After spending a few days in California for work (without my camera) I needed to get my photography fix on. Saturday morning was looking like I might be able to find a sunrise. Even though Mother Nature has been teasing us with Spring it was still only 30 degrees out by the time the sun was suppose to debut. I headed over to Bellamy Harbor Park in Rome to get a glimpse of the morning color. I was not disappointed. Here is Bellamy in Orange…
Bellamy in Orange Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 0.5s, 40mm, f/16, ISO 64, 5 image pano
Finished with work a little early at a supplier in California on Thursday. Headed down to Long Beach to look around. I was able to get over to see the Queen Mary up close and personal. I wasn’t sure if I needed the tour but being that close to the ship was pretty darn cool. The sub next to the Queen Mary is a Soviet sub which patrolled the Pacific for 22 years during the Cold War.
One of my favorite views at Animal Kingdom! This one is from a early Spring trip in 2014. I originally used this image to create one of my Painted Disney images. I zoomed in a little via a tighter crop and reprocessed everything as I would today. I’m looking forward to this view in a couple of weeks.
I had been on my photography journey for a little over a year and a half. I graduated from my Point & Shoot to my first DSLR, a Nikon D5100, about a year previous when I learned about a photography event occurring at Walt Disney World in October… Photo Magic 2013. Something so far outside my comfort zone it wasn’t even funny. I signed up anyway. No regrets!
I met a lot of great people. Still follow most of them, and happily, most still follow me. Maybe if I was a more social creature I would have stayed in touch with more of them but I have enjoyed watching everyone’s progression as photographers.
This is an image from one of the last nights of the event. My first attempt at processing this image was not too shabby, but I have learned a lot since then and the tools used to create HDR images have improved as well. I thought the first image was rather soft without much detail. Hopefully, this one improved on all my complaints with the first…
Two weeks! In two weeks I’ll be back home! Spring at Walt Disney World, for me, is the International Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot. I’ll be visiting all the parks, but I will probably end up most at Epcot. There is so much to see and photograph inside Epcot and the festival only increases my photographic opportunities.
I thought it would be interesting to look back at all I have captured in the past six years since I started considering myself a photographer. I came across this great image of Cinderella Castle from September 2012. I decided to reprocess this image using some new techniques as well as programs. I think the original was a little “hot” with the blues and I wanted to try to tone it down a little.
All a Glow… again Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/5s, 17mm, f/5, ISO 1600
This project had stalled slightly. I believe the last post was at the end of February. It was a lack of motivation more a lack of discovery. I hadn’t been able to find additional, unique oil cans to add to my collection. To be fair, I haven’t searched all that much as other things in life have needed attention, but that is a minor excuse.
Well, I corrected that on Sunday. Rather than drive out to Costco to look for stuff I didn’t really need I thought it would be good to explore some antique stores. I checked Google Maps and found a few unexplored stores to the East of me and plotted a mini trip. If I started with one of my first store in Barneveld I could travel down Route 28 stopping in Newport and Mohawk. The adventure was set!
Off to Foothills Merchantile (Facebook link) in Barneveld. I hadn’t been there in quite a while and surprisingly, a lot had changed. Some familiar old displays with new stuff and an entire section of the store that looked to remodeled. It was a good start and I walked away with a new oil can and a set of Dragon Double 6 dominoes for my Game Pieces project. Striking oil on the first stop was a great sign.
The next stop on my hunt was the Newport Marketplace (Facebook link) in Newport (I know, a little obvious). This store was very deceptive. From the outside it did not look that big but once inside, I didn’t know where to start and if I needed to leave a breadcrumb trail back to the front door. There was a good mix between crafts, antiques and commercial items. I walked away with another oil can. I spotted quite a few lanterns as well but damn, they are expensive. I will have to think about those some more.
The last stop on my Route 28 tour was the Mohawk Antiques Mall (yes, in Mohawk, NY). What a great place. It was huge! Even though I walked all through this place I know I only truly saw about a third of the stuff in there. Great collection of items too! Definitely going to have to make another trip out. I also know of a couple more store out in Little Falls which I can add to this Sunday tour. By the way, at this store I walked away with three more oil cans! Now I have some photography to do… LOL!
Here is the a little 1/2 pint oil can I found at the Mohawk Antique Mall. Actually, it was the first thing I picked up. Luckily I could only carry so much or I would have walked away a little more broke.
Half Pint Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 1/40s, 32mm, f/11, ISO 200
MLCreations Photography 