During my GPS Drive in South-Eastern Lancaster, I crossed over Octoraro Lake bridge on Rt. 472, and when I neared Colerain on Kirkwood Pike, I decided to turn around in one of the new developments being built.
My GPS indicated that I could easily do a loop and end back on Rt. 472, and as I did, I found this wonderful abandoned barn in the ravine of the development.
After parking and grabbing my camera, I just started to walk around the barn, looking to capture some of the aged beauty of this building.
Hinge and WindowHinge and WeedsWindow TetrisWeathered SiloEmpty Basketball Frame
Looking at the rest of the development, I am not sure how long this barn will remain…
As part of “Daddy Day Camp”, I took the kids up to Lionville Elementary School to practice their biking riding, in prep for taking off the training wheels.
We first started in the upper play ground, and after parking, I unloaded the bikes, and the kids were gone. I had to coach them a little, but with the follow-up tweaks after Sunday’s outing, both kids were doing much better.
Now I was able to grab my tripod and camera and set up for some shooting.
The wind was rather gusty, and was really nicely formed white clouds against a very deep blue sky, and I had my new filter… Tee hee! wink… wink…
With my first few shots, I felt like a complete amateur, because as I would set one thing that, I’d forget about something else, and the shot would be blown, but I got into a rhythm and finally began to click off some shots.
Long exposure 019 – Take of the intersection of Rt 113 and Devon Drive.
Long exposure 022 – Taken from the outfield of one of the Baseball diamonds.
Long exposure 024 – Taken of the Main School Building
Long exposure 035 – Tennis Practice
Most of these pictures were taken at ISO 100 f22 for 30 seconds to 1 minute, the tennis practice image was around 3 second, using the B+W 58mm 3.0 ND MRC 110M Filter.
At one point, I could hear Logan asking me why I was taking pictures of cars, as I set up for my shot looking north on Route 113 with the Devon Rd. intersection in the background.
He was very puzzled, and even more so, when I showed him the pictures later during proofing. The cars just disappeared!
While playing with my new filter, it became very apparent to me, that I was going to need to recalibrate my water shots, and how to do my HDR work with so much potential ghosting issues during processing.
But as they say no gain without pain.
So come back again, and see what new things I’ve done with this new filter of mine!
It is very early in the morning, and I have finally finished my last edits and touch-ups of Week 2 of my sunset series taken that Shamona Creek elementary school.
It is been a couple of weeks since the last time I posted, mainly because the weather has been rather dry, and there have been very few clouds wandering the skies.
So without further ado, I offer up Days 8 through 14 of my continued series of sunsets:
Day 08 – 120320 sunset Shamona Creek es 022 efex
What I find very spectacular about this particular photo is I was able to capture the crepuscular rays, which seems to be a theme for this week’s images!
Day 09 – 120409 sunset Shamona Creek es Panoramic 02
The panoramic above, is actually a combination of four images that I took very quickly so that I did not have to worry about the cloud movement.
It also offers up a good overview of the location that I have been shooting from for the past two weeks.
Day 10 – 120412 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 03
This image captures the sunset fire of the back-lit weeds, growing amidst the cornfield, and also underscores my looking beyond the general sunsets for more elements within my images.
Day 11 – 120417 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 10 efex
This is another two shot capture also shows some more crepuscular rays.
Day 12 – 120420 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 02
Technically, I should not be including this within my series, only because it was not taken in the same location as the rest of the collection, but it was taken on my way to the hillside where I have been doing my shooting.
The hardest part about this shot, was trying to figure out a way to accentuate the backlit dandelion seed heads, without losing the overall feel due to the brilliance of the setting sun.
Day 12 – 120420 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 06
In the shot you can see the newly installed garden planters!
Day 12 – 120420 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 07
Again the onslaught of the ever-present dandelion seed heads, which all kids love to pick and blow off the seeds, to the horror of every person that needs to maintain a lawn.
One of these days, I’m going to collect the required amount of dandelions and finally try to make some wine out of them!
Day 13 – 20120501 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 33
There is very definitely turbulence in the air as you look at this image, along with more crepuscular rays.
I also struggled during processing not to overly emphasize the colors that are inherent when dealing with high dynamic range (HDR) images.
Day 14 – 20120512 sunset Shamona Creek es hdr 46
The final image of this week, goes back to the backlit weeds during the early evening sunset.
Every day I continue to look West as dusk approaches to see if it will be another chance to capture more images from the Shamona Creek elementary school hillside that I have spent so much time at during the past couple of months.
I hope you enjoyed my images from Week 2, and you will check back soon to see what I have added for Week 3!
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As many parents know, once two siblings get together after along day, their combined energy level seems to quadruple if not more.
So with the lengthening of the days, I started to take the kids out for a late afternoon energy release at Shamona Creek Elementary here in Downingtown.
We have been here many time before, but not at sunset…
So started a personal project of trying to capture 30 days of sunsets!
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 1
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 2
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 3
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 4
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 5
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 6
Sunsets (Chester County) – Day 7
These images represent just a few of the photographs that I have taken during the early phase of this project, and more can be found over on Flickr.
