The Year that Was 2022 — Stories Behind My Favorite Images of 2022 (Part 4 — The Kentucky Derby)

Happy Holidays!

This is the fourth and last installment of stories behind my favorite images of 2022. The first three can be found here, here, and here.

In November I went to Kentucky for business. Although I missed the Fall colors there, I still had a few good sessions to produce several images, which ended up on my favorites list for 2022.

Click on the image to go to the product page. Without further ado…

At the end of my first day in Kentucky, I went to the waterfront in Louisville for sunset. I arrived in advance, walked around, crossed the Ohio river on the Big Four bridge to the Indiana site, and finally settled to watch the sun go down, with the beautiful sunset washing over the different bridges and Louisville skyline.

Sunset at George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge and Louisville Downtown Skyline

I was lucky to get a beautiful afterburner that day as well, and had fun to photograph the different bridges, including some night shots I haven’t finished editing yet.

Panorama of the Sunset at Abraham Lincoln Bridge and Louisville Downtown

Abraham Lincoln Bridge and Louisville Downtown Night Shot

After I was done with work on the next day, I drove to Cumberland Falls State Resort Park for the weekend. Although the forecast was for rain on Saturday and partially cloudy Sunday, I didn’t really get any sun. However, I did get some moody shots with brewing clouds and rain.

On the first morning, I went to photograph the beautiful Cumberland Falls. These magnificent falls are sometimes called the Little Niagara or the Niagara of the South. They are set in a beautiful wooded and mountain surrounding in the Daniel Boon National Forest. The falls are one of the few places where you can see a moonbow. Unfortunately, I was a few days too late to see this phenomenon, and I doubt I would have been able to with the heavy cloud cover. However, I had a chance to capture some beautiful moody shots of the waterfalls.

Cumberland Falls

A beautiful black and white version of this shot can be found in the Monochrome gallery. At one point in the morning the light rain turned into a downpour, and I went to have breakfast at the lodge. The restaurant at the lodge has a beautiful view of the river and the mountains. I went to the balcony and took some amazing misty, rainy views, two of which make it to this list.

Panorama of the Stormy Morning at Cumberland Falls State Park

Stormy Morning at Cumberland Falls State Park

The next day I hiked to the Dog Slaughter Falls. The hike winds through a beautiful forest along the Dog Slaughter Creek. It has many opportunities for beautiful woodland scenes in the right light conditions and in Fall. I had the falls all to myself and spent a good amount of time photographing them. Two of the shots make it to the list of my favorites in 2022.

Dog Slaughter Falls 1

Dog Slaughter Falls 2

This concludes the list of my favorite shots in 2022.

Happy Holidays!

The Year that Was 2022 — Stories Behind My Favorite Images of 2022 (Part 3 — New England Fall)

Happy Holidays!

This is the third installment of posts featuring my favorite images of 2022. You can find the first and the second at the links.

This year the fall colors came out in force in New England. In the few years I’ve been here, I believe this one was the best from Fall colors perspective. I am still wading through the many images I took during this period, but I already have several that are among my all time favorite shots.

Click on the image to go to the product page. Let’s get going…

On one of the weekends we went to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. We started at the Little White Church in Eaton, hoping for some mist above the lake, but it didn’t materialize. We drove into the mountains and, as often is the case, noticed a dilapidated farm on our way to Conway. I doubled back and we stopped for a few minutes to photograph the barn. This image also has a very nice black and white version, which didn’t make it onto this list.

Abandoned Barn near Conway, New Hampshire

We drove through the Cancagamus highway, stopping in several locations. most of the images from that drive are still waiting to be edited. In the afternoon we climbed the Artists Bluff hike near Franconia Notch for sunset. The location was extremely crowded to the point of people creating a traffic jam on the way down. We stayed at the overlook until the sun hid behind the mountains. I took out my long lens and took shots of the trees on the mountain slopes across from us, basking in the light of the settling sun, glowing gold.

Fields of Gold. Trees in the Light of the Settling Sun at Artists Bluff, New Hampshire

Last Call. Fall Trees at Franconia Notch as Seen from Artists Bluff, Bathed in Last Rays of Settling Sun

After going to the White Mountains, I spent a couple of days in the Berkshires. On one of the mornings I went to Bash Bish falls for my first visit to that staple of Massachusetts Berkshires. I came early enough for sunrise and was the only person at the falls, giving me the opportunity to take my time and photograph the falls framed by Fall-colored trees.

Bash Bish Falls in Fall Colors

This year I participated in the art fair at the Roseland Cottage in Woodstock, Connecticut. The fair is organized by Historic New England and is one of several I did with them. All the fairs were very well organized and well attended in beautiful locations across New England. At this show I was contracted to do custom work. while doing that I took one of my favorite fall shots this year, which I am including in this list with the clients’ permission.

Light through the Canopy

Often the images we love the most are the ones from our local area or those which remind us of great experiences. There are several locations near Lancaster, Massachusetts, which I pass every day on my way to and from work. One of them is a small wooded area. I always wondered how it would look with some fog. So, one day, I woke to a nice misty morning, grabbed my camera and headed out. When I was almost done and was about to head back, I captured the following image of the most beautiful God Rays breaking through the trees, with the last of the morning mist helping bring them to life.

Let There Be Light

Another location, which I see every day, and which was the source of endless frustration for me is a large wetland area near highway 70. My frustration comes from the fact that the area looks amazing, but there is just no place to stop without risking being run over. One day, I finally got so jealous of the amazing light and mist in this area that I went to google maps and tried to figure out how I can get to it. I found an access point from a cemetery in the residential neighborhood near by. Although I didn’t get the full view of the wetland area, I got enough to capture a few of my favorites this year. Two of them make it to this list, but there are several more, which were “almost”.

Misty Morning in Lancaster

I came early enough to be able to explore a little, to capture the heavier mist during the blue hour, and to capture the rising sun backlighting the mist over the wetland.

Of Sun and Mists

Kimball Farm is another location I pass on my daily commute. One morning, I just had to stop to capture the misty trees there. The wisps of mist backlit by the rising sun created this eerie atmosphere straight out of the Lord of the Rings.

Misty Morning at Kimball Farm

Old Stone Church in West Boylston is a location I keep going back to. It is only a few minutes drive away from my house, and offers a variety of shots in different conditions. I am still missing some good winter shots of the location, but I was able to capture a few good Fall shots this year.

Colors and Reflections

Sunset and Mist at the Old Stone Church

We finished up our Fall season this year with a two-day trip to Cape Cod. This is the first time I went there, and I will definitely go back. On the first evening we stopped at Race Point beach for sunset. This was one of the most amazing sunsets and afterburners I have seen, and it resulted in two images to cap off this installment of my favorite images of 2022. A perfect ending.

Sunset at Race Point Beach

Watching the Sunset

Happy Holidays!

The Year that Was 2022 — Stories Behind My Favorite Images of 2022 (Part 2 — Quintessentially British)

Happy Holidays!

This is the second installment of my favorite images of 2022. You can find the first installment here. Check it out!

At the end of May I went to UK for business, and spent a few days in the beautiful Cotsowlds region of England. It was an intense trip during which I got up at 4am to go and shoot a sunrise, go work, and then go shoot a sunset, getting back to the hotel around 10pm. After spending a few days in the Cotswolds, I went for one intense, amazing day at the Jurassic Coast. It was all, oh so worth it, as I got many of my favorite images ever. To my shame, I am still not done with editing my images from that trip, but even though it is a hard job to select just a few to share in this list.

Special thanks and a shout out to William Gray for his extremely helpful tips about locations in the Cotswolds. Make sure to check out his amazing work.

Click on the image to go to a product page. And now…

Misty Morning at the Water Meadows Near Burford in the Cotswolds

I spent my first morning in the Cotswolds at the water meadows near Burford. Burford is a town on the River Windrush, in the Cotswold hills, in the West Oxfordshire district and is often referred to as the “gateway” to the Cotswolds. When I arrived at the location, morning mist covered most of the area. I had some time to set up before the sunrise and to meet the two swans nesting there. Once the Sun rose, it backlit the mist and created an absolutely amazing atmosphere.

Panorama of the Water Meadows Near Burford in the Cotswolds

After spending some time at Burford I stopped at the Woxholes conservation area. Unfortunately, I was pretty short on time, and the light was not great, but I did manage to take this image. It might not be the most artistic, but the fact that all the sheep were looking at me as I took the shot, makes it one of my favorites and so Quintessentially British countryside that I had to include it in my list.

Somebody’s Watching Me. Sheep Grazing Near Foxholes Conservation Area in the Cotswolds

Sunset at the St. Barnabas Church in the Town of Snowshill in the Cotswolds

I came to shoot St. Barnabas Church in the small town of Snowshill three times while exploring the Cotswolds. For those who like trivia, the movie Bridget Jones Diary was filmed in Snowshill. The first evening was a miserable rainy gray. I enjoyed a nice dinner at the Snowshill Arms that can be seen here behind the church. I returned the next day for a sunrise and got some nice shots, but nothing spectacular. Finally, I came back once again for a sunset two days later. I was rewarded for my persistence by a spectacular susnet and a nice dinner at Snoshill Arms. If you are in the area, check them out for a great atmosphere and food.

Sunburst at the St. Barnabas Church in the Town of Snowshill in the Cotswolds

Wild Garlic Galore

End of May is the season when wild garlic is in full bloom. during one of the days I went to the local woods in Winchcombe. the floor was covered with wild garlic, and you could tell the direction of the best spots covered with these flowers by following your nose. To get this image all in focus, I had to focus stack shots. Thankfully, there was no wind.

The Cotswolds houses are sometimes described as coming from a chocolate box. The architecture and the atmosphere doesn’t get any more British and feels as if it came straight out of old Miss Marple movies. One of the best examples of this atmosphere can be found in Chipping Campden, a market town in Gloucestershire. To my great shame, I have not edited most of the images from Chipping Campden, except for St. James’ Church.

St. James’ Church in Chipping Campden

On the last day I had in the Cotswolds, I went to the Sherborne Estate for the sunrise. This was again at William Gray’s suggestion. The sunrise on that day was beautiful, and I had a lot of fun photographing the different trees in the area. It is a beautiful area, and these images remind me of the calm atmosphere I experienced when I was there all by myself.

Between the Light and the Shadow

Sunrise at the Sherborne Estate

Castle in the Sky. Corfe Castle Rising from the Mists at Sunrise

After spending some more time at the Gloucester Cathedral and taking some pictures with ghosts I headed South to the Jurassic coast. I spent some time in the evening scouting the area of Corfe Castle, and returned in the morning well before the sunrise. Corfe Castle is a royal castle, now a majestic ruin, was established by William the Conqueror and partially destroyed in the English Civil War. The location is known to have temperature inversion and beautiful mists that give the castle ruins an eerie feel straight out of Tolkien’s works.

When I left the hotel to go to my scouted vantage point, I was a little concerned as there didn’t seem to be any sign of a mist. However, as I got closer to the castle, the mist started to appear. It ended up being a beautiful morning with the mists rolling in and out over the hills. I had a wonderful session photographing the area. I started out alone, but after approximately forty minutes I was joined by a few other photographers as well as some cows.

Misty Morning at Corfe Castle

After finishing up at Corfe Castle I headed to Old Harry Rocks, the most Eastern point of the Jurassic Coast. Sun was already up, but it was cloudy, and I had the location all to myself. Because I was the only person there, I could walk around the location and capture it from different directions with nobody getting into my shots. I took several long exposure shots to smooth out the water and to add to the atmosphere in the images. Two of the shot of the Old Harry rocks make it onto this list.

Storm is Brewing

Morning at Old Harry Rocks

I’ve spent the rest of the day photographing different locations on the Jurassic Coast, and some of these shots almost made it to the top choices list, while others still wait to be edited on my computer. Before heading back to my hotel, I spent the sunset at Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch near Lulworth. There I captured the shot that caps this installment of my favorite shots of 2022.

Sunset at Durdle Door

Looking back on this trip, I am amazed just how many locations I managed to cover in the few days I was there, and just how many shots from there are among my favorites ever. I hope to go back in the not too distant future and spend some more time in these beautiful locations.

Happy Holidays!

The Year that Was 2022 — Stories Behind My Favorite Images of 2022 (Part 1 — Lowcountry Living)

Happy Holidays everyone!

It has been another great year for my photography. Looking back, I am frankly amazed at just how many images from this year can make it into my personal favorites. Although I have been doing landscape photography for more than a few years now, the last two years probably saw the biggest jump in the quality of my images. I’ve made great progress in almost every aspect of my photography from planning my shots and locations and all the way through editing.

This was also the first year I seriously tried to sell my work at art fairs and other venues. This experience helped me get over the concerns of whether I was good enough (impostor syndrome is not unusual with photogrphers). I even dipped my toes in doing commission work (I am grateful to the customers that trusted me with this). In short, as I mentioned above, it has been a great year.

So, to celebrate the end of the year, here are the stories behind some of my favorites from 2022. Since there were so many, I had to break this into several parts. This part will focus on images taken in South Carolina during a workshop in Charleston at the end of march.

Special shout out to Kate Silvia and Kenny McKeithan who led the workshop in Charleston. Make sure to check them out. So, without further ado…

Click on the image to go to a product page. As I look back at 2022, is amazing just how many images that I love I took this year. I had to work hard to reduce this list to a manageable level.

Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge is a staple of Charleston. We came there for a sunset shoot after spending some time at the famous Rainbow Row in Downtown Charleston. And, boy, did the sunset delver. The beautifully lit clouds with made the location one of my best experiences this year.

Sunset at the Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge, Charleston, South Carolina

The shot on the right is a panorama of six images taken with a long 150mm (225mm equivalent) lens. The light from the sunset on the left, just outside the frame, gives this image a kind of cynematic look you sometimes see in the initial establishing shots. A perfect way to kick off my top choices. After we were done, and other participants went to rest before an early shoot the next day, I stayed behind. First, I went up the bridge, and then returned to our sunset spot for a night shot. Although I love the night lit bridge by itself, I think that the clouds that day gave this image just that extra kick to bring it into my top twelve for the year. I should point out here, that I have several more great images of this bridge, which did not make it to this list.

A Night Shot of Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina.

After doing a sunrise shoot at Folly Beach the next morning, we went to visit the Magnolia Plantation. This plantation is amazing and offers a variety of great shots of the live oaks, cypresses and various flowers. For the purposes of this list, I chose two of the more unusual shots I took there. The black and white image of the live oak was taken with a long lens (again). I have a color version of the same shot that I also like, but I just think that the black and white version with the edit to mimic an infrared shot brings that something extra to the shot.

Live Oak at Magnolia Plantation in Monochrome.

The second image from the Magnolia Plantation surprised me. I am used to water looking like glass when you take a long exposure, and this was what I expected when I took this image. However, apparently water and leaves moved enough on the surface to create these amazing streaks. This was enough to get the image to my top choices list.

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Circles on the Water at the Magnolia Plantation

On the last day of the workshop we went to the bone-yard beach at Botany Bay for sunrise. As people spread out, I found myself a nice dead tree placed right at the edge of the surf. As the sun came up, I kept shooting, experimenting with different shutter speeds until I was happy with the result. During one of the art shows I participated this year, a customer mentioned that they saw a couple sitting at the top of the root, watching the sunrise. Ever since then I cannot unsee it.

Sunrise at the Bone-Yard Beach at Botany Bay

After we finished at Botany Bay, on our way back to Charleston we stopped at the Angel Oak tree. This amazing like oak is estimated to be 400-500 years old, and it stands over 60ft tall and over 25 feet in circumference. It dwarfs the people standing next to it. The location was teaming with people, but I managed to take a few shots without a crowd. I especially love a series of shots of the branches of this amazing tree reaching for the sun. One of these makes an appearance on this “favorite” list.

Reaching for the Sun. Angel Oak Tree near Charleston.

Azaleas and Cypress Trees at the Cypress Gardens

Finally, after finishing up the workshop and before leaving South Carolina, I stopped at the cypress gardens. It is another amazing location near Charleston, and I had a blast photographing it. I had the benefit of great light although it was in the middle of the day. Out of the many shots that I love, which I took that day, I chose one to include on this list. The combination of the white azaleas and the cypress trees in the background is just something special.

As i already mentioned, narrowing down the list of my favorites was very hard this year, and many great images I took during my several days in Charleston didn’t make it onto the list.

If you would like to see more images from South Carolina, be sure to check out my South Carolina gallery.

Happy Holidays!

Field Trip to Night Lights at New England Botanic Garden (Tower Hill) and How to Use Long Exposure for Creative Effect and to Remove People from Shots

It’s the time of year when lights and light shows come out to celebrate the holiday season. This year was the first time I went to the Tower Hill Botanic Garden to see the Night Lights decorations. The visit was as part of the field trip with the Worcester County Camera Club, though I arrived a bit later than everybody else.

Tower Hill Botanic Garden Night Light Display Main Garden

The displays at the garden are beautiful and offer a variety of subjects to get your creative juices flow. Night photography of this type brings a set of challenges in addition to those you would have under normal lighting conditions. And then, there are a lot of people walking around, enjoying the show and the atmosphere, who you would not necessarily want in your shots.

Let’s get the easy things out of the way. All the normal composition “rules” apply, so I am not going to dwell on that. If allowed, bring a tripod. Granted, many cameras from the last five years both have a good low-light performance, and have sensor stabilization. If you have one of those, you might get away with hand-holding your camera. My camera is about twelve years old and has pretty bad low light performance. While it does have image stabilization, it is probably a couple of stops. Good, but not nearly enough. So, it is a tripod for me. In addition, if you want to shoot long exposure like the shot above, you would need a tripod anyway (but more about it below).

Trees Lit with Colorful Lights at the Tower Hill Botanic Garden Night Light Display

One of the challenges when shooting this type of scenes is getting the white balance right. Now, many newer cameras have a good automatic white balance, so, this might not be an issue. Mine is a hit and miss under these conditions. So, if you wanted another reason to shoot RAW rather than JPEG, white balance is it. Adjusting white balance later in Lightroom to suit your taste and to match the scene colors the way you remember them is easy.

Another pitfall you would not necessarily think of when considering night light displays is that they are very high dynamic range. Now, if you don’t mind blowing the highlights at the lights or losing all the details in the night sky or shadowy areas, that’s not a problem. However, generally, you want those. Or at least you want the option to decide later when you edit your shot. So, I suggest bracketing the images just in case. And that’s another reason to have a tripod. Now, I shoot exposure bracketed images hand-held all the time (mostly because I am lazy to get my tripod out), but that’s when you have enough light or when you need a fast shutter speed for other reasons, such as freezing movement in your shot.

Night Lights displays automatically lend themselves to sun-stars effect. If you don’t know what it is, that’s the spokes around the lights in the first image above. Those happen naturally to a varying degree as you close down your aperture, which you tend to do anyway if you want to get everything in your image in focus. The number of spokes corresponds to double the number of aperture blades on your lens and some lenses have more beautiful sun-stars than others.

Tower Hill Botanic Garden Night Light Display

Finally, what do you do when there are a lot of people that you don’t want in your shots? Well, you can wait if you are very patient and lucky. A little hard to do if there are a lot of people like on the night when I was at the Tower Hill, and especially if it is pretty cold and you can freeze your butt off waiting. You could also shoot many shots with people passing through and then try to remove people in Photoshop by combining the different shots. Doable, but sometimes can be cumbersome. And finally, you can use long exposure.

We’ve all seen images of water smoothed out by long exposure to give it that ethereal look or the shots with streaks of clouds to show movement. In our case, you want your exposure to be long enough so the people passing through your frame don’t register. Or at least don’t register enough to see like in the shots above, all of which were taken with a thirty second exposures. You do need to experiment with this, as you can get “ghosts” if your exposure is too short or the people are too slow. So, make sure to check before you leave. In my case, thirty seconds were generally enough during this trip, but if not, use neutral density filters to slow your shutter speed down even more if you need to.

Old South Church in Boston

Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina

You can, of course, use the long, or “longish” shutter speeds for other creative purposes such as creating the light streaks from cars like in the image above taken at the Old South Church in Boston or the one on the right taken at the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Charleston.

For this, you will need to experiment (strange how often that’s the answer to our questions about what works best in photography). The reason is that you want your shutter speed to correspond to the speed the cars are moving in your frame. This will also be complicated by the focal length you are using. So, for example, the shot in Boston was taken at ten seconds, while the one in Charleston was fifteen seconds.

And just to have some fun at the end of this post, here are a couple of shots I took at Gloucester Cathedral during my trip last spring. These corridors were used to shoot scenes in the Harry Potter movies. So, naturally, I wanted to fill them with ghosts. To do that, I took several longer exposures with me walking into the frame for parts of the exposure, until I got the effect I wanted. And then, I combined several images in Photoshop to place the “ghosts” in different locations in the frame.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Ghosts at the Gloucester Cathedral

So, I Want to Purchase a Print, Which One Should I choose?

So, you’ve decided to purchase a Fine Art Photographic Print. First of all, welcome! You’ve come to the right place.

Here is the problem. With so many options, how do you decide? Each case is, obviously a highly personal one and depends on what else is going on in your home. I am here to work with you on the best print type and size that would work for your home and make you happy.

For a brief explanation of the different print types I offer, please, check out the “What I Offer” page. To make a long story short, there is no one “correct” answer. Or more like the usual non-commital “it depends” answer. It really does depend, though.

If you are going for a more traditional feel, framed art prints are the way to go. The frames I offer are more clean and modern, but if you want a heavy Renaissance — style frame, we can work on that too. Metal prints are very sleek and modern, and they really bring the image to life. Canvas is somewhere in the middle. I personally love the framed canvas images I offer. That textured surface and the warm wood tone of the frame just give it that relaxed, homey feeling. My wife, on the other hand, is a metal print person. In the end, you as a family need to decide what type of print would work for you long term.

Some images work better with some printing surfaces. This isn’t to say that the others would not work, just that some substrates bring out the best out of the image. For example, high contrast images with reflections just call for a metal surface. On the other hand, warm woodland tones would work great on canvas or on the textured surface of my Fine Art Prints.

One additional thing to remember is the lighting in the room. Metal prints are pretty reflective and so are the standard framed prints (if you need an anti-reflective glazing or a more matte option of a metal print, please, contact me). On the other hand, canvas is almost completely matte.

The second question is what size of print should you choose? You might have guessed my answer to that. It depends. To help you choose, you can see some mock-ups in this post. Do remember that if you choose a framed print, you need to take into account the matting and frame size as well. On the other hand, metal and canvas prints come ready to hang with the image taking the entire visible surface. In case of a framed canvas, you need to add ~1.5'“ on each side of the image.

Generally speaking, for maximum impact the art size should take up 2/3-3/4 of the empty area intended for it. Leave 6”-12” between the artwork and any furniture you have underneath it. Aim for a width of 2/3-3/4 of the furniture.

If you intend to hang the artwork above a fireplace, leave 3” - 6” above the mantle. The width of the art should be wider than the firebox, but smaller than the width of the mantle.

Don't be afraid to go big! If you have a large open wall space, a large print filling the space makes a bigger visual impact.

If you are still unsure, feel free to contact me. Did I mention yet that I am here to help you?