And Some More

Same books, different compositions.  Trying to be artistic, maybe.  Trying to move out of a comfort zone,  sure.  Just a couple more of the same books but laid out differently.

Books

Good reading if not some great pictures in these books.  I worked for GM for 22 yrs.  Proud of what I did but not so proud of what they have become.  I've been gone for 12 years and it seems to have gotten worse.  I will admit that they do still make innovative products and have led the way in many items but the book on the bottom and the next two up are are about an even more inventive car.  The you have "Go like HELL" where Ford beats Ferrari with the GT-40 is a great history read.  Out on the side is "the unfair advantage" which is about Mark Donahue (deceased) and how he made every machine, no matter who made it win.  Roger Penske was a big part of his winnings but it was Mark's determination and dedication that got him into the winners circle.  The scariest race car ever built was the Porsche 917.  Many drivers couldn't handle the raw speed of this machine.  Mark won time after time in it.  This was before they started limiting horse power and other factors to control the speeds being driven.  Unfortunately Mark died in a practice run.

Sunbeams

This is what started it all when I got the airliner flying into my shots.  The question is where was he headed....Atlanta, Miami?  He was definitely going south. 

This started out as a "hey, this is a good opportunity to play with the White Balance Shift/Bracket in the menu of my camera".  Drive a little more red, magenta or blue.  I will admit there is some post processing to this one, needed to lighten up the foreground.  I actually lost the color of the sun, it was brilliant red, so bright you couldn't really look at it.  That's it peaking just below the clouds and the tree line where the tallest tree is.  Was there for only a few seconds.  The coloring is almost just as you see here.

Behind The Clouds.....Then Out of The Clouds

     Caught this when taking photos of the light beams coming from behind the clouds in the morning as the sun was rising. 



 

     I wasn't sure where this plane was going to come out or if it would be too small to get.  This doesn't sound like much time but he stayed hidden for a good two maybe three minutes before popping out the other side.  In that time I would assume he had traveled several hundred miles at least.

 

     Little did I know that when I started taking this series of photos that I had the beginning of this jet coming onto my frame.  It's just a speck but I highlighted it a bit in the lower left 3rd.  I hadn't really looked at what I had after every shot, I just figured I would do the usual, take the shot and delete later.  There isn't much time for anything else when dealing with sun rises or sun sets.

 

Almost Too Early?

Too early for good light and yet light enough to be interesting.  The haze is what I think makes it interesting as well as just being able to see some color start to show.

Looking Bad But Turning Out Great

The day started out looking ominous but it turned out to be a great day.  The clouds were just left over from the evening before.  We are getting the warm days and cool nights that always brings the ground fog in low lying areas.  This morning was one of those days with some northern school districts being put on a 2 hour delay and one closing all day.

The branches are becoming barren and the color is being lost.  Around here you just never know what is going to happen.  I've seen it snow on the first of November and I've see it so warm out on Thanksgiving that we had to open the doors and windows.

In the Spot Light

The spot light is on the table.  Simple but perfect.  She, the wife, has the right touch for decorating but she won't take any credit.

All the right colors for the season, no wonder it is one of the favorite times.

Something to Reflect Upon

Reflections can turn one is all directions.  You can reflect on your day that has just past or what you have seen.  Here, I capture the reflection of the trees for this falls season if not for their color this year but to remember them in the future.  This day was pretty much cloudy all day but as late afternoon arrived so did the sun.  Long shadows started showing on the bank of the pond and the siding of the house in the distance.

Just something to reflect upon.

Night Shots.....Point and Shoot...Nope

Yesterday it was windy and warm for 54 degrees or so.  Cloudy all day with the sun peaking out late in the day.  Then last night it really got quiet until the thunder and lightning started.  Wind blew up every now and then but generally remained calm.  Somewhere around 11:00 PM or so I looked out and it was dead still.  Water on the pond was smooth as glass and there was a low fog hanging in the air.  Looking up you could see broken clouds and some stars.  That's not all that bad considering we live close to several cities so I would suspect reflections of their lighting.

I decided to set the camera to monochrome as I would really like to get better at black and white photography.  At any rate I set it up to these numbers for this image. 

Definitely not a point and shoot. 

Exposure - 0.4 sec @ f5.0
Focal Length - 18mm
ISO - 6400 (hence the graininess)
Program - manual
Metering - spot
Flash - no
Cropped to - 4064 x 2396 ppi (before reducing for .jpeg)
Lens - Tamron 18-270mm VC Di II
Preset - monochrome

Sauder Historic Village, Interesting

We took a trip recently up to Archbold, OH.  This is the home of the Sauder Furniture business that Erie Sauder founded many years ago.  Today it is know as the furniture you buy and assemble yourself and with the younger generation all I have to say is Ikia.  There is a place in Archbold that is called Archbold Historic Village were over the years they have grown a business around historic buildings and equipment of the time.  Erie Sauder's original work shops are on the grounds as well as a general store, doctors office, one room school, broom, herb and sewing (quilt) shops.  There are farm buildings with livestock and just about anything else from that era.  It is very similar to the Greenfield Village near the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, MI.

Out in front of the village is an information building with a deli type café and a gift shop.  At the main road on the grounds is a restaurant called the Barn which is a barn that is 177 years old.  Near the Barn is a bakery where breads, cup cakes and all kinds of sweets are made and sold and then just beyond that is the Sauder Factory Outlet.

In the back of all this is the Sauder Inn and the camp ground. 

The drive up was really nice, taking I-75 to Lima, OH and then jumping off onto the back roads of Ohio, going through the small towns of "blink" and you missed it to some that some that were a little larger with two or three gas stations, a bank, an antique shop etc.  The interesting thing was there were some that didn't have any fast food establishment.  Mom and pop diners were the order of day.

This is 90% plus farm country so the landscape was really nice and peaceful and some of the homesteads were huge.  Super large farms with lots of silos for drying and storing of their crops.

These pictures are from inside the motorhome on our last morning.  We had clouds and rains up to Archbold and the second day was the same but the day we were to leave we awoke to this and a very pleasant drive home.

Pronunciation; we have always pronounced Sauder and if we were saying louder with an S.  The locals pronounce it as if saying sodder.  Linguistics'....interesting, eh!

www.saudervillage.org

They always refer to morning shots as the blue hour and evening or sunsets as the golden hour.  Obviously there is a bit of information that was left out as there is a golden hour in the mornings as well.

Just had to do a b/w of this shot.

A Sunset In Northern Ohio

We have made a trip to a place called Sauder Historic Village in Archbold, OH.  It has an inn a separate bakery establishment as well as a restaurant called the Barn and other, spend your money, businesses, all associated with the Village.  This is where Sauder furniture started so there is a place here to see and purchase furniture and nearby is the main factory.  There is the Historic Village, similar to the one in Detroit, MI at the Henry Ford Museum.  Not sure if we are going to make that part of the experience as the weather has changed since this was planned a week ago.  When we picked the motorhome up from storage it was sleeting.  We've had rain off and on since we got here so we will just dodge the possibility of getting caught in a down pour.

This shot is sunrise this morning looking out of the window.  The ground in this area is flat, soybean and corn fields primarily.  It is obvious that the main stay of life in this part of Ohio is farming, many really old farms that appear to be well taken care of for their apparent ages.  In some cases I would say there are some well of farmers as the homes are not only new but quite large.  What is puzzling is how many crops are still in the fields, especially the soybeans.

As I get ready to post this the sun is trying to cut through,

saudervillage.org

Beams of Light

 

Beams of light slicing through the clouds, cutting there way to the earth below.

 

Another Visitor

This youngish Red Tail Hawk comes to visit about once a month or so.  It started showing up about 3 years ago, landing on a neighbors deck rail.  I was able to get a pretty good shot of it but it didn't stay too long.  Last year it ate 3 young Robins in a nest in our front yard.  It is quite a large bird that does really show here as I must be 50 yards away or more.  Also, last year we had a duck that must have been attacked by a coyote or one of the large barn cats from a farm nearby but was left along the pond edge.  The next day this, or another hawk like it, made a meal out of what was left.  Since they are territorial I'm thinking it was this one.  We have two dead ducks in the pond now, one near where this is perched but it's been dead for about a week, too far out to retrieve.  The other one is near the edge to where I may get it and bury it.  Kind of groose, getting bloated a little.  Was hoping the turtles or the hawks or even the vulture would take care of it.  And yes, there are pictures coming of the vulture that was here yesterday.....dumb bird.  Can't swim and tried to walk across the pond then started running around the edge.  He would have had to have walked 200 feet or better....dumb bird has wings.

Catching A Ride

The other day I was taking a picture of how the scenery has changed or is changing when all of a sudden a  hot air balloon ventured into view.  By the colors of the balloon I will say it is a realty companies balloon.  Remax flies in this area all the time.  I even caught a few birds in the air, my guess is they are the ducks that flew or of the pond near here.