October 2009 Archives

Few people visit Apollo County Park, and that's exactly the reason you ought to see it. The hike is quiet; few people visit because of its remote location and lack of amenities. But it's also a rather strenuous hike up and down the hills and creek beds.

There's plenty to see. Colors are electric now. Maples are a deep cranberry, oaks bright yellow. Poke berry plants are wilting because of the colder temperatures, but provide food for birds, some migrating through the area.

And the berries give color too, even in the rain drops that drip off the plant. Shoot toward the light, which will show off the purple color of the berry's juice.

When we moved into our home about three years ago, we had a forest of poke berry plants under an evergreen tree, and we've been trying to eliminate the pests ever since. Since birds eat the berries, and then deposit the seeds, it's a fight we're probably not going to win.

Poke berry is an interesting plant. On different web sites, you'll find people promoting its use as an arthritis cure when made into wine. Or in the southern states, poke sallet is a delicacy. But on nearly every site, warnings tell about the toxicity of the plant-- from the root, stalk, leaves and berries. The effects of eating raw poke berry are gut-wrenchingly painful.

Says TexasEscapes.com-- "My momma told me you had to cook poke sallet three times or you were liable to get poisoned," said Marie. "I'm not sure that's right, but I'm not about to take a chance."

Makes sense. If it's that toxic, why bother?

Usually we know something about the subject we're shooting, but while out wandering through the county parks Monday, I happened upon this strange-looking spider having lunch on a milkweed plant. Maybe it was dinner, I'm not sure.

Photographing nature is intruiging, challenging and while shooting 1/2" long, wary spiders, frustrating. Had I known that it was a jumper, I might have continued on my walk. According to most web sites, jumping spiders can jump 50 times their body length. By my calculations, that would have put it squarely on my forehead. Had that happened, my wife would be collecting on my life insurance by now.

This photo was taken with a 105 mm macro lens, with all thre extensions, a circle flash. Jumping spiders have eight eyes, apparently, so I can't tell if it was mugging for the camera. It was a bit jumpy, so to speak, and whenever the flash went off, it moved and I had to reposition myself and the camera.

Photographing tiny creatures is exciting and time consuming. And generally, I don't mind spiders, just their webs I'm always walking into. Yuck.

Occasionally, we do stories on events, where the people aren't necessarily the stars. While the dance, the vehicle, the building or the scene may be the reason we're there, we nearly always try to use people as a focal point.

Last week, we shot a roller skating fund-raiser. Shooting in a dark rink with disco lights bouncing off the walls made it a a challenge to get an interesting shot without a pasty flash-bash feel. We set up two flashes to get off-camera shadows, used a slow exposure (1/2 second?) to show the colored lights in a blurred background pattern and panned to catch skaters in motion with the flashes.

It nearly worked until the second flash was knocked off the rail and was broken. So we improvised and went with a single flash and continued to use the slow shutter speeds to blur the lights. It worked out.

About a dozen years ago, we traveled to Washington D.C. 's Dupont Circle to do a story on the gay entertainment scene, where we shot the photo above. The scene itself was the story and the subject of the photos. The dance club was drowning in reds, and blues and yellows, but not any real strong white light. So, to show motion we used the slow shutter speeds, but still stopped enough of the dancing, skating, partying with the flash to show what was happening.

Give it a try. It will probably take some experimenting to adjust the f-stops, ISO, and speed to get the right exposure but the picture will be a intersting mix of color and speed.

It's terrific to show all these colors, and but don't forget the reason you're there to start with. Stop the action with the flash.

For Charlie and Barbara Gerlach, building a small sustainable farm in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania was a simple thing.

A few buildings, an organic garden, maybe an animal or two, and a view so beautiful Charlie can only call it "spectacular."

As happens so often, things didn't turn out exactly as planned. The 51-acre Berry Fields Farm has sprouted outbuildings, a bed and breakfast, a restaurant and gift shop.

Some reports have called the weekend's snow in the northern Pennsylvania mountains the earliest snowfall in 100 years.

By the time I arrived there on Sunday, most of the snow had melted, but that allowed easier wandering up and down the rocky trails. The sun was generally filtered by high clouds, keeping harsh shadows to a minimum. Having the colorful leaves lying on top of the snow made for interesting compositions. Electric yellow sassafras trees near the top of the hill screamed color, and even the red maples and yellow beeches seemed muted in comparison.

For those waiting for autumn's colors to arrive in York County, it's crawling south. Be patient, it's worth the wait.

October 16, 2009

Take a hike naked. Without your trusty tripod, that is.

Extra equipment weighs you down, gets in your way, and gets in other hikers' way. For slower shutter speeds like this one-- probably about a second or two-- steady the camera on a tree, rock, your knee, or just take a breath and hold it.

Enjoy the outdoors, don't make it a pack trip.

Three days roaming through Bradford and Sullivan Counties in northern Pennsylvania should be suggested as a tonic for those with stressed mind and body.

Visited new-found friends Charlie and Barbara Gerlach at Berry Fields Farm for a day or so, on Sunday hit the Sullivan County Fall Festival in Forksville, complete with chainsaw carving, lumberman's competition, and of course, some of the best festival food anywhere-- turkey legs, cabbage rolls and haluski.

On Monday, the fall colors were peaking and most visitors had returned to school, so I drove to Worlds End and then Ricketts Glen State Parks for a full day of hiking and absorbing the fall colors. About 3,000 people had visited on Sunday, so I thought that on Monday, the park would be mine. Wrong. Apparently, you can't keep a place like this secret for long.

The 4.2 mile hike down and back up the glen is a rigorous one, not for those hikers afraid of heights, rocky ledges, slippery surfaces or steep grades. Or anyone in a hurry. On both Saturday and Sunday, park rangers rescued hikers who had slipped-- rangers beg hikers to wear hiking boots-- and had to be taken off the trail. And, rangers ask you to stay on the trails. Photographers can get terrific pictures here without putting themselves-- and the rangers who have to rescue them-- in danger.

But the view is worth the effort. Because it's a steep trail, I'd suggest NOT taking a tripod, or at least a very, very light one. There's always something around that can steady your camera enough for a decent photo. Take as little equipment as possible so it doesn't get in the way of the hike. A lens cleaning cloth will eliminate splashes. Take a bottle of water and maybe a snack.

Above all, don't hurry. Your camera will handle the sense of vision. Wander slowly enough to feel and smell the fall air, listen to the leaves fall and water splash. You'll thank yourself later.

It was just outside The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Nebraska, as I recall.
I was headed to the grand Colorado mountains to photograph the glorious aspen trees, in all their blazing yellow glory. I had stopped to fill the van again with gas, and started up a conversation with a gentleman from Colorado on the next pump. "Where ya headed?" I hollered over. "The Pocono Mountains", he yelled back. "There's some terrific color there."

You always want what you don't have.

Here we were, two color-seekers headed in opposite directions to see what the other sees every autumn. But, he had a point. Colorado's color is amazing, an electric yellow that is usually seen only in flowers. But it's only yellow. He was coming east to see our reds, oranges and yellows. And purples so vibrant they are nearly blue.

With that in mind, I drove north to Vermont Sunday and swung back through New York's Adirondack MountaIns looking for early fall color. OK, it might be a bit early here, but it's been a long summer. I just wandered until I found something besides green. The Catskills had some color, and central Vermont too, but according to the Weather Channel's Fall Foliage maps, the Adirondacks Park was the place to be.

The central Adirondack Trail, or route 28 through the mountains, is a wonderful drive. Colorful forests are everywhere, small towns huddle around quiet lakes and the locals are happy to point out their favorite places.

Shooting fall color is as easy as stepping in puddle. And there was plenty of that going on. it was a rainy weekend there. Windshield wipers worked overtime. As the movie "Bridges of Madison County" correctly pointed out, "cloudy bright" is perfect for shooting-- subdued shadows, but enough light to 'pop' the color. Sunday, however, was just plain cloudy. Not bright. Dull.

Didn't get many pictures, but that's OK. There are plenty of weekends left, and I'll just follow autumn south.

Even if you aren't a photographer, get outside. Miracles are happening everywhere.