Recent Work

Spring 2011

Low Country

In March, John Koskulitz and myself made a scouting trip down to Low Country: the costal plain between roughly Charleston SC and Savannah GA. Low Country is a collection of six galleries of pictures and images from that trip.

Fall 2009

Death Valley National Park

At the end of October I spent a week in Death Valley. Here is link to the index page, Death Valley. There are 5 different galleries.

Rock and Light	Sand	Salt	The Race Track Playa	Sense of Place

There is a lot that can be said about the many opportunities in DV but I'd like to give you the back story for just one image, the thumbnail for the Sand Gallery. 

There are several sand dune area is Death Valley. However, only two of them are "easily" accessible. The first, and most visited because it is quite accessible, is Mesquite Flats near Stovepipe Wells. It is accessible right off of the main road that runs through the park, Rt 190. When we were there they were putting the finishing touches on a parking area so you won't have to park along the road any longer. Most of the images in this gallery are from these dunes. The best time to photograph these dunes is during the golden hours, just after sunrise and before sunset. The dunes run north-south so when the sun is low one side is lit with warm light while the other is in shadow. Most of the images from Mesquite are a study of the highlight and shadow side of individual dunes.

Getting to the Eureka Dunes requires some effort including driving a couple of hours on unimproved gravel roads. These dunes are MUCH taller that those at Mesquite Flats. But after getting there I did not find the location to be particularly photogenic. I think, at least in part, the reason for this is that the dunes run east-west so the setting sun light hit both sides of each dune evenly resulting in relatively flat light even though the sun was low in the sky.  However, I did make one image that I particularly like, the one that is the  thumbnail for the gallery. Here the sun was in the process of setting behind the Saline Range. For a very short time, this put the dune I was on in shadow (cool light) while the front side of the main dune, in the background, was bathed in warm light. This only last a few seconds.

Summer 2009

Grand Teton and Yellowstone NPs

I created separate pages in the Landscape section for the images made during the week spent in Jackson WY. Grand Teton and Yellowstone Images is where an index page is.

Spring 2009

Milder weather means it's time to make a trip or two out to Shenk's Ferry and check out this year's crop of wildflowers. (To see images from 2008 go to this page.) Here are a few images from this year.

Early Virginia Blue Bells	Dutchman's Britches	Dutchman's Britches  (close-up)
Purple Trillium		Purple Trillium

In late winter and early spring I hooked up with John Koskulitz (of Johnnoha Falls fame) and over the course of several weekends we photographed all 28 of the covered bridges in Lancaster County PA.

Penn's Landing

In early spring fellow photographer, Ed Heaton, and myself went to check out another old coal pier in Philadelphia in hopes of another graffiti site. While it was not being used as a coal pier it was far from abandoned so the artist have not been there. (See Philadelphia Coal Pier below.)  By happen stance we ended up at Penn's Landing and could not have asked for better weather. I've created a new page in Close-To-Home for the Ships of Penn's Landing.

Olympia and the Hyatt in the background

Winter 2008

End of Winter--Hurrah!!!!

If you have looked around this site you know that I'm primarily a nature photographer. But the time between when the winter weather starts to break and time things start to grow and turn green is such a bleak time for a nature photographer. In the past few weeks I've had a couple of outings that lead to my shooting, what for me are, some different subjects.

A couple of guys at the hardware store in Alloway NJ.

The Italian Market in Philadelphia

This is from the Magic Garden, not far from the Italian Market

Early March Warm Up

In early March we had about 6 inches of snow followed by some very warm weather. And I went looking for signs of spring. And I can now declare that Spring '09 is on the way--in spite of what the Ground Hog had to say.

The Oakbourne Park page has images from this same patch of Snow Drops from previous years.

A few days later, the weather still warm, a group of photographers from the Chester County Camera Club visited Chambers Lake in Hibernia County Park (Chester County, PA) for sunrise. In spite of the warm weather the building clouds kept the sun from breaking through and lighting the under side of the clouds.

Reality (or at least close to it)	A little creative work-- what I wish it would have looked like.

Philadelphia Coal Pier

In late February a group of photographers ventured out to a pier that "back in the day" was used to export coal from the area. It is no longer in use and has been well "decorated" by graffiti artist.

First Pic of the Day	My Favorite Art Work	Pokemon's Room	Not a big landscape kind of day but .....

Valley Forge in Snow

It's February in Southeastern PA and we've had a bit more snow. On Friday a friend emailed and asked if I wanted to go the Valley Forge on Saturday and shoot sunrise. I'm glad I did. At sunrise we had clear skies that aided in some nice color. In the first two images you can see how the color of the light changed in the moments before sunrise. But shortly after the sun was above the horizon a cloud bank moved in giving some flat lighting.

But just as the clouds started to move in, I noticed the warm directional light hitting a tree down the hill from where I was shooting. I decide to walk down (in the snow) see what kind of composition I could make. Initially I decided to place the bottom of the tree right where the light colored foreground hill and dark colored background hill met. When in position, I looked through the view finder and to my horror there were two very big contrails that I had not previously paid attention to.  Normally I try to keep contrails out of any photo. But here I could not find a composition that removed them. So I decide  to make them part of the composition and  moved to place the tree between the contrails and let them "frame" the tree. (Third image in first row below.)

Bartarm's Covered Bridge in Snow

You can see more images of this covered bridge on the Northeast Chester County page.

Westtown Pa.

I shot these images the same morning as the Bartram's Covered Bridge images. When I decided to get up early and take advantage of the freshly fallen snow I was feeling a little creative but couldn't decide what I wanted to shoot or where I wanted to go. I finally decide on the bridge. After I left there I was feeling a bit down even though I know I had made some nice images. I think it was because I didn't find a new way to capture the bridge. The images I made were very similar to other images I've made at that location.

On the way home I passed Pete's Produce which is closed this time of year. He has this old John Deer setting out front. I decide to stop and shoot the tractor. I chose an camera position that provided a reasonable clean background and that emphasized all the circles (tires, drive pulley, steering wheel, and exhaust manifold). After I got home and processed the files from the shoot I wondered how this one would look in black and white. I like them both.

After finishing up with the tractor I stopped at the post office to pick up the mail. Next to the post office is an Art Gallery in the old train station. They've "decorated" the inside of the bridge that goes over the train tracks. What caught my eye was how the "circles" their shadows interplayed.

Susquehanna River: Conowingo Dam, MD

The abundance of stunned fish coming over (through) the dam are easy pickings for bald eagles. Each year the dam attacks large numbers of migratory bald eagles. You'll find more eagle images on my  Raptors page and on Steve's Eagle Page.

Adult Bald Eagle with Fish	Bald Eagle Coming at You.

Valley Forge NP, PA

Sunset at the park.

Valley Forge Tree	Valley Forge Monument

Sunrise at the Beach: Delaware Seashore State Park

Gordon's Pond: Cape Henlopen State Park, DE

Sentinel Greets the Rising Sun
Shells and Sub Tower	Sub Tower and Clouds		Clouds Reflecting in Gordon's Pond

Fall 2008

Union County, NC

Copeland's Grocery it a relic of the past. The remains of the once thriving store and gas station is located in Union County North Carolina, just north of the South Carolina border. It is purported to be an excellent example of turn of the century agricultural architecture.

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