Sometimes you just know that the sunset is going to be incredible. Times like this find me awkwardly fast walking/sprinting to a spot to capture it before it disappears. No two sunsets are the same, and the play of light changes from moment to moment. Saturday, April 19th was a particularly impressive display by Mother Nature.
Some of you may know that I enjoy a questionable pastime of Urban Exploration Photography. It involves photographing abandoned buildings and locations. I have been fortunate to meet and become close friends with a group of like minded photographers in the Pittsburgh area. Our tight knit group is in it for the images, keeping our (literal) trespasses limited to footprints (and tripod prints) in the places that we visit and document. I’ve always been of the mind that these places that have been left behind have stories to tell, but no storytellers. There are several feelings in me that drive me to visit such places. One is a sense of adventure, the thrill of being somewhere that is just on the other side of a wall on a well traveled path. Another is at the core of what being a photographer means to me. My job, my drive, and my passion is to see. I see and capture what I see. I preserve moments.
While out exploring a new location with a “partner in crime”, we heard a lot of pounding from the direction of the spot we entered the building. Immediately we go into panic mode, processing how to deal with whatever was about to happen. Getting caught is always a concern. This feeling was worse. We were being boarded in.
The next few minutes were in slow motion as we packed our gear and headed to the exit. By the time we got there, our jailers had departed. Fortunately, they did a poor job and I was able to wrestle a hastily pounded nail out of the wall and we made our way to freedom. We get a good chuckle out of it now, but at the time, the intensity of the “oh, shit” was very real. Would I do it again? Of course. The experience of the location and the images that I was able to capture made it completely worthwhile for me. Oh, and of course, it was April 1st.
St Patrick’s Day in Southwestern Pennsylvania was the breaking point for a long period of rainy weather. The evening’s sunset in clear skies was a treat for all of us that appreciate a colorful sky. Days and days of drab blue-gray clouds were getting old.
My wife and I were on our way into the city to celebrate with a pint o’ green beer and the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and I immediately had to find a spot to document this wonderful event.
I decided on a spot along the Allegheny river, near the Veteran’s Bridge. I usually climb down the bank to a shallow spot with a decent view of the city, but after days and days of rain, the river level was unusually high. The fast moving water was much higher up the bank than I was used to and choosing a spot proved quite a challenge. Never one to be deterred and forgoing personal safety, I climbed down to the water line, through a small patch of thorns. Foolish in retrospect, but it allowed me to capture what I consider to be a perfect illustration of the pleasantness of the sunset and the treacherousness of the fast moving river.
One would think from the crickets chirping around this blog that nothing exciting has happened in my life in recent, gulp, months. Not true! In fact, the events have been moderately overwhelming and each time I decide to write about them, I’m far from a device to do so and it gets shelved. Well, today is the day to catch up. Be prepared for a pile of updates to catch everyone up on what I’ve been doing photographically. You’ve been warned!
On the last day of February, I decided to take a ride out to a favorite location. It was a cold day and I had hoped to get a few shots of ice around Cucumber Falls in Ohiopyle State Park. The drive out was beautiful. A lot of show had fallen in the preceding days and with it being cold for so long, I was a little concerned about the state of the roads. Fortunately, everything was clear and dry all the way there. When I arrived at the parking area for the falls, I was surprised to see so many vehicles. I didn’t think that many others would venture out on such a cold, albeit sunny, day. To my surprise, I found that the reason for the crowd was that the falls was completely frozen! Water still flowed through the center, but it was encased in a textured column of ice. This was far more exciting than I had expected! I made my way down the ice covered steps and took a moment to marvel at Mother Nature’s handiwork.
I had planned on the presence of water, so I was wearing my knee high rubber boots (with little traction). It was difficult to navigate all of the ice, but I managed to avoid broken bones while getting good angles on the massive wall of ice that was in front of me.
I braved the walk behind the falls to get a few shots of the light coming through the ice. The peril was extremely worth it.
Few things had escaped the collection of ice. This rhododendron was not one of them.
I made my way along the rock wall to another small column of ice that caught my eye.
I loved the way that the ice was pointed and rough on the top end, but smooth like melted glass on the bottom.
I ventured down to the banks of the Yough river and validated my choice of footwear. I stepped out into the river to grab a few more shots. The water was frozen and fractured in some spots.
In other spots it flowed quickly and was disturbed by a few large stones beneath the surface.
I was treated by a contrast of light and shadows on my walk back to the frozen waterfall.
I took advantage of the lack of visitors to lay on my back to grab this image.
As light was disappearing, I shot a 50 image panorama of the falls. I believe that it stitched well.
It was a wonderfully surprising visit with the added bonus of not falling through the ice. I’m really over that, by the way.
On my way out, I stopped to capture the long shadows and blue sky around a little church and graveyard.
Although I am looking forward to spring growth and warmer temperatures, I’m really happy to have experienced this rare sight and even more happy to be able to share it!
I am happy to announce that I’m joining the fundraising effort for Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Make Room for Kids 2015 is collecting donations to fund entertainment areas that will help make dialysis treatment more bearable. I am joining another Pittsburgh photographer in donating 100% of my profits from the sale of prints to this cause.
If you are interested in purchasing a print from me AND contributing to the fundraising effort, visit my website at http://www.divinemayhem.com and browse through the Fine Art galleries. The fundraising effort (to raise $10,000) is nearly at 50% at the time of this posting. Let’s see what we can do to help them meet their goal!
If you want to donate separately, you can do so from the event page here: http://thatschurch.com/2015/02/24/make-room-for-kids-2015-and-a-home-opener-giveaway/
I am very pleased to announce that DivineMayhem Studios home on the web is new, improved, and ready for visitors!
For the past few weeks, I’ve been diligently working to update my site with new work, more examples of past work, and most importantly the new features that TheTurningGate’s CE4 plugin suite brings to the table.
Stop by, look around, and feel free to send me comments, criticisms, and suggestions using the Contact page. There are also many images for sale in a variety of formats. You will find most of them in the Fine Art galleries although, there are a few in other places. As a “whew, that’s done” celebration of the completed site, I’m offering a discount on all items with the following coupon code: YAY!NEWSITE! which is valid until March 15, 2015. This applies to all formats including Photographic Prints, Canvas Prints, Metal Prints, and any sale items.
I plan on adding much more content to the site in the next few weeks. Look for more examples of past weddings and other projects. I welcome improvement suggestions and additional content requests. If there are any product types that I don’t have listed that are desirable, please let me know!
Here’s the link: http://www.divinemayhem.com
Thanks to all in advance for visiting.!
Well, here we are at the end of Twenty-Fourteen. My holiday calendar is designed and at the printer, client weddings are edited and at the printer. The year seems to be wrapping up nicely.
A friend of mine, a talented photographer, Derek Dibrell has posted his favorite shots of 2014 and it inspired me to do the same. I started selecting images and before I got to December I had way more than I had intended to share.. Out of the 11,500+ images that I shot for myself in 2014 (Not counting weddings, portraits, or any business images) I created 484 images that I consider good enough to be polished and presented to the world. Of those, I have selected 50 to represent favorites.
Feel free to browse through and see where 2014 took me and my camera.
I found myself in Washington D.C. last weekend for a company sponsored event. Knowing that the weather was going to be beautiful, I hoped to spend a little time photographing. Last year, for the same event, it was bitter cold, windy, and overcast. I still snapped a few images of the Capitol building, then headed back to the warmth of the car and the impending 4.5 hour ride home. This year, Adriana and I enjoyed a nice walk around the National Mall on a beautiful March day with some of the bluest skies that I’ve seen in far too long a time.
We parked near the Library of Congress and made our way in the direction of the Capitol building. I hadn’t seen it from the front before and was wowed by all of the open space and stone. We approached via a stairway that caught my eye immediately.
Once we got to the top, I switched out lenses and got as close as I could to the figure atop the dome. She was originally named “Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace” but is now simply referred to as the Statue of Freedom.
We passed around the end of the building to see the side that I was familiar with. There were many people out enjoying the sunny day, taking photos of themselves with the Capitol building as a backdrop and even using the distance to and perspective of the Washington Monument to place their finger on top of it. I patiently waited my turn when there weren’t people in front of me to capture a nice wide angle of the building.
Happy to have my shot, I walked back over to Adriana who was speaking with a fellow out-of-towner. He was mentioning that his daughter had managed to sneak a small stuffed bear into his luggage and that he takes photos with it to send back to her. We chatted for a little while and mentioned that we were from Pittsburgh. He immediately told us that he was a Steelers fan. I nodded my head and said that I was as well, even with how difficult it was last season. We said goodbye and moved along to “just run down to the Washington Monument” then head home. I am a poor judge of distance. As we walked down the path, I noticed an interesting tree. As usual, I apologized, then headed off to get a quick shot of it framing the Capitol building. I’m really happy with the composition, but haven’t truly committed to the color or black & white version yet.
A few feet further, I noticed that the moon had risen and was in a great spot above the Capitol building’s dome.
Fast forward after a long walk later (poor judge of distance) and the realization that we were close to the Jefferson Memorial, I talked my wonderful wife into adding to our journey. On the way over, I caught a couple of blackbirds having a bath.
Then, just as we were about to cross the street, I found another amazing tree. I’m a sucker for a cool tree.
I was humbled by the beauty of the Jefferson Memorial. It is a wonderful, serene spot that is an incredible memorial to one of our founding fathers.
I love to capture beautiful architecture, and the design of the memorial gave me many opportunities. I especially liked the ability to look out and see the Washington Monument through the columns of the Jefferson Memorial.
I composed one last shot (while there weren’t any people in frame), and we called it a day. I overestimated the length of both distance and time that my journey would take, so we decided to catch a ride back to our car.
We used the Lyft service for the first time and couldn’t have been happier with it. It took a little work on our part to get to a location that was on a road (Adriana and I were unaware that by pressing “request Lyft” that it was 1. setting your location and 2. a driver would immediately be on their way). As it turned out, our fist bumping driver (a genuine part of the experience, we found out) went to the University of Pittsburgh and was originally from Uniontown. Small world!
I happened upon an odd scene while photographing the other day. Hundreds of seagulls decided to visit our fair city. I was walking around the Clemente bridge on Saturday the 15th, noticing all of the other photographers that were out and about. It was a beautiful afternoon. The temperatures were still pretty low, but the sun was shining, bathing the downtown side of the Allegheny in a wonderful light. I was walking past the steps near the center field entrance when a very excited gentleman asked, “You see all them birds!!!”. My response was, “Yeah.. there’s a lot of them”.
I chuckled to myself and kept on walking through the outer PNC Park area, looking at the light slowly creeping up the buildings on the other side of the river. It wasn’t until I got most of the way to the opposite gate that I saw a group of people huddled together with what looked like spotting scopes. I peered over the wall and saw the largest collection of seagulls that I’ve ever witnessed.
They were -literally- chilling on some large sheets of ice that were floating back upstream in the wind. I made my way down the steps and attempted to figure out the angle that all of the spotters were looking, as to not get in their way. I switched lenses to my 70-200 and started snapping shots.
I had seen a few seagulls on ice sheets a few weeks back, but the sheer number of birds was a bit overwhelming. I got right to the edge of the sidewalk without scaring them away. The light and the reflection from the bridge was amazing. Most of the river was in a cool shadow of blue with the exception of the vibrant yellow reflections from the Clemente Bridge.
Another photographer wandered past and moved in for a shot. I took the opportunity to switch lenses and capture her in the shot.
As she moved closer, an entire group of birds abandoned their ice floe and took to the skies. It was like a scene from a Hitchcockian masterpiece.
I’m not sure where they came from or how long they will stay, but, as a gracious host, I did suggest that they try a Primanti Brothers sandwich while in town.
