Remnants of A Bygone Era There’s something about this image that speaks of mysterious emptiness. Uninhabited dwellings, girded in wintery vesture, showcasing nothing more than the antiquated existence of a bygone era. Even the composition itself speaks of vacancy, each component leading the eye into an alleyway that displays nothing but emptiness. The pile of [...]

3. Adding falling snow All this step takes is a little understanding of the Brush Tool and it’s corresponding Brush Pallet. You can either download a free brush online or make your own (which I recommend, though it is slower). This is what my brush looked like when I was finished tweaking it: The key [...]

Last Saturday, my brother Jonathan and I did something we had never done before. With several inches of freshly fallen snow on the ground and predictions for more in the forecast, we jumped into the 4-wheel drive Envoy and headed for Coopers Rock State Forest in the mountains around Bruceton Mills, WV. The chance to [...]

With much planning and little shooting over the past few weeks, I haven’t had much to post. So I guess I’ll post a little project I was working on just for fun the other day. I’m working on designing a calendar for a local heritage site called Fort New Salem. It’s an awesome little town [...]

Cold of Snow When West Virginia gets snow, it usually doesn’t stick around unless it’s January or February, the coldest part of the year in the Appalachians. And when it comes, it transforms the dull, brown landscape into an incredibly beautiful winter wonderland. I remember taking this picture back in 2007. It hadn’t been snowing [...]

2011 Winter Travels

Most people are happy when spring begins to appear. But one sad thing about spring coming is that all the snow melts. Then it rains. And rains. And then, because it’s really still winter, it gets cold again and everything turns to ice. Most people are unhappy about that. But there is always two ways [...]

Under the Sun Have you ever considered that all your wonderful camera equipment is not much more than this: weeds? Both will eventually break down. One more quickly than the other, of course, but neither of them will last very long. And why do I say this? To warn you first of expecting from equipment [...]

The fact that it took pretty much all day to travel by car and train from Beachburg to the US border at Niagara Falls, resulted in the serendipitous event that I arrived at the falls after dark. I can attest that Niagara Falls is spectacular at night. But it is ultra-spectacular at night in the [...]

The day I visited Parliament Hill, situated on the banks of the Ottawa River in Ontario, Canada, was probably the most intense of the entire trip. There were deadlines to meet and established limits to the amount of time spent in various places. The rhythm was rapidity. And hence a competent knowledge of camera functions [...]