End of Semester Wrap-up

So another semester has come to an end and now all that is is left are a couple of finals and papers. It's been a really busy semester, but also an enjoyable one. I've learned a lot about Photoshop and more importantly I've gained an appreciation for all that it can do. I still don't have a love for computers, but it is incredible all that can be done. I truly look forward to taking another class next semester. I feel that I hit upon a project idea late in the semester and unfortunately I was not able to fully explore it. I would like to continue shooting car graveyards and junkyards. I know that it is something that I will enjoy working on because I feel very passionate about it. I think that there are many stories to be told from a neglected car sitting in someone's backyard. Sometimes the owner just drove it to its resting place and maybe was too lazy to bring it to a proper junkyard. Or maybe it was bought or traded with the intent to restore it to its former glory and fortunately some of those plans come true. More than likely though the once powerful engine will remain quiet until all the metal completely rusts away into the ground with only a few pieces of plastic left to tell the stories of joyrides and drag races. I feel weird to get over sentimental about cars sometimes, but they are such a huge part of American history and my life and they continue to be whether they are displayed at a car show or forgotten in the forests and fields of rural America.

The pictures seen above are some of the ones that I worked on over the course of the semester that are some of my personal favorites. This blog will continue and I hopefully will keep posting every week (or at least fairly frequently). Thanks to everybody who has been reading this semester!

Twas The Week Before Finals

So here I am a week away from finals and close to going insane. But, within another week winter break and Christmas will be upon us, along with a well deserved break, so I thought it only fitting to include a little holiday cheer in the blog this week. This was edited using my old and limited version of Elements 4 (hopefully CS3 will be in my near future) so it's not really that great. I've wanted to do some ornament shots for a long time actually, but for some reason I never set up a tripod next to my Christmas tree at home. For the last couple of years we have had a full sized tree in our room here at Clark so I took some time a couple nights ago to take this. I think it would be really cool to get the lights just right so they illuminate the curves and edges of the decoration. I will definitely be trying this again very soon. Also, I am really happy with how my camera is performing. Whereas the D50 only went to ISO 1600 (and took VERY noisy pictures at that) this is ISO 2500 on the new D90 and there is nearly no noise. I have tried the 3200 setting and that seemed nearly perfect too. I can't wait to return to this soon.

Yankee Junkyard

This week was really exciting because I decided to pull the trigger and buy a new camera! I had decided on the Nikon D90 awhile ago, but had put off the purchase until I had enough saved up and last weekend I figured it was time to upgrade from the D50. Anyways, these are some of the first pictures from that new camera. It will definitely take me some time to figure out all the nuances (especially in controlling the highlights) but so far I am very happy with it. The controls are almost identical to the D50, but the live view and large screen on the back make things really easy to see what I'm shooting. With the extra mega pixel count and larger dynamic range I can literally see the difference when I get the pictures up on the computer screen. It will take me awhile to get really comfortable with it but I'm so excited to use it some more.

These pictures were taken just down the street from from my home at the Stillwater Farm in Sterling, MA. The farm was basically abandoned in the 70s and bought by the MDC (now the DCR) in the 1990s. It is a special place for me and my family because my brother did his Eagle Scout project there (which was the first Eagle Project done at the farm) and I did one of the last Eagle Projects there in 2005-2006. It is now an educational site that brings in school groups to educate them about watershed conservation. Along the tree line there is what I would describe as a "Yankee Junkyard". Pretty much any trash or old worn out farm equipment was thrown out in the woods so that if parts were needed or if something could be salvaged later they had it literally right in their backyard. I feel this was fairly common in early New England and still is common as proved by my two next door neighbors' woods (see 58 Chevy).

All of these pictures are shot from the back woods. The top shot is of the barn which is still undergoing badly needed repairs. I have been inside numerous times and am planning on getting back in to take some photos because it has a lot of interesting places to explore. I shot this from the hip just as the wind began to blow a whole bunch of leaves off the trees. The second photo is the Yankee Junkyard from afar. The trees are all on weird angles because of the wind that blows down the hill. This is one of the areas I cleared brush for my project so I am happy to see that it is still relatively easy to walk through. The last photo is of a wheel from an old manure spreader. I was intrigued by how all these pieces of equipment age. The wooden parts, or what's left of them, have been preserved remarkably well and it is interesting to see how the metal rusts and the rubber decomposes into dust. I will probably revisit this place when the lighting isn't quite as crazy, but I am very happy with how these first photos came out.

In other news, I had another exciting discovery this week when I learned about approximately 100 acres of junkyard in the woods of West Greenwich, RI. The pictures I've seen so far show exactly what I'm looking to photograph which are old muscle cars that have sadly been abandoned in the woods to rust. Hopefully there will be more to come on this soon!

Desoto

So I've finally started to figure out a project that I can pursue for awhile. I've have wanted to do this for quite a long time, but actually finding the subject has been difficult. Anyways I started this past week working on photographing old cars. I posted about why cars mean so much to me in an earlier post, but there are a few things that motivate me to photograph these cars. First, cars have been a huge part of my life since day one because of my Dad. He has been a car guy all his life and grew up around and surrounded by cars in an era of low gas prices and lots of power under the hood. So one of my objectives in this project is to photograph these cars not as a piece of metal but as a period of time when chrome and fins were idolized. I want to photograph them not just as a car, but to look at them in close up shots and angles that have not been seen before and that celebrate the artistic quality of the curves and the overall design. The second thing I want to do is look at their surroundings. I see a lot of these cars as people as odd as that may sound. Their grills and headlights were designed to look a particular way, either happy or mean to convey aggressive styling. When I see cars that have been left in a field to rust or pushed into the corner of a junkyard I can see a sad depressed look on them. With chrome that is rusted away and parts that have long been stripped off they definitely look neglected and pushed aside to make room on the roads for new sleeker looking cars. I want to capture what these cars are surrounded by and how that makes them look. The third thing I want to do is to see what time has done to them. I want to photograph the rust, dust, dirt, and anything piled on top of them (or in them) over the years that they have been sitting.

These photos were taken at a little gas station/garage just outside the center of Leominster, MA. This Desoto Firedome (which is a name most people now would not even recognize) goes back to the mid to late 50s. I am still researching to find out exactly when this car was made, but it actually was not in bad shape. It looks like it is being restored (or was at one time), but it was still in its neglected state among the other rusted vehicles. Anyways, this is a work in progress and I would really like to know what everyone thinks. I will be moving on to another car and hopefully an actual junkyard this week. I would like to continue this idea and more pictures from this shoot will be up shortly.

Swedes

This past week I set out into Worcester to find junkyard cars and unfortunately did not find what I was seeking. In the meantime however I found a truly beautiful place. I had looked at a map the previous day and noticed a Swedish cemetery down a side street off of Cambridge Street. I walked down that side street and saw a very welcoming path that took me right into the middle of the cemetery. Even though I knew it was around in the area I did not know exactly where it was. I felt somehow drawn to this particular path and once inside I immediately knew it was the cemetery I had seen on the map because of the names on the stones. I was surrounded by Johnson's, Carlson's, Anderson's, and Mattson's. Maybe it was just coincidence, but I felt like I was drawn to the place by the generations old Swedish blood pulsing through my veins. As I walked through this cemetery I thought about my grandmother Ida and my grandfather Emil who immigrated to the States when they were no older than myself. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have to leave my country to find work in a place that didn't know my language with nothing but a trunk full of belongings. But all around me were the graves and stories of people who followed the same path coming to find work and opportunity.

I am particularly proud of my Swedish heritage. As far as I can trace back I am three quarters Swedish and only removed from being completely Swedish by two generations. I am also proud to be an American and it always seems that Swedish-Americans feel the same way. I will always remember my grandmother telling me how much she missed her home but loved being in such a beautiful country like the U.S. Especially with the recent election results I could not be prouder of my country and I think that was on my mind when I took these pictures. In the top image drew me in because of the single rose placed on the stone with the American flag pointed in proudly toward the obviously Swedish name. The image below caught my eye because of the dual pride that I mentioned earlier. I have grown up seeing both flags displayed and it almost seems a little strange to see one without the other to me. Everywhere I looked in this cemetery it seemed that there was this dual pride. Even the traash canisters were striped blue and yellow with Swedish Dala horses painted on them. It was a truly beautiful place to visit and I think one of the hidden gems of Worcester.

Happy Halloween

So in the spirit of Halloween I thought I should post a picture taken from the past week. This was taken around the Clark neighborhood. I have always been intrigued by houses that have signs out on Halloween instructing you to go to the back of the house when the front door is easily accessible. It always kind of creeped me out when I was trick or treating myself which was probably good for the overall Halloween experience. It has been interesting to see how Worcester neighborhoods decorate for Halloween in comparison to the small suburban town I grew up in. I don't know how to explain the difference but it just feels strange. Maybe it's because I'm older now and see it differently. Anyways, your never too old for candy and I'm about to chow down on some so Happy Halloween everybody!

Back From Bermuda II

So I am almost completely caught up from the week I spent in Bermuda with my Ecology class and my internal clock has switched back to college schedule, but the memories of the beautiful water and weather are still fresh in my mind (especially with the cold weather finally approaching). I edited some of the pictures from Bermuda (the few that I was able to take) and I think they came out okay for tourist pictures. I am really glad to have them as a remembrance of the trip but I want to go back so that I can have more time to slow down and take some more artistic, thoughtful photos. There are so many back alleys and incredible overlooks to explore in Bermuda that I feel like I could spend weeks there and not see it all even though it is a fairly small island. The three pictures I have posted here are a few of the better shots I think from the trip. They are definitely touristy and the high ISO that I forgot to set back down are two things that annoy me greatly in these shots, but they are what they are.

The top picture is one that is seen a lot in Bermuda. Especially in the town of Hamilton there are tons of souvenir shops and it seems that the word Bermuda overwhelms every display. In this shot alone I think there are at least nine places that have Bermuda on them. And of course if you turn over everything you find an equally prevalent word on the back: China. This picture drew me in too because of the colors. Everywhere you look in Bermuda there are all these bright colors. All of the houses are painted in different shades of blue, pink, yellow, orange, red, and green. Anywhere else this would look tacky but in Bermuda it makes even ordinary places incredibly bright and beautiful. Such was the case with the bottom picture which was an alley in Hamilton. I was intrigued by the intense blues in the buildings and the blue barrels in the background. Then the fact that there was a random sneaker left in the middle made me take this picture. I have always been kind of interested in alleys because even though they are often dark and unwelcoming they contain so much activity and sometimes the most interesting locations. While I was in Sweden a few years ago, I found a little alley that was very dark and in the afternoon light it seemed a little scary, but within it was an entrance to a restaurant that was in an old wine cellar. It was one of the most memorable places I remember on that trip and I would love to explore for places like that in Bermuda.

The middle picture is just for me to remember how amazing the sunsets are in Bermuda. It was taken the first night we were there from where we were staying. We stayed at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences which is a campus for visiting college students and researchers. I really enjoyed my time there and hope to go back very soon to discover more. I am not able to include my underwater film pictures in this blog post but I had them developed last week and some of them came out pretty good. I got some decent photos of some very colorful fish and coral so hopefully I can upload some of those at some point as well.

Back From Bermuda

Hello everybody!
I have been away from Clark for the last nine days because I was in Bermuda. I was there with my Ecology of Atlantic Shores class so that we could get some hands on experience with marine environments and also to conduct our own research for a semester long project. I really enjoyed my week there, I learned a lot, and I saw some truly incredible things. I will be developing my disposable underwater cameras this week to see what I got for "Jacques Cousteau" pictures. I unfortunately was not able to take as many photos with my digital camera because of time and not leaving it on a beach while snorkeling offshore, but I did get a few that I think I can work with. It also looks like I may have some more junk on the sensor which makes no sense to me and makes me quite aggravated, but I hopefully can edit them out. Anyways, I hope to work on them tomorrow, but in the time being the above picture was shot as we were sadly leaving Bermuda. I love the turquoise water and I will miss the warm weather and water (especially considering today's New England fall freeze). This is more of a snapshot, but I thought I would share a little of the beauty that I saw. Enjoy!

Fall In Central Mass

The temperature is starting to drop, as are the leaves, and that unmistakable smell is in the air that means that it is officially fall and it won't be long until snowflakes start falling. This past weekend I made the annual journey to Doe Orchards in Harvard, Mass with my family to pick the best tasting apples in the world (that is not an understatement). Of course I may be biased because my dad grew up in the house right next the orchard and his childhood friends were the two brothers who now own the orchard. It is so much fun to walk through this orchard with my dad because he knows every rock and path in the whole orchard. As we walk along the paths he points out the place where first base was put to play baseball, the path he and his friends raced their bikes, and the fields where he took his AMC Javelin for a drive (until his friend riding shotgun told him about all the apple tree stumps that hadn't been removed). I have gone to the orchard almost every year since high school so I am now quickly learning all the hidden paths and where the best tasting apples can be found as well.

Taking pictures there this weekend really made me stop and enjoy the place even more. I stopped to see things like the fly sitting defiantly on the dropped apple as if to guard it from me (top picture). I really like the picture of the pumpkins all lined up ready to be picked up and taken to somebody's porch. The picture of the father picking up his son to get the higher apples is one I really enjoyed because it was a very tender moment and had the shot not been in shadow I would like it even more. The shot of the apples hanging down framing the full apple tree in the background is another one that I would not have seen had I not slowed down to shoot and enjoyed the beauty of this place that means so much to my family. I hope to return to the orchard a little later in the fall when the foliage really comes out and since we cut our Christmas trees there I know I will be able to go back when there is a little snow on the ground.

In other news, I will be returning to the car idea and I really like the diptych idea that Annie wrote about so that the differences in the two cars can tell a story. This upcoming week I will be away in Bermuda for a class trip so when I return I should hopefully have some warm tropical pictures to show against the fall shots of New England.

58 Chevys

This week I have started to think more about trying to nail down a subject that I can continue with for awhile. My natural instinct was to go with something that has always interested me and that has increased in the last few years: cars. I have my dad to thank for turning me into the car guy that I am. He too has always had a passion for cars since he grew up in the era of big fins, lots of chrome, hundreds of horses under the hood, and a lifestyle that revolved around who drove what. The OPEC oil embargo and the environmental movement changed that lifestyle and diminished the passion for cars. While this was a good thing due to the increased efficiency or modern cars and much better air to breathe, those cars and that lifestyle is a distinctive era in American history. Some of that passion is coming back as Mustangs, Camaros, Chargers, and Challengers once again (and possibly for the last time) populate the streets. I go to several car shows every year and I think that the car hobby is alive and well. Photographing cars has also long been a passion of mine and so one of my ongoing projects will be to photograph the cars of yesterday and hopefully get pictures of cars that are rusting away in backyards, junkyards, and old Yankee woods as well as freshly restored classics. I feel strongly about the emotions these cars once evoked in their owners and I love to see the "faces" that cars wear as they age.

With that idea in mind, I have included two pictures here of two 1958 Chevys. The black and white image (bottom) is of a very sad, rusting 58 sitting in my next door neighbor's backyard. He once thought he would restore the car and still hopes to do that someday, but in the meantime this car sits forlorn in a leaky shed. I took this picture (in digital) while I was in high school and re shot it (in film) last year for Frank's Intro to Photo class. The top picture is one that I took recently after seeing it in a parking lot. The brightness of the paint and the chrome always draws me in. I love to see how beautiful and how sad these cars can look and I hope this is something that I document for years to come.

Learning Photoshop

I feel like I made some significant steps forward this week in learning Photoshop. I took this picture while I was on the Cape in Yarmouth. The picture started out pretty mediocre. The foreground was way too dark and the sky was too light, so I tried merging two photos together for the first time which was really exciting. I opened the same image twice in Photoshop, adjusted the images, then overlayed them. I used the eraser to take out the foreground on one and with a little more adjustment it came out like you see it here. I still would like to open up the shadows in the foreground which Frank said he would help me with, but I really look forward to what I will do next. It really is incredible the things you can do with Photoshop.

Once everything was done on this photo I like it a lot more. I have always like photos where the sunlight pierces through the clouds and I think the dark rolling clouds in this photo make the sky more impressive. I also liked this location because of the long boardwalk that seems to stretch on forever. It is a place that I look forward to visiting again at different times of the year to see how it changes.

Town Fair

This is my first official post for my Intro to Digital Photo class and things are going pretty well so far. My love for computers hasn't increased much as it always seems like I have to do the same thing several times to get it right, but it is very satisfying when it is right and coming out of the printer. This picture may not be quite there, but I do like it because it was a cool moment when I saw it. It was taken at the Sterling Fair which I have gone to almost every year since I was born. The way the light came in and was shining through the jars of honey cast a really beautiful glow on the table and the award ribbons on them really stood out to me from across the exhibit tent. There are still a number of things I would like to do to this photo, but I need to learn how to do them first. Maybe once I get this worked up just so I will re-post it. I will try to post on this blog several times a week and please let me know what you think as I do.

First Post

This is my first blog that I have created for my Intro to Digital Photography class. I'm looking forward to trying this out, but as I am new at all this please bear with me.