Late yesterday afternoon I went down to the creek behind the house to play with some long exposures. I broke out the 2-stop ND filter to see what I could capture. Definitely had a great time exploring the creek bed. I now know I need more filter and I definitely want to get to a place with more motion, like a lake shore or beach along the ocean. I think a trip is in order…
Tag Archives: long exposure
Assignment 23: Winter
Scott Thomas, a fellow CNY photographer, hands out assignments every other month on his Views Infinitum blog. The current assignment due tomorrow is Winter (Assignment 23: Winter). Of course when Scott assigned this task we were at the start of a January thaw here in Central NY. But that should not have mattered because what he was actually looking for was what winter means to you, which does not necessarily involve snow.
I have quite a few images that I would classify as winter and would work for this assignment but last night as I headed out to shovel the driveway it finally hit me, what winter means to me is shoveling. There are a few tasks that I actually look forward to around the house. Not because I enjoy them but because they provide me that alone time where my body does the chore without much thought from my brain and my brain wanders through lots of different topics. During the summer mowing the lawn provides me with the same opportunity.
I ran back inside, grabbed the camera and created this image. It is a long exposure that I stepped out of half way through because like I said, my body does the chore but my mind is elsewhere…
Solitude
Water Lights
I have captured this bridge a few times over the past year and a half but I never ventured out at night. There were a few scenes I wanted to explore last night and although not all of them panned out for me, this image of the walkway bridge over the end of the Black River as it enters the barge canal turned out as I had hoped. There is something about reflected lights on water that just fascinates me.
Pre-Sunrise over the Thruway
My plans changed this morning when I received a text from an operator at work and I decided it was easier to drive in to help him. I ended up staying about an hour getting some parts in place to make tomorrow a little easier. As I left work around 6:30am the sun was just making its presence known in the sky. I decided it would be a good time to capture the image I have been wanting from the pedestrian walkway over the NY State thruway.
I had the lens as close as possible to the chain link fence but I just couldn’t keep it out of the image. I suppose if I didn’t have the wide angle lens on the camera it would have been easier to not include the fence. The colors in the sky and the light trails from the cars is what I really wanted anyway. Mission accomplished…
Good Start, So-So Finish…
The day after Thanksgiving found me having to get out and moving early. Not to shop but to work off all the food I ate the day before. Luckily, it was a beautiful morning and unusually warm. We had traveled down to my mother-in-law’s house which is next to the heifer barn on the family farm. I went for a walk out into the fields and was greeted with an early color show prior to the official sunrise of the day.
My plan for the day was to leave early on the trip back home (I have to work on Saturday for a few hours) and stop at a few waterfalls south of Syracuse. There is a great website New York Waterfalls and Nature that Scott Thomas at Views Infinitum had clued me into. I had already mapped out a plan and the cloud cover that was building suited me just fine since I didn’t want a bright sunny day.
I headed out a little after noon planning on making it to the first location around 2pm. My enthusiasm started to wane as I approached Cortland and a steady rain settled in for the remainder of my trip. I drove by both stops making a promise to myself to return at the first opportunity.
At least the day started off right…










