windy fall evening from the summit of Mt. Cardigan in Orange, NH.

I had hiked to the summit to witness a relatively rare astronomical event.  Sunset and moon rise were both going to happen simultaneously (or at least within 5 minutes of each other) that evening and I thought it might make for some interesting photographs.

My first thought about how to illustrate this event had been to try for a panoramic that included both sunset and moon rise in one photograph, but the brisk and windy conditions on the summit of Cardigan crushed that plan relatively quickly.  

Changing up my approach, I set up 2 cameras, one facing east to shoot the moon rising over Newfound Lake and the other facing west toward Mt. Ascutney in VT for my sunset photos.  Both cameras were mounted on "mini-pods" close to the ground to try and minimize any wind induced camera shake during what would be long exposures.

As the moon come up and the sun sank below the horizon, I managed to shoot the equivalent of about 5 "rolls of film" while laying on my stomach and trying to time my shots between 25 mph gusts of wind.

This photograph of Moosilauke (roughly 27 off in the distance), is one of my favorites. 

Shot with a Nikon 8700 at 1/8 second.