A Visit to Goodison

If you are tooling along Orion Road between Rochester and Lake Orion it can be quite easy to just zip through the village of Goodison, after all it is a rather small area compared to the larger communities at either end of the road. Next time through do yourself a favor, take a few minutes to stop and take a look around. Cider and donuts are just two of the reasons to spend some time in Goodison on a fall afternoon. And if you have a camera in hand, you may find that the village can also be quite photogenic. As I walked around on a recent Saturday morning I spotted several visual treats to photograph along with a treat for the drive home - a bagful of blueberry, cinnamon and sugar donuts.

A Few Good Pumpkins

Okay Charlie Brown, these may not be Great Pumpkins but they are at least pretty good ones. As the fall season progresses, pumpkins await their fate - to be carved into jack o' lanterns, baked into pies or worst of all - falling into the hands of mischievous ne'er-do-wells who will smash them in the roadway. I managed to preserve the images of a few good pumpkins before it was too late.

Pumpkin Chuckin'

It's autumn, pumpkins are seemingly everywhere and pumpkins are colorful. Take a picture of a pumpkin? Sure, no big deal, right? Well it is a big deal if you are trying to capture a shot of a pumpkin being launched into the sky by a trebuchet ( a large catapult type contraption).

Attending the pumpkin chuckin' competition at Orion Oaks Park this past Saturday, I planned on grabbing pictures of the pumpkin launches along with more sedate still life shots. As things turned out, the action shots were a lot tougher to capture than expected. At first I oriented my shots horizontally but the pumpkins sailed out of the frame too quickly. Switching to a vertical orientation helped but it was difficult timing my shutter release with the "chuck". I decided to go manual and preset my focus and exposure before each launch. This gave me the best result but I had almost used up my twelve photo opportunities getting to that point. The four competing teams were allowed three attempts each, with the longest counted as their final score. By the time I had my methodology down the competition was done. Having never attended this event before I didn't know what to expect. Pumpkin chuckin' will be on my calendar next fall for another go at capturing the decisive moment for flying pumpkins.

Open Air Portraits

For years the standard for photographic portraits involved studio lighting, formal poses and painted backdrops. Then in the 1970's photographers began to experiment more with outdoor photo shoots, making use of natural light and environments and allowing their subjects to relax in front of the camera rather than assuming stiff poses. This type of environmental portraiture seems to have become the norm - on Sunday walks through the park I often see photographers working with a young couple or family on a shoot.

For several years I freelanced as a wedding and portrait photographer but realized it was not my cup of tea. In the ensuing years I sold off my old equipment and focused on happy snaps or artsy photography - no more portrait shoots for me. No more that is until one of my daughters approached me about shooting a portrait of her with her horse. Like I could say no! We picked a pleasant fall day and took advantage of the late afternoon sun near the barn where her horse is stabled. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, dealing with my daughter and a horse bigger than both of us put together, but all went well. I managed to blast off more than two dozen shots before the horse decided he'd had enough.

Farewell to cruisin' 2010

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler and pumpkins have begun to pop up everywhere you look. Summer is really over and with it the car cruising season, although I still see the occasional die hard driver, tail pipes roaring, making his way up the road. As a fond farewell to another year of cruising, here are a few shots of cool cars taken during the past months. You can almost smell the exhaust.

Nat Geo

For years my father subscribed to National Geographic magazine and I still have a stack of old issues on my bookshelf culled from his collection. In the pre-cable TV days, before there was a Discovery channel or History channel or for that matter a Nat Geo channel, National Geographic magazine offered a window on the world unavailable elsewhere. Shooters for the magazine were the photographic worlds equivalent of Indiana Jones. Although it wasn't relics for a museum collection that they sought out, but rather photographs of exotic locales, people and things. Unless you have a globe trotting adventure planned in the near future, there is an available alternative - seeking out and shooting the interesting flora and fauna that may exist in your own backyard. You never know what may be lurking out there.