I Have Been Meaning to Share

The picture above is from a trip to Scranton Lace Factory in 2014.   I have a folder where I save images that I plan to share or blog about and just realized this image is almost a year old and it has never seen to light of day so to speak.

Scranton Lace Factory is located in Scranton, PA.  The company was founded in 1890 and the factory was closed in mid-shift  sometime in 2002.  The site has been undergoing cleanup for the last several years and I know the owners have big hopes for redevelopment of the site.


It was a great location to shoot,  but suspect the best shots were from a time when the site was truly abandoned.

The Softer Side of Grunge

When I'm shooting an abandoned building most of my pictures tend to have a "grungy" look.   This is usually accomplished with the use of Photomatix and some selective editing in Photoshop.  But a couple years ago on my first visit to Scranton Lace Factory I decided to take a different approach.  I did some shooting with my Lensbaby and the soft focus optic.

I love the soft focus optic and use it frequently with flowers.  The soft focus optic is different from the other Lensbaby lens options because there is no focus spot, rather the entire scene is soft, yet in focus.  But for some reason it seemed like the right tool for the scene in front of me.

Clients of Road Runner are eligible for a 10% discount on Lensbaby Gear.  Contact us for a discount code.

Photomatix is my favorite tool for creating HDR images.  It is available as a free download and is fully functional for 30 days.  If you decide to purchase use the discount code "RRPT" for a 15% discount.

The Underground

Last Saturday morning a few friends and I drove up to Philadelphia. This was my second trip this summer and it yielded some good results. The first stop was an area we refer to as the Graffiti Underground. This is an incredible location and the quality of some of the graffiti was the best I have seen. I think the underground is actually the underside of old railroad bridges. The area is so old and it is obvious it has been many years since the area was in use. An additional enhancement in the area is an active playground for paintball games. The splash of small bits of color makes a great location even better.

Click here for a gallery

Scott Kelby's World Wide Photo Walk

This past Saturday Bill Gercken and I participated in the World Wide Photo Walk. This was a collection of photo walks that took place on the same day all over the world. I chose Fredericksburg, VA. I had heard the Old Town section of the city was quite nice and having never been there it seemed like a good reason to go. It turned out to be a very productive day. The walk started at 10am so Bill and I arrived early to check out an industrial part of town that I had heard about. This side trip was well worth our time, having found among other things an old tank farm. The walk was scheduled for 2 hours, but Bill and I took 3 hours to complete the walk and lost track of the group. Perhaps it was our tripods that slowed us down. I think we were the only people out of about 25 that had them.

The Blog picture was my favorite of the day. At the end of the walk we ventured up to the train station and noticed the interesting graphics of the white lines on the road below. I instantly setup my shot and waited for the right vehicle to drive under. It turned out to be a very long wait. It never occurred to me before that moment that most new cars today are very boring, at least from above their shapes and colors are nothing to get excited about. I was starting to wish for a red Corvette or something equally exciting. I was about ready to give up but Bill suggested I wait because he saw a red truck heading our direction. The bonus was the 3 kayaks in the back! I hit the shutter as the truck entered the intersection and stopped clicking as it went under the bridge. The photo above is my favorite.

Click here for an image gallery from Saturday morning.