Category : blog

 

MAGIC, it doesn’t happen that often, in fact I’ve attempted to shoot this part of the Tremont Branch of the Little River over a hundred times, this was the only day it looked just like this!!!  It takes the perfect water level, the perfect light, the exact time in Spring, this was the day!  Then you have to compose it right, use the right shutter speed and aperture and set your polarizer just right!  Thankfully as photographers once in a great white it happens and we get it!  This is why we keep going out there with a camera!  May 1st, 2009 at 8:47 a.m.  Nikon D700 with a 35mm lens set at f 22 shot for 5 seconds.

 

The sad thing about this shot is just how nearly impossible it is to shoot it now!  Christmas morning of 2022 there were over 200 photographers here!  The place you need to stand or kneel in to get this angle will only accommodate 10 photographers all working together to get the shot! January 29th, 2008  Nikon D700 – 24-70 zoom exposure not recorded.  On this morning there were 12 people here and we took turns letting everyone get the shot, and everyone did!  * Thank you social media!

 

i was with a group of very dear His Light Friends in NewEngland in the Fall.   October 9th, 2011.  We were shooting a farm and I found these barrels in a shed with the red barn outside the window!  I remember I was so excited!  Nikon D7000 66 mm on a 24-120 zoom, 2.5 seconds @ f 11.  The window light was perfect!

 

I have been shooting this same shot of a Bel Air fender side since March 10, 2012 the year before I retired from Nikon. I think this was my first trip to Old Car City. Shot with a Nikon, did not record which model, but exposure was 1/45th of a second at f 9 and ISO 400.  Still one of my favorite shots from that location.  Today it is completely faded with only a hint of blue is left and part of Bel Air is now missing. Shoot things when you see them, don’t wait!

 

Jack and I were leading a group on the Amish Workshop at Yoder’s Farm, I found this on a shelf in the garage where they park their buggy!  These are the kinds of shots I treasure finding and I was thrilled with this one!  October 22, 2015  Shot with  Fujifilm X-T1 with the very sharp 18-135 zoom (can’t believe I gave mine away)!  Shot at 1.4 seconds f 16 @ ISO 400 on a tripod.

 

Same New England trip with the His Light Friends group.  Stopped for lunch in a restaurant in an old house, while waiting for my lunch decided to see what was in the other rooms, found these bottle on a shelf, my lunch was cold by time all of us shot this!  Was well worth it!  Shot October 11th, 2011.   Shot with a Nikon D7000 shot at 66mm (24-120) for 2.0 Seconds at f 11 ISO 1600. Bottles shot as found!

 

While walking down the street in St. Petersburg, Florida I saw this homeless man. I stopped and starting talking with him, we talked for a while, he knew I was a photographer, carrying  tripod, wearing a photo vest and with a camera over my shoulder in plain sight.  After talking for while I asked him if he would allow me to shoot a portrait of him, that I thought he had such incredible character in his face! To  my surprise he said he would and I got several great shots of him.  After we finished I offered to buy him breakfast and we went in little cafe and ordered breakfast and continued to get to know each other.  I offered to give him some money but he refused, he said, “you showed me kindness, we’re even!”  I think of him often and wonder what ever happened to him.  He reminded me that we’re all human and but for God’s Grace it could’ve been me standing there on the street.

 

This is the joy of being a photographer, who we meet, who become our friends, the incredible beauty we see and the disturbing things we see too, it all adds up to make us who we become, I pray it has made me a better man!

 

Blessings,

 

 

the pilgrim

 

 

This image is one that I stole, well I didn’t steal it, but Chuck Barnes did one like it at a workshop in Savannah, turned it in for review and when I saw it I said, I love it and you will tell me where you shot it!  He took me to the location and I shot a very similar image, I loved the shot and wanted to capture it myself, but it’s not really my shot!  So I’m giving myself permission to add an extra shot in the blog entry, and for this one congratulate Chuck!

 

I was speaking at the Florida Bird gathering a few years ago and one of the instructors brought a big selection of reptiles and set them up in a classroom for us to photograph.  He had the proper plants to pose them on and all we had to do was move from station to station to photograph them.  Most people were using flash, but I wanted to make a less contrasty image so I used the X-T1 with the 55-200 zoom and a Nikon 5T Diopter, I had to shoot at ISO 6400 to get enough shutter speed to handhold, but the noise was very low in the final file!  This is much better than fighting mosquitos and snakes to do it in Costa Rico!

 

This shot made in northern Ohio during one of mine and Jack’s Amish Photography Workshops.  It was a fantastic morning with great fall color and thick fog, when I look at this image it reminds me of what a great time I’ve had teaching and shooting with Jack! Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good!

 

I don’t know what it is about this image that appeals so much to me.  It was shot at Nelson Ghost Town just south of Las Vegas.  i love the texture differences between the gleaming chrome on the bicycle, and the rough texture of the wood and rusty signs.

 

When jack and I teach workshops on either coast we love to knock around the fishing docks, this dingy was a great pale blue color and someone had left a orange life jacket on the seat, it was a perfect set-up for the kind of imaI love to make, design and color of color sake!

 

Shot very recently when Dr. Paul Pedersen and I went up for a flight in his Gruman American airplane, on our final approach I got the shot with my iPhone and I love the red cowling of  his plane and the beautiful sight of the runway stretched out right in from of us on final approach.  This is my home airport and I’ve flown out of here a number of times!

 

 

Number of years ago I was attending an ISAP Meeting (International Association of Aerial Photographers) and we got the chance to see and photograph the brand new “First” F-35.  They set up a metal stairs so we could get a unique angle on the plane, and i chose to concentrate my shot on just the canopy!  Not many people outside the hard core aviation community even new about this plane then, it is now in full service!

 

Hope you enjoyed these and as a final thing I have two mages to share with you, the one I made and the one I created, not sure how I feel bout the one with an added sky, I love it, but I can’t bring my self to do it!  You can fire off for thoughts!

 

 

 

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

I shot this image with one of my best friend, (Bill Pekala), in the Great Smokies at Morton’s overlook.  We were sitting watch it rain after everyone else had left, with no shot at all and decided to just wait 10 more minutes until official sundown, them we agreed we would head down for dinner in Gatlinburg.  A minute later the clouds broke, the mist started rising and this occurred, we shot so fast I thought our motor drives would burst into flames, we still argue about who got the best shot!

 

It has been said that the line between genius and madness is very fine, very fine indeed!  After two weeks of sharing the work of some of my favorite people and their incredible photography, which was very well received, by-the-way,  I thought it might be fun to share, maybe, 10 of my favorite images from my 53 year career.  Following the stunning work of the last two weeks it might be impossible to follow their work,  but there is a method in my madness, let me explain.  After a pretty good search I ended up with 100 images!  I broke them into 10 categories; Abstract (7), Sports (3), Monochrome (17), Friends (6), Travel (13), Family (8), Americana & Rust (8), Color for Color Sake (9), Landscape (18) and  Wildlife (3).  I discovered something very interesting, I had a very specific connection and memories to every subject and situation. Please allow me to share each image with it’s own short narative.

 

I was teaching a workshop for the Bio Comm Meeting in Bar Harbor. ME for Nikon.  We had just released the new Nikon D800 and I was testing it on this trip.  I headed to one of my favorite beaches in Acdia National Park and shot these colorful rocks in the incoming surf.  I remember how much I enjoyed the sound of the water rolling over the rocks, and the nice breeze and the smell of the ocean. I also remember how I was wowed by the files that camera produced!  That shot hangs in our great room 30 X 40  Crystal Archive face mounted print!

 

When teachings a workshop in Nashville Tennessee, I found this unique decorative arrangement of rusty tools welded together on an office door.  I shot it with the Fujifilm X-E1 and the 18-55 zoom lens. That was that day, with this image, that I realized what a great system the Fujifilm X-system truly was, it is still one of my favorite images!

 

One of my favorite shooting locations is Old Car City in White Ga.  It is the largest junk yard in America with 36 acres and over 4,000 rusting cars and trucks, many prior to 1960. I love to shoot hood ornaments and this one on an old Cadillac is my favorite, she is beautiful!  Fujifilm X-T1 with the 60mm macro lens.  I love visiting with the owner and my friend Dean Lewis!

 

I am a writer, photographer, pilot, comedian and story teller.  I love this close-up image of the type hammers shot with my first Fujifilm love, the X10. I’m still shocked at the quality of images you can make with that little camera and this is such a big part of how I started my writing career!

 

While leading a tour in the South of France with a my dear buddy Bryan Peterson I wanted to make this shot and looked all over France for it, but to no avail.  On our last day before flying home Bryan suggested one last market in Paris, as we entered the market this was the first thing I saw, it was exactly the shot I had dreamed of!  I borrowed the vendors chair and stood up on it to get just the right angle.  His spices were covered by a large white nylon tent, (think softbox!!), it was the perfect light for the shot I wanted so desperately to make, once again, this print now hangs in our kitchen!

 

One of my favorite shooting locations for a sunrise is Hurricane Ridge Olympic National Park.  After shooting the first light I love to drive to the end of the parking lot and take the gravel road a hundred yards or so down the mountain where there is a large growth of Lupine, if they have dew on them they make spectacular close-up images, this morning we hit the jackpot!

 

I would love to share some more, if you desire, if you do, post a comment and I will keep this going all week!  It’s been fun for me to relive these memories!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I end the second week of sharing my favorite photographers Ive got someone very special to share with you today!  Bryan Jolley is a man after God’s heart, and that deep devotion to his Heavenly Father truly shows in his images.  Bryan has told me and his other brothers and sisters many times that he wants his work to announce the Glory of God’s Creation, and it certainly does.  The kind of vision that Bryan posses is not from man, but can only be given and received with a heart for God.  Every year Bryan sends his close friends a set of calendar pages for the coming year, I always look forward and dread receiving it, dread because it reminds me of how much further I have to go to be a truly great photographer, and it thrills me because I know the source of Bryan’s inspiration, and you will too in a few moments after your absorb his art!  May God get all the Glory!  I know that is the desire of Bryan’s heart.

 

 

If you are not overwhelmed, look again, I certainly am!

 

Have a Blessed weekend,

 

 

the pilgrim