Winter Picture Finds

I've been going crazy trying to find the time to go look and find a cool winter pic. Yesterday morning would of been awesome if I would of had the time. The trees were glistening with snow and ice. But NO I had to go to work. My redemption if you would was finding this on the way home from work.

I swung by St. Michael's in Fort Loramie and got this cool cemetery sunset shot with snow.


Not bad for taking a detour home.

Hocking Hills Winter Hike 2009

It was a bit chilly (Low 20's) but two brave or if you prefer insane people from the Edison Photo Society made it to the 2009 Winter Hike at Hocking hills. We hiked all 6 miles and shared with each other our various aches and pains the last two miles.

The hike starts at Old Mans Cave (which is really just a long recessed area), moves onto Cedar Falls and ends at Ash Cave. The frozen falls and snow covered ground made for some great winter pictures.

The first picture is the Falls at Old Mans Cave. The second a cool picture of some ice and the last a group of hikers entering Old Mans Cave. Below is a sculpture at the top of a bridge we crossed on the way to Ceder Falls.

Ceder Falls is considered the halfway point in the hike. You not only get a great picture opportunity with the frozen falls but you get a chance to thaw by a fire and warm up with hot bean soup and coco. Both were delicious.


Ash Cave is just awesome. The mountain of ice that builds from the bottom must be at least 15 feet high.



If you really want to know just how cold it was, just ask this fellow who was kind enough to let me take his picture.

The hike is not a loop. fortunately they bus you back. I am fairly certain I would not have been able to make the return trip on hoof. We both had a great time. Sherri was a real trooper. Here is a picture of her taking a picture, while impersonating the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.

At the end of the hike we were greeted by this jolly fellow.

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Road Side Finds

On a recent trip to Indiana to visit friends I came across these two road-side-finds. When I saw this painted statue of an Indian Chief, I was reminded about an article I had read about the man who created the famous Paul Bunyan figure.


I had no sooner related to my traveling companion how the maker of the Paul Bunyan figure had adapted him to sell all sorts of merchandise, when low and behold we come upon this. None other than Paul Bunyan himself sporting an ice cream cone. It is not hard to imagine where the axe would be sprouting out of his other hand.

I just love it when I find this stuff when I am out and about. There is a Web Site called Roadside America that is dedicated to such finds across the US. Check it out. It might lead you to some interesting finds of your own or at least provide you with possible picture diversions on your next trip.

Wapakoneta (At Night)

I recently went to Wapakoneta to take some night pics of the Downtown Historical area. It was a chilly but fun shoot. The Wapa theater was one of the first thing to catch my eye. The exposure was a little tricky as I wanted to capture the face of the clock in the background. Without it looking like it was floating in space. A little trial and error (The beauty of shooting digital) and post processing and I think it came out pretty good. f/8, ISO 100 1/2 Sec. The only way I think I could have captured it better would be if I had took multiple exposures to capture both the shadow and highlights and converged them into a HDR photo.

I love the challenge of taking pictures at night. I still have a long way to go but I am fairly happy with my results. A star filter would have helped most of these shots and is on my wish list. These two buildings were at the opposite end from the theater.

I thought it looked best in Black and White. f/8, ISO 100, 3sec. I have found that when taking pictures at night that f/8 gives me good DOF without an extremly long exposure.

I tried the sepia tone filter on this one.

Here is a better shot of the building with the clock with St. Joseph in the background.

My favorite photo for the night was this one I took at the Neal Armstrong Space Museum.

I had to PhotoShop the upper right hand corner to remove the nasty orange glow of a nearby streat light. Shooting this at night really made the moon globe look well moonish and the snow on the sidewalk and globe was a nice effect too.

Another picture I liked real well from this series is the statue of Joseph playing with Jesus. This picture was taken next to St. Joseph's Church.

Like I said it was fun but cold. I left with plenty more pictures I could of taken, but my toes were starting to ache.

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