Limekiln Ruins at Canoe Creek State Park

I think a lot of photographers like to take pictures of abandoned pieces of yesterday.  That includes me.

While I am at the abandoned sites, whether shooting or not, I try to imagine life the way it was at those sites.

• Was this a site where genteel people lived or those less fortunate?
• Did a lot of people visit the site on a daily basis or was it just one family?
• What type of work was done in this space?
• How did the people relax in this space?
• Was there conflict or did the people get along well?
• Was it a site that made people happy, sad, anxious, relaxed, tired, etc.?

Anyway, on Saturday, Annette and I visited Canoe Creek State Park near Altoona.  It was only a five minute stroll through the woods to the Limekiln ruins.

Again they made me think about the past:

• Why did they build on this remote site?
• Why was the cement so rough?  Was it a scarcity of materials? Or was it a cost cutting measure  (Hurry up and get those forms up!  I'm not making any money until we're in production!  Every day "prettying" up those forms is a day I'm not making money!  Let's go!  Let's go!!!)? 
• Why was there a room on either side of the central space for each of the kilns?
• How many times a day did the workers walk the "hallway" between the back of the kilns and the side of the hill?
• How hot was it in the buildings?

Anyway, enough of that.  Let's look at some pictures.

Aren't the perspective lines leading out to the vanishing point interesting in their obviousness?

Don't the kilns look like some sort of ancient temple?

I wished the sky had been blue, but this is the way it was.

Limekiln Ruins at Canoe Creek State Park 

Limekiln Ruins

In the Unusual Flower Box image below, I like the juxtaposition of the fragile flowers with the mass of the structure.  I like the organic plant life against the man-made brickwork. 

Unusual Flower Box

June was a busy month

June was a busy month.  Between visits from both Annette's side of the family and mine, there was hardly any time for shooting

However, we did get to Harper's Ferry and shot a few pictures there.  Like this one of St Peter's Roman Catholic Cathedral.

St. Peter's Cathedral in Harper's Ferry

While we were in Harper's Ferry, it rained.  Hard!  I ran for a couple of hundred yards with my camera under my arm, trying to keep it dry.  We ended up in John Browns fort.

John Brown's Fort in Harper's Ferry

This was the view out from the fort during the rain.

Also, during June, we heard about a Lavender Festival.  My mom was visiting and it seemed like a good thing to do.  So off we went.  I think Mom and Annette had a good time.  I was just along for the ride.

Lavender Fields

Mom with the sprigs of Lavender that she "harvested".

What you don't see

You're out there shooting pictures and you are careful about so many things such as merging lines, composition, textures, borders, what to include, what to leave out, etc.

But, it's funny what you don't see until you open the image on the computer.

Take this image for example.  I was trying to capture the rhododendrons at the side of our house and didn't see a couple of things.

I didn't notice that the spots on the petals are only on one side of each flower.

I didn't see the spider web fiber running straight through the image at about the right one third line.

Hmmmm.  I better get better at seeing!

I noticed in the preview that the spider web thread does not show up.  Believe me, it is visible in Lightroom!

Flowers and Aperture

Take a look at these two pictures.  Not because they are great.  They are not.  But because there is a lesson in aperture in these pictures.

As I was trying to capture the beauty of this field of clover, I was trying several techniques.  One technique is to use the aperture setting to control the depth of field in the image.  You can see it quite obviously in these two image.

It was evening, right around sunset, so there was not enough light to handhold the camera at f/22.  So I had it on a tripod.  These two pictures were taken without moving the camera.

The major difference is the aperture setting.

The first image obviously was shot at a very small aperture (actually it was f/22).  There is a lot of detail from front to back in the image.

The second image was shot at a much larger aperture.  The depth of field is much smaller.

Which one is better?  That's not the question!  Which one suits your purpose?  That is the question!

Field of Clover

Annette and I have driven past a field of clover a couple of times.  It was so beautiful that we finally went back with our cameras.  It's one of those places that have a beauty that attracts you, but once you are there with your camera, you can never quite capture the beauty that you see.

But we tried!  Oh, yeah, we tried a couple of times this week.  Pretty soon the clover "flowers" will be past their prime.  But we failed to capture the beauty for a couple of reasons.

#1 is that we never were there for the right light.  The first time we got there the light was good but it was only 15 minutes before the sun went behind the horizon.  The second time, we went earlier.  The light was good be we were there for only 5 minutes before the sun went behind some clouds and never came back out.

#2 reason is that the beauty is so chaotic.  From a distance the field looks like it is covered in a layer of red.  However, from up close there is just too much detail.  Yes, I know we can use depth of field to control some of the detail.  Yes, I know you must isolate your subject.  But it just wasn't working for us, well at least for me.  Maybe Annette has great images, I don't know.

 This first image is what attracted me to the field.  It was just a beautiful sea of red clover.  At least it was when I was going 55 mph!

This second picture is my attempt to simplify and isolate a portion of the field.

We will have to keep going back until we get some "keeper" images!  I hope the clovers last that long!

Go Forth and Multiply!

Annette and I went to the Graduation Ceremony at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania last Saturday (May 7, 2011).  We were there to witness the graduation of Kristi Kushnir, a very special girl to us.  You can see here getting her official graduation picture taken in the center foreground.  Woohoo!  Hip hip hooray!  Woot woot!  Congratulations, Kristi!!!

Kristi completed her Bachelor degree in four years!  From the statistics that I have read, this is becoming less and less the norm.  Congratulations, Kristi!

Like the rest of the graduates, Kristi is working hard and striving to find her place in the world and this picture symbolizes that.

How does this symobolize that?

First, a person's place in the world is in ever larger and larger contexts.

• The student is part of the class of 2011.  We can see in the image that each graduate is an individual, but together they make up that sea of blue in the image that is the Class of 2011.
• The Class of 2011 is part of the University.  We can see in the image that the Class of 2011 is on the football field in front of school buildings.
• The University is part of the educational system.
• The educational system is part of the US economy.
• The US economy is a part of the world.

Second, everything and everybody is inter-related.

• If you talk to the students, you will find that almost every class has at least one assignment that is to be completed with a team.  So, the students are inter-related.
• It's a little bit difficult to see, but that sea of blue in the image above is divided into sections.  Each section was for a different department within the university.  If I had to guess, I would guess that no degree can be completed totally within the department that controls the degree.  For example, Business majors have to take classes within the Humanities department.  Therefore, the departments within the university are inter-related.
• The university has relationships with the government, acreditation boards, and business.

My point here is this:  Each student is part of larger systems and is inter-related with other students and the larger systems.

You could say that makes each student and their work insignificant because they are such a small part of the entire system.  I say, NO, NO, NO!

Look at it as a force multiplier.  Each student can use those systems, of which they are a part, to multiply the impact of their efforts.  Each student can use the relationships to multiple the significance of what they do.

So to the Class of 2011 ( and earlier classes, too), I say, "Go forth and multiply!"  Use the relationships and systems to change the world for the better, in a big way!

Mistakes make great images

One of my favorite images from the photo workshop actually started as a mistake.

I was shooting this pier near the Nag's Head Fishing Pier trying to get deep rich sunrise colors.  Then I changed the composition and forgot to change the aperture and shutter speed settings.  The resulting mistake was an overexposed frame.

That overexposed frame got me thinking about how to get more pastel colors.  So I experimented withe the exposure and once I got that where I wanted it, I had to try to time the shot with the waves washing over the pier.

This is the one that I liked the best.  What do you think?