4 weeks ago
It’s good to have friends
I have been blessed on meeting a large number of great photographers. Some of us start to share bonds as we shoot more and more together. I wish I took more shots of the class as I went along. Jim Begley and Chuck Barnes are are couple of the finest photographers I know. They have becomes good friends and I look forward to shooting with them again. I can’t leave out Bill Fortney who put us together and is one of the finest all around men I know. Unfortunately I didn’t get a shot of Bill this trip.
Jim, Chuck and I went out for a little early morning shooting while the rest of the class was with Matt Kloskowski (bless his heart). Uh guys, the sun is over there!?!
Fall Foliage
We took a walk along the Jessop Trail in Acadia National Forest. Yet another prime location for doing all sorts of work. This image was finessed with the new Color Efex Pro 4 from Nik Software.
Vermont, Part 2
Ok so this isn’t really in Vermont, it’s in New Hampshire. We took folks out to Albany Covered Bridge on the Kancamagus Highway. While the students were out shooting the bridge and running water, I looked back and saw a patch of ferns that just turned brown. I grabbed my macro lens and took a few frames. It really is a case of seeing the forest through the trees.
Vermont, Part 1
After a frightful day of dodging tourist and really harsh light our second day of shooting went much better. The group is a great bunch of people and really good photographers. I took the group to several different locations in Lyndonville, VT. One of the locations was super great to us as photographers.
Inn at Mountain View Farm
The Inn at Mountain View Farm was a great place to make photographs.
Location Scouting
I did a lot of scouting for the upcoming trip to New England. I was fortunate enough to have an office in New England, so I made a few on site scouting trips. This type of trip is invaluable.
Here’s a list of things I learned / did as I was driving around:
- If you are fortunate enough to have a partner, take them along. Scouting is much easier with a second set of eyes. It’s much more fun also.
- Take a GPS and know how to use it. Set up way points or at least write down the latitude and longitude of every place you stop.
- Take notes on the spot. It’s amazing how much you forget very quickly. You want to write down things like: direction that you are facing, obstacles to getting to the site, how much parking is there, morning or evening shot, closest restrooms
- Make a sketch or quick drawing of where you were standing and any landmarks
- Take a shot or two, it doesn’t have to be pretty, just enough to jog your memory.
- Make contacts, find folks who have lived in the area and are willing to give you some advice and write it down. Neighborhood restaurants and information booths are great for this.
- Get a map. Even if you have a GPS, maps are great when talking to people. They’ll often write stuff for you.
- Don’t be afraid to get lost. Take the road less traveled, sometimes you’ll find some great stuff along the way.
- Have fun! It’s an adventure worth having.
That’s it for now. I’ll write down more as they come to me.
Vermont Scouting
I was up in New England for business and decided to stay the weekend and scout out a few locations for our upcoming photo trip. One of the presentations I am going to give is on how to predict fog. Fog is a tough animal to understand and prediction is almost impossible. However you can find out what it takes to make fog and if some of the elements are there fog is possible. I got lucky and spotting some fog and an iconic Vermont church. This is going to be a good trip.
