Photobook 5: Waterscapes

Post five of a series of photographs I am going to use in an upcoming photobook. All of the photos in this series were taken by me in Dauphin County Pennsylvania and its neighboring counties, between 2005 and 2008. Occasionally I will also post paintings based on my photographs. The artist behind these paintings is my friend, Karen Oudeman, from Gouda, the Netherlands.

This is the the section entitled Waterscapes. This is simply a series of photos featuring the Susquehanna River and other waterways in the Central Pennsylvania area. My daughter often asks, "Can we go down to the river?" For her, she likes to "explore" and find things washed up on the banks. For me, it's an opportunity to go take pretty pictures, and enjoy the sound of water running past. In the wintertime the sound of ice crunching and crackling is pretty neat, but any time of the year, along about sunset you can enjoy fabulous colors reflecting off the water's surface.

The text on the section introduction page reads as follows:

The Susquehanna River meanders from its roots in New York state through Pennsylvania into Maryland, eventually emptying into the Chesapeake Bay. Here in Central Pennsylvania, it is a very wide river, in many places shallow with islands here and there all along its length. During dry seasons, one can wade almost all the way across the river, but during wet seasons, flooding takes its toll on the river communities. In addition to the mighty river itself, there are many creeks and streams that start up in the mountains and make their way down to the river. All these waterways help lend a special beauty to the landscape and make it an enjoyable target for the camera year-round.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All images copyright 2005-2008 James A. Wheeler or Karen Oudeman.

Contact me at arkansawyer@gmail.com for information on obtaining copies of any of these prints or information on the upcoming 160 page photobook, which will be a "coffee table" style hardcover book complete with paper sleeve cover, initially priced around $60 - which to my cheapskate pocketbooks seems high until I compare the cost to that of eating out at a nice restaurant, which for a family can quickly exceed the cost of this book, and is quickly forgotten.

The series so far:
Photobook 1: The Story
Photobook 2: The Church
Photobook 3: Farmscapes
Photobook 4: Country Living
Photobook 5: Waterscapes
Photobook 6: Wildlife

Photobook 4: Country Living

Visit the book's page here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/238062/

Fourth in a series of articles introducing my new photobook which is now on sale at blurb.com. The last section was Farmscapes and this is closely related. I live in the country - for a time I lived in places like Montgomery Alabama, Midwest City Oklahoma (a suburb of Oklahoma City), and Harrisburg - but those times when I lived "in town" tended to be short-lived. The old adage "You can take the kid out of the country but you can't take the country out of the kid" fits me pretty well.

Country life, for me, is all about sunsets without buildings or other things to block them, foggy mornings, going fishing, etc. But in Pennsylvania, it's a bigger thing than just that. It's the covered bridges - many of which were built in the 1800s and are still in use today, or at least, available to visit. It's the old wooden ferryboats in Millersburg which cross the river, day after day, ferrying passengers and cars to the other side. It's sitting in the park at Millersburg, and watching fireworks exploding over the river. Living in rural America is the place to be!


Dauphin County and its neighboring counties are full of country scenes, from the covered bridges of Perry, Dauphin, and Northumberland Counties, to the ferryboats that have taken passengers across the Susquehanna River from Millersburg to Liverpool for more than a hundred years. On Independence Day fireworks light up the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg and Millersburg; in September, a local school remembers 9-1-1 with a tribute to all the people who lost their lives on September day. In the wintertime, snow blankets the ground with a soft cover. Amish settlements are sprinkled throughout the countryside. And when you look to the west in the evening hours, it is not unusual to see sunsets with barns or trees framed against a fiery sky. On any given day of the year, you need not look far to find something interesting to do or see. It is country living at its finest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All images copyright 2005-2008 James A. Wheeler or Karen Oudeman.

Contact me at arkansawyer@gmail.com for information on obtaining copies of any of these prints or information on the upcoming 160 page photobook, which will be a "coffee table" style hardcover book complete with paper sleeve cover, initially priced around $60 - which to my cheapskate pocketbooks seems high until I compare the cost to that of eating out at a nice restaurant, which for a family can quickly exceed the cost of this book, and is quickly forgotten.

The series so far:
Photobook 1: The Story
Photobook 2: The Church
Photobook 3: Farmscapes
Photobook 4: Country Living
Photobook 5: Waterscapes
Photobook 6: Wildlife

Photobook 3: Farmscapes

Third in a series of articles introducing my new photobook which are now on sale at blurb.com.

As a photographer, I love landscape photos - seeing expanses of land in a photograph in National Geographic or anywhere else for that matter, always makes me smile, appreciate some aspect of my world that someone was able to capture with a camera. Over time, I've come to really appreciate an altered form of the landscape photograph - that is, landscapes that feature farm scenes, or farmscapes. This collection, the second section of my photobook, is a record of the reasons why I live where I do.

We looked all around for houses - but even before we moved to Pennsylvania, we knew we would move to Halifax eventually. I suppose the housing market could have changed our minds - but I wanted a couple of mountains between myself and the city (and downriver, the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant). I also wanted a small town life - where my children could go to school and get to know almost everyone - not to be lost in the system. We looked at a map, and said, "That's the place."

Mostly, I loved the countryside. When I first came to Pennsylvania, it was in May or June, I believe... and when I looked out over the valley where Halifax sits next to the big river, the first thing I noticed was the patchwork quilt of greens. Cornfields and other crops, bordered by forests, grain silos and old barns in the distance. And everything was so very bright and green and ALIVE.

And with that introduction, I present the farmscapes collection. From the introductory page:

Central Pennsylvania is a patchwork of farmlands and forests with small towns dotted here and there across the countryside. When I first came to Pennsylvania, I drove up over Peter's Mountain into Upper Dauphin County and pulled off at the parking area atop the mountain. When I looked out over the early summer green and saw the patchwork of farms and forests in the valley below, I was sold. I went back to work and within a few days had accepted the job offer I'd been given. The rural countryside varies from a snow-covered landscape during the winter months, a bright green and flowery spring, miles and miles of cornfields in the summertime, to colorful autums. It is not only the natural scenes which inspire, but also those which combine the man-made scenes with the natural ones, rural landscapes - or farmscapes.

All images copyright 2005-2008 James A. Wheeler or Karen Oudeman.

Contact me at arkansawyer@gmail.com for information on obtaining copies of any of these prints or information on the upcoming 160 page photobook, which will be a "coffee table" style hardcover book complete with paper sleeve cover, initially priced around $60 - which to my cheapskate pocketbooks seems high until I compare the cost to that of eating out at a nice restaurant, which for a family can quickly exceed the cost of this book, and is quickly forgotten.

The series so far:
Photobook 1: The Story
Photobook 2: The Church
Photobook 3: Farmscapes
Photobook 4: Country Living
Photobook 5: Waterscapes
Photobook 6: Wildlife