Tag: Waterfall

Steps

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

In the Princeton area, the rains started in March and it seems they will never stop. The total precipitation for June was almost as high as May and May exceeded April which exceeded March.

I didn’t notice the spider until after I downloaded the image to Lightroom. | Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

For this weekly challenge, I had no idea what to do.

Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm F2.8

This week, the governor of New Jersey and the state Jersey Legislature were at an impasse over the state budget. On Friday at midnight, the governor ordered the closing of non-essential state agencies. Everything from state parks to motor vehicle services offices and the Administrative Office of the New Jersey Courts will be closed until further notice. I work as a cybersecurity consultant to the Courts and many of the people I work with (including myself) are concerned.

Komorebi | Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

Early on Saturday morning, after dropping my son off to the farmers’ market I drove over to the Rock Brook and parked my car along Hollow Road. The sky was partly cloudy but it seemed there was a chance of rain.

Rock Brook is one of my favourite places. With the rains, the woods have grown green and lush. On this trip, I documented my steps from the edge of the Sourland Mountain Range down to the brook.

Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

The underbrush was thick with some sort of grass. I thoroughly enjoyed the komorebi. The Japanese word, “komorebi” refers to the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. I find it fascinating that the Japanese culture has created a single word to capture that feeling.

The Rock Brook | Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | AF-S Nikkor Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

I walked down to the “waterfall” enjoying the sound of rushing water and the sweet smell of the gentle morning breeze. Step by step, I made my way down to the water, stopping to snap some photos along the way.

Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

“Shinrinyoku” (“forest bathing”) is a Japanese word which means to go deep into the woods where everything is silent and peaceful for relaxation.

Between photos, I stood or sat to enjoy the sounds of the wind in the trees and just take things in. My steps were slow. I wanted to enjoy each moment of my shinrinyoku. I dipped my shoes1 in and enjoyed the sensation of the water running between my toes. The water in the stream was clear and cool. I noticed some fish, about six inches in size, slowly swimming about. Smaller fish darted around between the pebbles.

Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

Stepping among the rocks I suddenly realized that, perhaps subconsciously, I had photographed the theme for the week.

Saturday 1 July, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8

After snapping all the photos I wanted, I stood for a while in the middle of the brook, with my eye closed and enjoyed the sound of the wind in the trees and the water flowing past my feet.

Peace.

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

  1. KEEN Men's Newport Sandals ↩

Boathouse Row at Night

One weekend this summer, I was on a photography field trip to Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Our guide, Richard Sherman, obtained private access to Boathouse #4 and, early in the evening, to a launch boat (the little boats used by coaches) from which two photographers at a time were able to shoot the boathouses and Philly skyline from a different perspective.

Philadelphia's iconic "Boathouse Row" offers photographers a variety of colourful and interesting subjects, including the restored Fairmount Water Works, skyline shots of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the 19th-century boat houses and rowing shells along the Schuylkill River.

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We had private access to Boathouse #4 and, early in the evening, to a launch boat (the little boats used by coaches) from which two photographers at a time will be able to shoot the boathouses and Philly skyline from a different perspective. From the launch boat, I got a unique water view of the boathouses. Some members of one of the boathouses were celebrating with dinner on the veranda.

The launch boat took us along the Schuylkill toward the lighthouse on Turtle Rock. This lighthouse was built in 1887 to aid traffic on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The view of the lighthouse from the launch boat was awesome. I was capturing some images of the lighthouse and zoomed in for a close-up when I noticed this couple basking in the glow of the late afternoon sun.

 

It seems that some debris came down the river and collected in an area in front of the boathouses. It formed a small island which has become inhabited by some ducks. The island also blocks the flow of water leading to the growth of a greenish plant. The ducks seem to like swimming in it.

I love this image. The instructor came running over to me. I had my camera pointed toward the Fairmount Water Works. He said, "Khürt, look up to your left". I wish I had a pano head.

Boathouse Row, Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.??The instructor came running over to me. I had my camera pointed toward the Fairmount Water Works. He said, "Khürt, look up to your left". I wish I had a pano head.

The class had opportunities to exercise all our photographic muscles, from photographing people to shooting architectural details, from wide panoramas to close-ups, from high F-stops to shallow depth-of-field, from dynamic hand-held street shots to using tripods during "blue night" to capture the boathouses and their reflections on the water.

Boathouse Row just after the sun went away for the day. I was trying to expose for the foreground and the sky.

When the sun had disappeared completely for the day, the lights were turned on at Boathouse Row on the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Red Mill Museum Village

This summer I planned a photo field trip to the Red Mill Museum in Clinton with some of my photog friends. A few of us had been talking about shooting that location for quite some time. With the exception of Walt, we are all busy professionals. Walt is retired and perhaps has more free time than we do. The rest of us, Chris, Prasanna, and Ed, are balancing family and work and sometimes we just don’t take the time to get out with our cameras and pursue the hobby.

So I sent out some emails and we agreed on a date a few weeks into the future. I was excited. This was going to be a good test of my new Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm f/2.8. I bought the lens about a month ago but I have not had many opportunities to use it. It’s a DX lens which means it was designed to be used on Nikon crop sensor — DX — camera bodies like my Nikon D5100. The lens is equivalent to approximately 16-24mm full-frame sensor lens.

It was just me and Ed. Walt, Chris, and Prasanna didn’t make it. Prasanna was concerned about the heat, Chris forgot he had other obligations and Walt simply forgot.

From the Red Mill Museum Village website

Ralph Hunt built the earliest section of this Mill to process wool sometime around 1810. His wool business failed, however, thanks to a permanent downturn in the market for domestic cloth. By 1820 Ralph confessed to the Census that “the establishment has been doing very little for two or three years past. The demand for the sale of the cloths and sattinets are very dull … a few of the farmers get their wool manufactured, but from the low prices of foreign cloths.” Things did not improve and Ralph lost all of the family’s property, more than 400 acres and mills on both sides of the river. He defaulted on his mortgage, and the Taylor family took ownership.

Ed showed up just a few minutes after I did. We set up outside the Red Mill with Ed shooting across to the Hunterdon Art Museum while I focused on getting a shot of the Red Mill. Having a wide lens really helped here. We then headed toward the metal bridge.

Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm F2.8 @ 13 mm | f/10 | ISO100

It took us almost 45 minutes just to cross the one-way metal bridge. Ed and I set up our tripods on the bridge to get some long exposure shots. The sun was quite bright at that time of day. We used neutral density (ND) filters to reduce the light entering the camera. This extended our exposure times to between four and eight seconds. When I am doing long exposure shots the tripods helps eliminate movement of the camera which can cause blurry captures. However, as cars slowly drove over the bridge, it would vibrate. We had to time our exposures just right.

My Tokina was wide enough to get a shot of the Red Mill Museum on the side of the damn and the Hunterdon Art Museum on the other. However, my ND filter — a 10 stop Hoya 77mm Pro ND 1000 — causes a bit of vignetting at the 11mm end. This sometimes happens with big stop ND filters and wide-angle lenses. The Tokina also exhibits some barrel distortion at the wide end. I decided to shoot the scene as a panorama.

The Red Mill Museum and Hunterdon County Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey | Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm F2.8 @ 16 mm | f/10 | ISO100

I zoomed out to the other end of the lens range, 16mm (~24mm full-frame), and swivelled the base of the ball head. I shot four images with my Nikon mounted in portrait orientation and created the panorama in Photoshop. I'm surprised it came out as well as it did. The Tokina has some very slight barrel distortion when shooting at 16mm ( ~ 24mm full-frame ) and I was shooting of the axis of the camera body which added some additional distorting. Nothing that could not be fixed in Lightroom.

Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm F2.8 @ 12 mm | f/16 | ISO100

Once we crossed the bridge we set up on the view area near the courtyard of the Hunterdon Art Museum which was closed. I did not like the angle so I walked down to and under the bridge where I saw some fishermen. I used the bridge to frame a view of the shots. Bhavna didn’t like these as much as I did.

Later it started to get warm. Prasanna was justified in staying home. The heat and humidity were exhausting. I think the outdoor temperature soared to about 98ºF but with the humidity, it felt more like 104ºF. But Ed and I had persevered and got some good shots of the Red Mill Museum from multiple angles. We attempted some street photography but we succumbed to the heat and ended up at a local cafe for ice coffee and scones and conversation.

Nikon D5100 | Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm F2.8 @ 13 mm | f/16 | ISO100

Ed remembered seeing a photo online with the sun setting in the background. We discussed the possibilities for how that could be done and realised that east was slightly off the far right side of the Red Mill and we think it’s definitely possible to do a sunset/night shoot. We both agreed that we should wait until the fall to capture some of the fall foliage in the background.

You know, I really do enjoy going out on field trips with people I know. It’s fun. Quite often I learn some new photography technique or a new tool or discover a new place to dine or visit with my family. This is one of the reasons I originally joined meetups. I enjoy the social aspect of photography.