All Roads Lead to Jerome

  

This little church is located right in the middle of Jerome, VA, but I’m getting ahead of myself.   I was hiking on Sunday in the National Forest and I usually have my IR Converted D200 with me when I hike.  After finishing my hike I decided to do a little back road scouting and came upon this church.  Years ago my family had a small house in the Shenandoah Valley and it seemed like we always would see road signs pointing to Jerome.  I don’t think I ever followed those signs, but I’m glad I did this past weekend.  

Palouse Day One

I just returned home from a week in The Palouse with my tour partner Denise Silva and 5 of our friends.   The Palouse is located in south eastern Washington.   It is easily the most beautiful farming country I have ever seen.  We had a great but grueling week.   We drove over 1800 miles during 8 days, but traveling in a Cadillac Escalade made the journey quite enjoyable. 

I spent a good part of yesterday evening downloading and cataloging images from my recent trip to The Palouse.  My cataloging process starts with importing the images into Lightroom and adding keywords and geotaging.   After ingesting over 5000 images, I started the long process of reviewing and editing.   The image above is a favorite from the first evening.  

The Pink Panorama

I just arrived home after spending a week in the Palouse region of Washington.   This spring has been pretty much nonstop photography and I have been loving every minute of it!   One of my problems has been staying current on image processing.   It seems that some photographers are really proficient at processing and posting while still  on the road or very soon after returning home.  I fall into the second category where I work with my images sometimes weeks, months or years after a shoot. 

In the spirit of much delayed image posting, here is a panorama I shot at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum 2 years ago.  I will be leading  photo tours of the Asylum in July and September. Please call the Asylum to register if you’re interested in attending.

Stop the Car!

Last weekend I was driving through Pennsylvania with friends when these clouds appeared.   Knowing there was an old abandoned industrial site at the next exit, we hoped the clouds would last.  We shot this scene for about 10 minutes before the texture in the sky disappeared and the day went back to being overcast.   But not all was lost,  the weather was perfect for waterfalls and out next destination was Ricketts Glen.  

Quality

Last Saturday I got together with some friends to shoot wildflowers.  Normally we would get up early for such an event, but the weather forecast called for clouds so we figured we would be okay starting later than normal.   The only problem was moments after we starting working, the sky started clearing and the wind picked up making our efforts a bit more difficult and we soon decided to leave. 

Over the last couple of years I have given considerable thought to the concept of quality and quantity.  I have decided that I’m  happy if I get a good picture, after all, this is about my craft and such things should not be rushed or diluted by volume.   In this case I think the picture above was worth the effort.  

Happy Mother's Day!

Start Big

Usually the advice one hears when learning something new is to “start small”.  When it comes to light painting I did just the opposite.  I learned to light paint landscapes first and  then learned to light paint small scenes.   I’m sure the typical advice to start small is good advice, but in my case I don’t think it made a difference.   Light painting is a trial and error process for the most part and it just depends on your ability to visualize a scene and adapt your technique to get the direction of light and exposure you desire.