Mom to be

A turtle at Wildwood Lake Park in Harrisburg PA. We walked up to see the turtle, and a rather largish snake nearby. We startled the snake but the turtle didn't even try to run away. After a few minutes, we saw why.

Groundhog Regrets

A few days ago, we were on our way out Powell's Valley Road heading somewhere not so important after all, when I saw something that I should have gone back and photographed. I thought... well, the camera I have doesn't see things the way I do... everyone else is ready to get where we're going... there's a hundred excuses not to do it.

The scene? Amber waves of grain. Literally. It was sunny, the grain was ripened to a golden hue in the bright sunlight, the breeze was blowing, causing the grain to wave in the sunlight. And between the fields of grain was bright green fields of corn. It was an awesome sight in it's own way.

Today, they baled that grain into haybales. That photo op that I had the other day is gone for good.

Early this morning, on the way to work, I stopped and took a photo. I took it with two cameras, and I am hoping the other camera did an even better job - but we'll see. As it is, I am proud of this photo:


As I started to drive back down the road, I spotted another splash of blue against the golden backdrop of grain. It was an oh-so-very bright bluebird... Very, very pretty. Experience tells me if I'd stopped, and gotten out with the camera, there's a good chance it would have flown away before I got focused on it, and my daughter was ready to be at her friend's house already, so I drove on.

But maybe, it wouldn't have flown away.

But what really baked the cake (so to speak... ) was this afternoon on the way HOME from work. I thought, "I have some time to kill... I am going to drive up to Boyd Big Tree Preserve, and look around. I did, too. After I pulled of Route 322 onto Fishing Creek Rd, with my destination in mind, I looked over and saw the coolest thing.

I have yet, in the eight years I've been in Pennsylvania, to take a good shot of a groundhog. Yes, there's Puxtahawney Phil, but I've not seen him. But here was a groundhog, not waddling through the grass like we usually see, but rather, next to the road, his paws up on this weed that was more of a bush than a weed, biting at a branch very above his head.

I haven't ever seen a groundhog behaving quite that way. But I was driving too fast. Like the bluebird, I had the feeling that if I stopped, he'd run away, so I didn't. But that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I drove to Boyds, even took a couple photos - one or two might be okay.

But after I left, I pulled out my cell phone and jotted a note to myself... the subject was "groundhog regrets".

Secret Ingedient

From time to time, I've taken a few great shots... and a lot of merely good ones, I suppose, but a few really great ones. And they usually happen despite myself - meaning they are accidents of some sort, or just merely the result of being in the right place at the right time.


With that thought in mind, I am going to share a link to a photo my buddy Jose shared with me (No - I do not know the photographer).

This external link will take you to CNN.com's site. This is one of those "perfect moments" that most of us don't quite happen to catch...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/04/tanker.fire.irpt/index.html

An ebay experiment

I've never sold on ebay... I have bought a thing or two over time - but never have I sold.

But I wanted to direct some traffic back to my photobook's page on the blurb site, and so I thought I'd do something that I read about... which is to advertise/list prints on ebay. Provide a link back to the book's page, etc.

I can get 11x14's printed locally for a good price, for good quality prints. My objective here isn't to make money, but rather, to test the waters and learn a little about selling online.

With that in mind, I started my prices at 2.99 plus shipping - which wouldn't even be a break-even for me if they sold at that price. BUT it was something... A friend looked and advised - if I do ever sell anything, then sell more later - it's harder to keep customers once you raise your prices.

So I revised/listed my prints for a much more realistic price of $10 plus shipping... But again, I am not caring if I make money - my objective is to break even and learn the waters, so to speak, so I started looking for something that would be a worthwhile charity for Central Pennsylvania - and one thing I've learned is that the Central PA Food Bank is there for people - especially in the hard winter months and during the holidays...

Through scouts and other activities over the years, we've donated food before, but ebay has them as a charitable partner. So I put 10% of my selling price to go to that organization. The only catch? It's a minimum $5 donation.

So if I sell any prints at the starting bid of $10 - $5 automatically goes to the Food Bank, the other $5 is spread over the cost of the prints, the ebay fees, and so on.

In the end, I won't make anything.........

But that's okay.

If you are interested in purchasing a print from me, you can get it cheaper through my ebay page than through deviantart prints service. Right now, I have a handful of Harrisburg area shots listed - I can list special requests if you have any... and at this point I will gladly continue the partnership with the food bank - just to gain the experience and perhaps get some positive feedback on ebay - and learn the ropes, so to speak. :)

Arkansawyer on eBay

Central PA Food Bank on ebay.


Let me know what you think - and if you think a photo is worth $10 - $15 feel free to make a bid. :)

err. For those more serious ebay shoppers out there - my "postage" on the current listings was for priority mail to US addresses. Any suggestions on mailing large format photographs? Like packaging and priority vs parcel post, etc., etc. I am a 100% newbie at this... and again - looking to learn the ropes.

Central Pennsylvania Photobook

I still need to finish posting my individual sections here, but I am going to skip ahead and post photos of the finished copy of the photobook I just had published. Feel free to leave a comment or email me at arkansawyer@gmail.com for more information.

All images and the photobook are copyright 2005-2008 James Wheeler and/or Karen Oudeman.

The best movie quote of all time.. IMHO

My First - A Photo How-To Experience

This quick post is in response to a comment on my photobook series image, "My First"...

Central PA Photobook Series: Country Living

"How did you ever happen to capture that?"

I will go back a few years... a buddy and I, both potential photographers without the money and time to deal with the cost of film, used to sit on the balcony at the dormitories on Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio Texas... and we'd watch thunderstorms roll in. He'd try to capture lightning shots and may have been occasionally successful. As for me, I quickly learned I could go through a heck of a lot of film and never capture anything but a dark sky.

A couple years ago, when this photo was taken, I had just recently gotten a decent digital camera, an Olympus C765-Ultra Zoom model. It was 4.1MP (good enough in it's day even if it's not the newest and best now). And I was really beginning to get the bug.

Now I live in Central Pennsylvania, and there are things to take photos of in my life every day - all I have to do is learn to open up my eyes. So I had begun to bring the camera along part of the time... and around home I was looking at wildflowers and sunsets and things with a new eye, when one day a thunderstorm rolled up Powell's Valley from the west, straight towards our house.

It was a very slow-moving storm front, and as it got nearer and nearer, the lightning just kept popping, over and over and over again... I got my camera and went out in the back yard (facing the west) and I took shot after shot... almost 60 total - and got nothing but pitch black skies or an occasional "glow" on the horizon. There was lightning all right - I was just getting really good at missing it.

I got discouraged, disgusted, and went inside in a humph... I quit. As I sat in my easy chair, I started looking over the camera. I though - hmmmm... this has a manual setting that has a 15 second exposure... Other than the lightning, it was pitch black outside. Maybe, I should try that.

By this point the storm was passing our house, and rain was beginning to pound down, so I went out front, and stood under the overhand of our porch, pointed the camera into the night-sky, and pressed the shutter button. 15 seconds later, I had myself a black image. I tried again... same results. But the third time, the lightning struck the mountain and the rest is history, as they say.

I have some comments and 'lessons learned' as it were.

1) Knowing what I know now, it's not too smart to be standing out there taking pictures of something this deadly. Look how the tendrils of the lightning came back through the sky right over my head. When we're looking there with the naked eye, we tend to see a really quick light "explosion" and then darkness again - but the camera caught a lot more than that. So if you ever do something like this - don't go stand out in the middle of the field and just do it.

2) I got really lucky. I didn't use a tripod. I might have had the camera braced on the porch post or something but I am not even sure about that. In subsequent attempts, I find myself getting a lot of doubled-lines if I do not use a tripod to steady the camera. Probably the only reason I got what I did in this attempt was because it WAS so pitch black outside that all the camera saw was in that brief second of light.

3) Longer exposures work great - in pitch black darkness. If it's daytime - you just have to get lucky. :)

Hope you found this useful and/or informative. Have a great day!

Photobook 6: Wildlife

Post six 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 Wildlife. In my time in Pennsylvania I have been lucky enough to see many various creatures. I have just very recently photographed a porcupine and elk in the upper part of the state, and have seen black bear there, as well as here near home. However, in this collection - I am only including area scenes - and I have not had the luck to catch a bear with my camera.

However, there are many interesting creatures - from deer and ring-neck pheasants to many types of insect. I love to go out on lunch breaks to local nature centers in the hopes of finding some "nature" and sometimes I am successful. :) I hope you enjoy this collection - it does not do justice to the many diverse species of animals and insects to be found in the area.

The text on the section introduction page reads as follows:

Central Pennsylvania has an abundance of wildlife. White-tail deer are very common in the area, and one of my favorite pastimes as a photographer is to stop and photograph a deer as it stops to look at me (but all too often it runs off before I get the camera in place). Other mammals, waterfowl, amphibians, and reptiles are fairly common in state forests and park areas such as Wildwood Lake in Harrisburg. In Powell's Valley, ringneck pheasants are a very common sight. Various species of insects and bugs may be seen, from common bees and butterflies to the saddleback caterpillar. This area is an animal lover's paradise.




























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

I prefer my coffee black, thank you

Ever have one of those days?

It all started yesterday. I work in two places - err... I am employed by one employer who has facilities at two different addresses? Something like that.

After a meeting at my "normal" place, I went to the other one... I grabbed a coffee mug full of coffee on my way out the door. I downed it on the way over, and left the mug sitting in the cup holder of my truck.

Then last evening, I had to take the kids into town. Jeremy was going to scouts, and Kate was hanging out with me, walking down by the river, trying to find some pretty shots:

 

 

 

We did find the pretty pictures, got Jeremy and headed home...

And this morning, I got up and came into work. I pulled the McDonald's napkin that had been stuffed into my mug out and threw it away without a second thought. I rinsed the mug quickly, poured the coffee, and went to my desk.

I logged on the computer, sat sipping the coffee for a moment or two, thinking... This is pretty good coffee today.

Then I noticed it. Something stuck to the inside of my mug. As I looked, a sinking, queasy feeling developed. A bit of the lump broke away and drifted into the blackness of the coffee.

It's a good thing I have a heavy duty stomach and don't get sick very easily... because I KNEW what it was.





Rewind to last night again. We were a bit late, needed to eat, so I thought - we'll go through the McD's drive through.




As we neared town, Kate sneezed. When she did so, she pinched her nose shut. I fussed at her - you can (and she has in the past) hurt your ears that way. She said, "Well... it's better than the alternative." And I insisted it was not. So on came another sneeze. This time, the snot did fly.

I had Jeremy look in the glove box but I had nothing. My handkerchief I had left at home when I changed out of my work clothes. So when we got to McD's, I asked the drive-through person for extra napkins. Most of them ended up on the floor of the truck. But one, got stuffed into my mug.

err. Guess which one.

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