Wow! What a storm! I was lucky enough to receive 3-4 feet of snow! Well, lucky in that I have a good shovel, a 4wd truck, and a back strong enough to shovel a few hundred feet of driveway.
Well, anyway, I survived, didn’t loose power, and took a break after shoveling to break out my camera and enjoy the winter wonderland 🙂 On Sunday I took a few moments to visit a small beach to see what snow on the beach was like.
Please let me know what you think of these photos!
“Now wait a minute,” you say, “that is just a tame photo of a city in the distance, and you forgot to follow the rule of third. Why are you implying danger in this shot?” Well, I would have to say it’s because of where I was when I shot it. I was on the side of a bridge on a local freeway (I-291) over the Connecticut river at rush hour. There wasn’t much room to bet into/out of my car, so I had to time it just right. But I was smart enough to place the car “up stream” of traffic while I set up my tripod. 🙂
I had thought of doing this shot several times before, but was always concerned a police officer would stop me, but I gave it a shot today and succeeded! Not a great shot; bridge vibrations on 30 sec exposures caused it to be very unsharp on the details, and the composition wasn’t great, the city in the center and all. Guess I was distracted? Yeah, you could say that 🙂
Right after sunset is “blue hour’, in which the sky takes on a deepening and darkening blue as it transitions into the black of night. I think that this time of day is the best time to shoot sky photos, especially since if the clouds are just right, the sun will shine a beautiful array of reds, oranges, and purples onto them as it sinks lower below the horizon.
Driving home this evening it was darker than I expected, probably because I’m not use to not having Day Light Savings (after all, its been less than a day!). But I did notice a nice color on the horizon, so I pulled down to a boat launch near some rail road tracks I’ve shot at before and fired off a few ’rounds’. 🙂
I just realized it’s been a while since I’ve broken out my macro lens; I miss shooting macro! Keep your eyes open for a macro shoot this week!
On Wednesday my college had power, so I headed in for classes. The clouds had thinned slightly and allowed some of the setting sun’s light to penetrate. I saw this nursery and thought it made a good foreground for the sky, esp. since it shows the flowers knocked over by Hurricane Sandy (this is several miles inland, where the wind wasn’t as bad).
I took a detour home today and shot at the Farmington River. It was dusk, but thy sky was cloudy so I didn’t get the colors in the water I was hoping for, but I’m not upset w/ these 🙂
It’s hard to believe it’s already day 300. 300 days and almost 16,000 photos later, I’m nearing the end of this project!!!
51 mm, 1/30 sec, f/8, ISO 800 (Pic-nic Table Under Tree)
39 mm, 2 sec, f/22, ISO 100 (River and Tree)
49 mm, 0.8 sec, f/16, ISO 100 (Farmington River)
I know y’all have seen many, many sunset photos; I’ve shot a lot. But I still love sunsets! I love shooting them and sharing them, too 🙂
I’ve driven by this lake in Montville, CT more times that I can count, and last night I noticed that the sun set in such a way that I could shoot it from one of the few areas of the lake that are not private property. I arrived just as the sun was dropping behind the trees and took some periodic photos until the few clouds started to change from white, to yellow, orange, and eventually purple. I love the composition of the dock opposite the sun’s position 🙂
18 mm, 1/40 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Tranquil Lake)
18 mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Purple Clouds)
47 mm (cropped), 1/4 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Spillway)
On this date, my 3 friends and I climbed Giant Mountain, and one of them and I left the other two to rest on the summit and added Rocky Peak in our quest to become “46ers“. I’m up to 9 of the 46 High Peaks in the Adirondacks (click the link to learn more about it), and I plan on becoming a full-fledged 46er someday. 🙂
I took quite a few less photos on this hike, as it was a little more technical of a climb, and I was a little tired from the 16 miles I did the previous day. This day’s hike ended up being just about 10 miles, the last part, being the hardest (the decent; my knees were wishing for a break about the time I hit the first summit). You might notice that there are some trees starting to turn, I would love to come up here next fall and shoot from a peak at the peak of leaf season 🙂 Here are my favorites:
Misty Mountians
The High Peaks
Weathered Tree
Giant’s Basin
Mountain Sunset
Sitting down to leftovers at my computer, I had already decided I wanted to shoot the sunset. There were lots of clouds in the sky so I had hopes that they would provide beautiful colors (much like when I shot the Airline Trail sunset). I decided that the colors would probably look amazing reflecting off the surface of water, so I started looking for lakes on yahoo maps that had the sun setting across from an access location. Mansfield Hollow Lake fit the bill perfectly, and it was only 30 min away!
However, the cloud cover beyond the horizon must have been heavier than I anticipated, as there was not a lot of color. But I still made the best of it, I think, with some long exposer shots of the water/sky. And as I was packing up and walking back to my car, I noticed that the moon had risen high directly to the East, and was reflecting on part of the lake when the clouds parted a moment. I set up my tripod next to the road and capture a few frames 🙂 And to reward myself for getting off my tush and finding/making my daily images, I splurged on a frappe for the ride home 🙂
18 mm, 30 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Mansfield Hollow Lake)
18 mm, 15 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Moon over Mansfield Hollow)
53 mm, 6 sec, f/22, ISO 100 (Waterlogged)
18 mm, 4 sec, f/11, ISO 100 (Colors Reflected)
18 mm, 2.5 sec, f/22, ISO 100 (Sunset Over Mansfield Hollow Lake)
Another long day, but it ended with a nice bit of color in the sky. I didn’t capture it well, but the clouds were great. I ended up dong a B&W conversion since I couldn’t get the color to suite me. I’m ok with this, though.
18 mm, 1/25 sec. f/8.0, ISO 100 (Drama in the Sky)
I was in New London, CT this evening to attend a graduation ceremony for an employment class I taught a lesson in. I arrived early and decided to just go for a walk with my trusty camera. I ended up just circling the block. My initial intent was to shoot the sun behind the steeple of the church where the ceremony was held, but as I walked, I noticed an old guard rail for a basement access of one of the old buildings that populate the are. I then took several more photos as I went on this short walk. I was glad that it was empty so I could shoot w/o distraction 🙂
37 mm, 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 (City Fence)
33 mm, 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 (City Guard Rail)
55 mm, 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 (Blue Doors)
21 mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Power of God)
35 mm, 1/50 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Blue Bricks)
I’ve passed this farm many times, driving to hiking and riding trails. I was on my way to ride this evening and just HAD to stop! I would like to plan a shoot here, but for tonight, the clouds made it a great site! (though this, and other delays, gave me the experience of riding in the dark, lol).
I tried several presets in LR3 and used my own settings on the first one. I really enjoy making an image my own, even if it’s not exactly what I saw with my eye. I do at least a little tweaking to every image I publish. Sometimes it’s just adjusting white-ballance or a B&W conversion, or taking a bad exposure and creating a great image from. Or sometimes it’s just fun to go hog-wild! What are your thoughts on image editing?
18 mm, 1/320 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Sunset on the Farm)
18 mm, 1/160 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (End of the day)
18 mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (End of a Long Day)
Last night I was riding the Airline Trail and realized that there were many photogenic locations. The Lyman Viaduct looked like it would be great for shooting the sunset. So today I parked at the nearest road crossing, walked in and waited. I missed the sun going behind the hill (I forgot to check the actual direction of the setting sun last night while there), but I realized that because it was setting behind a hill, I didn’t miss anything spectacular. So I waited around for a while, hoping that as the sun approached and passed the official sunset time, that the colors would show up on the high, thin clouds. I have to admit, I almost gave up and started creating a Plan B in my mind. But I shouldn’t have worried, the sky ended up painted in a very dramatic fashion! I only wish I had a wide angle lens to capture it all in one image! I did shoot a series of over lapping images I’ll attempt to stitch together in Photoshop Elements.
18 mm, 1/30 sec, f/8.0, ISO 400 (Sunset Fire)
34 mm, 1/25 sec, f/8.0, ISO 400 (Gradient Colors)
55 mm, 1/50 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Fire In The Sky)
18 mm, 1/25 sec, f/8.0, ISO 400 (Sunset Colors)
18 mm, 1/15 sec, f/8.0, ISO 200 (Lyman Viaduct Sunset)
Today was a hot and sticky day here in CT, and I spent most of it outside working. The first part of the day I finished my clutch job on my Jetta (yay!), then worked in the yard, then cleaned up the garage a bit. After getting cleaned up I had a last-minute idea to shoot the sunset from the Niantic River Bridge. I knew that I woudl be cutting it close, but I figured, why not try anyway?
Well, I did miss the setting of the sun, but I usually prefer the colors just after the sun sets, so I was blessed with these images 🙂 The last image is the first one I took tonight, just before I got on the the highway to race the sun.
18 mm, 1/30 sec, f/9.0, ISO 100 (The Watcher)
55 mm, 1/13 sec, f/8.0, ISO 200 (Sunset Fishing)
18 mm, 1/30 sec, f/9.0, ISO 200 (Niantic River Bridge Sunset)
55 mm, 1/640 sec, f/9.0, ISO 100 (Colchester Sunset)
. . . is something I have not been able to do for a week and a half in my TDI Jetta 😦 I’m in the process of replacing the clutch, flywheel, and other misc parts to get it back to 100%. For those of you that are car-savy, my throw-out bearing disintegrated! Not just wore out, but when I separated the transmission from the engine, a bunch of parts fell out: ball bearings, metal pieces, and other stuff. Because one of the parts that was destroyed was the clutch fork, I had to order more parts to continue. The first photo is the edge where it has worn agains the clutch housing.
The second photo I took on my way home today. I had to stop and shoot some photos 🙂
60 mm, 1/60 sec, f/4.0, ISO 400, 60mm macro lens (Clutch Fork)
29 mm, 1/1000 sec, f/9.0, ISO 100 (Sun Rays)
As you may have seen, the next photo challenge hosted by NickExposed and SeeingSpotsPhoto is Silhouettes. The challenge is to create (w/o photoshop) 3 images that consist of silhouettes.
Today’s photos came almost by accident; I saw some lighting to the south of where I was and looked at my weather app and found that the storm was just off shore, so I headed south to try and capture some lightning. However, by the time I found a good shooting spot, the storm had moved sufficiently such that none was visible anymore. Then I noticed the tree in the first image. And remembered the challenge for July. Then I moved further south to Avery Point, hoping still to see the storm, but to no avail. But I did end up with the second image as my compensation.
I can’t say that it’s a worthy trade, as I’ve wanted to shoot lightning for years, and have had no luck as of yet, but I am very happy with it as one of my submissions 🙂
18 mm, 30 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Thames River Silhouette)
18 mm, 30 sec, f/7.1, ISO 100 (Silhouette and Light)
Today’s shot is a my submission to a “10 Minute Challenge” hosted by SeeingSpotsPhoto and WhereToWillie. It’s a shot of a small power plant across the Thames River from the CT town of Gales Ferry.
The gist of a 10 minute challenge is to travel for 10 minutes, by any method (car, bike, foot, skis, riding mower, etc), stop, and shoot what you find. I did this before and it is a great way to shoot when you can’t think of anything (which happens a lot to me on this 366 challenge), or just need to be jolted from the daily grind in your photography. If you have not done this, I challenge you to do it! It requires almost no planning, and you can do it in 30 min (or less, if it’s on your way somewhere). Let me know if you do; I’d like to see what you discover close to where you are 🙂
18 mm, 60 sec, f/13, ISO 200 (Power Plant on the Thames River)
One of the challenges for me with this 365 project is that I have to come up with an idea of something to shoot every day. It’s a HUGE stretch for me to think creatively that much, and it shows sometimes. Today was one of those days where I didn’t have a great idea till shortly before shooting. I was on my way to a friend’s to work out and saw the sign for Harkness Park and made the decision to go there to shoot the sunset. I’m glad I didn’t have a different idea 🙂
I couldn’t decide which images I like best, so there are a few for your viewing pleasure. I almost didn’t post the last one, cause I like the others so much more, but I added it for variety 🙂
60 mm, 1/160 sec, f/5.0, ISO 100, 60mm macro lens (Thistle Sunset)
60 mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.0, ISO 100, 60mm macro lens (Thistle Silhouette)
60 mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.0, ISO 100, 60mm macro lens (Glowing Thistle)
18 mm, 1/25 sec, f/14, ISO 100 (Harkness Park Sunset)
First of all, I have to admit that I Love sunsets! I love watching them, and esp. I love shooting them! I find myself snapping a photo every few seconds sometimes, and end up with well over a hundred photos to sort through by the time I get home. Tonight was not any different.
A good friend asked if shooting from the upper deck of the parking garage at the Mohegan Sun casino in Eastern CT would be good for shooting the sunset. I thought so, so I looked at my Sun Seeker app and determined the best garage (of many) to shoot unobstructed. I got there about 1.5 hrs before sunset to verify. (note: in CT, with the many hills and trees, finding an area to shoot the sun set from takes some searching; either a tall structure or a very large field on the proper side of the road has to be found, and be accessible.)
So we chatted till the sun started approaching the horizon, and then the haze began to explode in color! It was a beautiful sunset 🙂 The casino hotel’s exterior is paneled with reflective glass, so I made sure to turn around and shoot the casino periodically. This first shot is my submission for “Reflected Love” on SeeingSpotsPhoto and Nick Exposed’s photo scavenger hunt challenge, because I love sunsets 🙂 I moved closer to the fence on this one to get it in the frame, as I think it adds some interest to the image. What do you think?
35 mm, 1/25 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 (Mohegan Sun Set Reflected)
18 mm, 1/25 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 (Shooting the Sunset)
All day today and most of the afternoon thunderstorms rolled through New England, and when the weather turned nice in the late afternoon, I knew I had to try for a sunset with the clouds that remained! I was going to try and shoot from the beach, until I realized that the sun sets over land this time of year over here (the CT shore is south facing), so I drove along the river and saw this view and fell in love.
An interesting thing happened while I was setting up my tripod these two guys started walking from across the street towards me. It was a purposeful walk, and this isn’t high-income housing (not poor, either), so I get slightly nervous as they approached. I was hoping they owned the business of the parking lot I was borrowing or local concerned citizens. I was wrong. The older of the two guys used to be a pro photographer and lived across the street and was curious about what I was shooting! We shot the breeze for about 30 or so minutes until the bugs got too bad and the light was fading. It was a cool experience 🙂
18 mm, 1/4 sec, f/16, ISO 100 (Gold Star Sunset)
18 mm, 1/6 sec, f/16, ISO 100 (Sunset on the Thames)
44 mm, 1/15 sec, f/16, ISO 100 (Two Bridge Sunset)
365 Photos by Jeremy 