It’s was an awesome day for a Kidz Fest on the Old Town Walking Mall in Winchester. After shooting an event at my church, I headed out and walked right into this. After all the rain and flooding over the past week, it was good to see blue sky again. As I walked up the alley to leave the mall, the smell coming from the new Cajun restaurant in the Taylor Hotel made me want to go in. I will be back to dine. Yum!
The Old Town Mall in Winchester, VA featuring the newly-renovated Taylor Hotel.
Found another image from our trip to Austria. On our last day, we took a hike up into Alpendorf and we were glad we did. Just look at that view! There are no words to describe it.
What a site for an awesome pool party. That ski lift goes to the Alpendorf Ski area in Austria.
I’m setting up, and adding to, my Flickr account. I’ve had it for several years and have done nothing with it. Shame on me. Anyway, it’s there now and is being populated and organized as we speak. I randomly started with images from Austria (maybe because I was talking with a friend about the trip the other day). As I’m skimming through – and skipping most (I really wish I knew how to take better pictures back then) – I stop at this one and immediately begin processing it. There was just something about it that stood out from all the rest. When I finished and uploaded it to my galleries I realized that I had processed it before. The difference illustrates how, on different days, you can see and image completely differently.
This is the building used for the Von Trapp residence exteriors in the movie. | Order a print of this image.
So this place is really tucked away in Clarke County, VA. I ride by this place just before riding by the Millwood Mill on Tuesday nights. I’ve been here once before when I was shooting weddings and haven’t been back since. Now I want to go inside because apparently there’s an amazing staircase just inside the front entrance (it’s now a goal of mine to shoot it).
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I’ll have to admit, I’ve never really been into history. But I sure do find it fascinating there are still so many reenactments of various battles all throughout this area. I’m actually determined to attend some of the larger ones later this year – mainly for the awesome photographic opportunities (but perhaps I’ll learn something new along the way). The oldest one in the nation is actually this weekend at New Market Battlefield in Virginia.
Anyway, since I was in Leesburg today I figured I’d take a little side trip to Ball’s Bluff to get the Civil War “juices’ flowing.
The Battle of Ball’s Bluff – 10/21/1861. | Order a print of this image.
Every photographer has a huge pile of images that have either gone horribly wrong. Or maybe said photographer thought, at the shoot, that the image was worth shooting, but got back to their desk and realized how horribly wrong they were. I took this image back when I first started dabbling in HDR processing and haven’t gone back to that set of images…until now. I’m posting the three images that made up the final just so I can remember how bad I thought the original images were.
And here’s the final image after some typical post-processing – I could do without all the noise, though.
These are the train tracks that cross Millwood Ave, in Winchester. I took this image in 2012 and am just now processing it.
Just having some fun with my extreme wide-angle fisheye lens. Actually a lot of my interior architecture images these days are shot with this lens. The end results have some pretty severe angles of view, but I try to not create them with the extreme, stereotypical, fisheye bulge that most people associate with this type of lens. The trick begins when shooting the images and making sure that the horizon looks real. I’m always looking for scenes where there is a natural built-in curve to the image – the fisheye lens can then enhance the scene. My favorite example is the image from the staircase in our local library – Handley Regional Library.
I usually try to avoid this look, but was just having fun here with this one.
One last look at the Florida beaches before I left. My kids used to call this sunlight pattern “God Rays.” Whatever you call it, there’s no denying the fact that it’s an incredible sight.
The wonderful thing about the sun rising or setting is that it’s really never the same.
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This one is in an effort to be more timely with my photos. It is, after all, Palm Sunday.
How timely is this? Another great sunset captured. Order a print of this image.
I think my circadian rhythms automatically sync to the sunrise whenever I travel. It doesn’t matter when I go to bed the night before, I’m always up before the sunrise the next day.
A few short hours and I caught up with the sun on the other side of yesterday.
Proper sunsets are simply awesome. I shot close to 300 photos before it was all said and done, but this one stood out from the rest. All the “contrasty” things going on were screaming for some post-processing. Hopefully gonna turn the other way in several hours and the catch up with the sun.
Could you see yourself retiring here? Order a print of this image.
It’s refreshing to have the opportunity to slow down and take notice of the very mundane stuff ‘cuz the mundane stuff can be cool. This is the stuff you drive past going to work everyday. It’s the stuff you miss while you’re frantically running your errands for the week. You may even run right past it on your daily jog. Slow down, or even stop, and just take it in. There’s so much fascinating stuff out there. How can I ever get “blocked” as a photographer when stuff like this exists around every corner. It may not be interesting to anybody else, but it is to me. So there. You see me with my camera pointed at something, anything, and you wonder “what the heck?” Well, now you know.
I’ve been walking by these trees for about 3 months now every morning while I walk my dog and have been fascinated with them every time.
Looks like the desert camo that the military wears these days, doesn’t it?
Everybody’s got one, right? Where’s yours?
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“The long and winding road that leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before it always leads me here
Leads me to your door”– Lennon–McCartney
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Even though we really just breezed through and didn’t really get a chance to go to any of the lookouts, it really was a unique experience. It really did feel like we were out in the middle of nowhere.
The seriously wacky other-worldly landscape of the Badlands in South Dakota.
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Aside from all the obvious benefits of cycling all these years, I’ve also become conditioned to being awake for the wee hours of the morning. It also comes in handy as a photographer.
Like I said, spend the rest of the weekend shooting the good stuff. | Order a print of this image.
The middle of nowhere. The middle of the country. The middle of the road. And just past the middle of our RV trip.
Took a little digging, but I found the exact spot we stopped for some photos!
One of our favorite places to visit is WIlliamsburg and the last time we ventured out a little further than usual and found this place. Needless to say there’s a ton of history in this area and we’d never been to this site before. And as always, great photo opportunities everywhere we went.
This is where I took this one | Order a print of this image.
I heard myself vocalize it today. I’m a photographer. I had a friend suggest that I collect unemployment while I search for a job. And I heard myself say that I’m not sure I want to look right now. I’m a photographer. At least for now. Life is certainly going to throw curveballs at you from time to time and this one has been a whopper, but I think I’ve created a path that I’m going to follow and see where this crazy adventure takes me. As long as I’ve got access to my cameras and a nice day for a bike ride, I’ll be good for now.
Thanks Carla.
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Cedarmeade Studios 