I took this image of the clouds at 12:09 on 24 April 2024 after it hailed in parts of Hanover, PA. We only had a few rain drops in Homewood at Plum Creek at my Villa. I was looking east when I took this picture. The circular cloud (on your left) passed north of us.
I have been thinking about how the climate has been changing. I remember freezing at the bus stop on my way to high school when the temperatures were below -10 degrees F., getting to school, and then being sent back home later in the morning since the winds were so high that they couldn’t keep the school warm enough. That was a long time ago.
Now I’m thinking about the higher temperatures that we will probably be having this summer, and how I won’t want to be out walking in the middle of the day. The probabilities are going up that this might be the hottest summer we have had.
I’m still working on how I will want to portray the hot summer photos I might make. I used a few recent images made with different cameras and lenses of different subjects in different lighting above as I experimented. The last one is of last night’s moon peering through the trees.
The above style was instigated by a series of Sally Mann’s old south landscape pictures that I had been looking at.
I’m still struggling to come up with suitable subjects to photograph in B&W. I think that many flowers work very well in monochrome, but every time I do that I get admonished to not photograph “my flowers” in B&W; so I don’t. I photograph them in color and convert them to B&W later.
My biggest issue isn’t whether to show my pictures in color or monochrome. The real problem is what to photograph. I’m really not a birder, so I’m not interested in just photographing birds, nor am I interested in just photographing flowers. So what do I photograph?
I made these from the highest point within Homewood at Plum Creek. Not many residents go up there; so, I thought I’d show you the views looking out over the campus.
I haven’t been showing as many pictures from my recent walks, since I have been busy with other things. The above are a few that I made a few days ago.
In the center picture I had been capturing the spring colors with a long lens when the red-winged blackbird flew in front of me and I instinctively started following him with the camera. I captured it in flight as I panned the camera.
Thanks to all of the folks who turned out last night to see my slide show of some of the birds I had photographed on the Homewood at Plum Creek campus. I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had a full house.
One, not the only, idea I am considering as a subject is concentrating on the changes of man-altered landscapes, or maybe I should just call it the “New Topographics” which is a genre of photography. It generally was based on images of the man-altered landscape that were mostly depicted in B&W to show the feelings of discontent and man’s impact on the environment relative to the current status; but, I’ll probably make them in color.
In the images above I have shown some of the trees along the creeks at Homewood that have been altered by man, but I hope to expand the topic to all forms of man-altered landscapes including suburban housing, industries, etc. in the Hanover area.
This idea is a “subject-rich” environment for photography around Hanover that could be a good outlet for my desires to do more with my photography. I haven’t yet finalized the color style, but I’m thinking about a dystopian look similar to above.
I am taking some time to study another approach to making images as I change my perspectives relative to lenses and hopefully, eventually subjects. I made this image this morning after last night’s rain. The flowers are being changed by the environment. I would also like to make some changes. I am studying the photography of Saul Leiter. That might give you a hint.
I still prefer the rugged Pentax K-3 for outdoors. I used it to capture the above view this morning.
I did not keep the Pentax K-3 III since I had major problems using it for a Homewood event. The camera could not keep up with the changing lighting situations with various types of indoor lights and with changes back and forth between using the LV and the OVF. I had to use the electronic shuttle since I sometimes had people standing next to me who were recording the sound. In addition, the image quality was not as good as I get with my OM-5 camera with good lenses. I think the Pentax’s electronic shutter was too slow with scanning and caused banding in the images.
I will use Olympus/OM System cameras when indoors and out for all of my Homewood photography for awhile.
When photographing outdoors in wet or stormy weather, or when I feel like it, I will still use either my OM TG-7 or my older Pentax K-3 if I need a longer focal length since they are more weather resistant and more expendable. I will still use my OM gear outdoors in good weather for some of my personal photography; but I’m still dithering about which camera I would prefer just for the joy of using it.
Everchanging Perspective 