Fairfax Farm

This amazing farm sits in the neighboring town of Fairfax. We have been driving by many times. I finally managed to head over there with a camera in the evening light. But it turned out that the best view is not really towards the west, but more to the south (and there were hardly any clouds in the sky last night). So I called the help of the new Photoshop 2021 "Sky Replacement" feature and achieved this look. I love the result, but am still on the fence what to do with it... On the one side, this is art and the artist (i.e. the photographer) should be free to do with the raw material as he/she pleases. But replacing a major component of the image still feels a bit like cheating to me. 

What is your opinion?

New "Quiescence" (Stick Season) Collection

November was always a low in my photography activities. This became apparent again while selecting photos for the my photo calendars. So this year, Thomas and me went on a photo tour on a gray, wet and dreary November day. Turns out that there is still plenty of color (mostly browns and dark reds) out there. And other scenes made nice black and white conversions. I liked a lot of the scenes we photographed that day and decided to set up an extra gallery for the "stick season" as they call it here.

I hope you enjoy my selection of photos here!

Along Kenyon Road, Richmond

Having Fun with Leave Abstracts

OK. Leaves are falling. Sad, but that's just the nature of things. And instead of complaining about the cold and dreary season that's about to come upon us, we can still have fun! Just take a macro lens and get close to the ground. And do not focus on the "nice" leaves only. I found the half broken down ones even more interesting. See this example below.

The trick is to find a flat one. Once they lay around for a while, they get dry and wrinkle up. And wrinkles require too much depth of field that a macro lens at that magnification usually does not offer that easily. Sure, bringing leaves into your studio and putting them under a glas to flatten them might work as well... but I prefer to take photos of objects in their natural environments.

And then just try different angles and compositions. Find out what works best only on a bigger screen once the image have been downloaded. You can still rotate and crop, but you loose resolution and quality in the process. So try to get as close to a good composition already while shooting.

In post processing you can then add more contrast or clarity, sharpen the image and optimize the colors. Those subjects without a background reference are quite forgiving.


Maple Leaf Abstract

Shortlived Foliage Season 2017

A very dry second half of Summer 2017, together with windy and rainy conditions on the Columbus Day weekend will probably shorten the Vermont Foliage Season this year. After our photo tour on Saturday under overcast skies, Sunday was partly sunny again. We decided to explore the local Preston Pond area in Bolton. It features a few beaver ponds and a beautiful outlook, called Libby's Look. Thanks to the high dynamic range sensor of my SLR and the editing capabilities of Lightroom, even the backlighting conditions in late afternoon resulted in good photos from the top. Instead of the all too common broad view of colorful trees, I played with reflections, abstracts, camera movement and sunstars. Oh what glorious colors and photographic opportunities nature provides!


Preston Pond Loop Abstract


Sunstar


Libby's Look

Preston Pond Reflections (I)


Preston Pond Reflections (II)

Turtlehead Pond

We (Thomas and myself) stumbled upon this little gem in the Marshfield Town Forest more or less by accident. On our quest for Foliage photos, we went along VT Rt. 2 on Saturday and stopped in Plainfield (Martin Covered Bridge) and Marshfield (amazing hillside colors). But then I found two small ponds on the map in the vicinity and we just went there. It turned out to be an amazing site. Even without blue sky, the view from the lower end of Turtlehead Pond with the cliff in the background was well worth the drive!

Turtlehead Pond (I)


Turtlehead Pond (II)


Turtlehead Pond (III)


Turtlehead Pond (IV)

Vermont State House

Talking about Vermont being a rural state... From this particular vantage point (the National Life parking area), all you can see from our capital is the golden dome of the State House. I have been there many times and the view is getting tighter and tighter every year (someone needs to clear those trees!). But I have still to time it right for the perfect foliage colors in the trees on the slope behind the State House...
BTW: For those of you interested: The statue on top is Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. Fitting!

State House (I)


State House (II)

Barn Series

These are a few shots back from late winter/early spring of 2016. The little bit of snow we had this winter is gone, but the blue skies make photography interesting despite the drab ground colors.

The farm with the silos can be found on the Lake Champlain Islands along the West Shore Road in Alburg, while the other barn photos were taken right here in Westford during some of our local walks along Huntley Road and Cambridge Road.

Red and Blue make for a good combination, despite the missing white :-)

Green River Reservoir, More on Lightroom

Dead Tree (Green River Reservoir, VT)

Dead Tree II (Green River Reservoir, VT)
The photos above have been taken on Green River Reservoir last fall. We had the luck of hitting peak foliage season there with perfect weather for the last three years now. Again, this is my "old postcard" look achieved with Topaz "Glow".

I have to write a bit more about Lightroom: I am really positively surprised by that tool. I still find the Library/Development module a bit more clunky than the Apple Aperture solution, but once you get used to it, working with it is just as easy. So far, I have been reading just one book on the tool, but there are countless videos on YouTube that not only explain the mechanics, but also give great advice on workflow. You can find some cool plugins (like this LR/Blog for posting photos to a blog). The only one I am missing from the Aperture world is "Border FX". Of course, you can do all these things with Photoshop, but I prefer simple, intuitive solutions.

Summer Evening in Westford

August has been dry and rather warm this year. It's September as I am posting this, but the photo is from August, only a few days old. There is a barn down the road from us with haybales in front. I have been driving by every day, but last week I had to get there with my camera in the evening light to take photos.

Here is the result after some 'Topaz' post processing that brings out the hazy mood of that warm late summer day even better (you can click onto the image above to get a higher resolution one).

For those of you who do not know yet: I am using some photo editing plugins from Topaz Labs (Adjust, Simplify, DeNoise, ...). One of my favorite settings in "Adjust" is called 'faded glory'. I used this one on the barn photo and tweaked a few things here and there. Although I hardly noticed them at exposure time, I especially like the goldenrods in the foreground.