Lewisburg, PA, for those of you who may not know – and I suspect that’s almost everyone, since goodness knows I’d never heard of the place – is known for it’s “Main Street, USA” status as well as for being the home of Bucknell University.

Market Street, Lewisburg, PA

I love traveling to places like this, little towns that time seems to have passed by, at least partially.  Visiting Lewisburg certainly wasn’t like stepping back in time, with classic Fords and poodle skirts down the street, but it was historically quaint and very charming.  Mostly it was clean and quiet, which are two qualities that I always appreciate.

Despite the fun of these trips, they are always a source of some conflict, however.  The conflict being which camera to bring?  On one hand these are usually social trips, Mandy and I going to explore and spend time together, so lugging a full bag of gear would be a distraction.  On the other hand, it’s good odds that I’ll see something worth shooting, and I want to end up with usable photos.

On this trip the ability to travel light won, and I took only the little Powershot – which ended up being the right choice, since there were in face several scenes I ended up shooting, but overall the DSLR would have been overkill.  The important thing is, the photos I came home with are perfectly usable.  Shooting with the P&S requires extra attention, settings need to be just right, care taken on exposures, histograms studied.  There’s no RAW adjustments to fall back on, no real latitude for recovery.

Fortunately the shots I really cared about came out well, although I’ll freely admit that it took me about a dozen frames to get into the groove of shooting successfully.  I don’t know that I’ll ever make prints of any of these images, although I certainly could if the mood struck.  But the point is that I had the camera with me and was able to record some memories.

Campus Theater in Lewisburg

The one change I have made recently is in metering modes; I used to throw all my cameras on Spot Metering and leave them there, and as such I got pretty good at picking a metering point, grabbing a quick exposure reading, then recomposing and shooting.  But I’m reading McNally’s Hotshoe Diaries over again, and Joe recommends matrix (evaluative in Canon lingo) metering, so I’m giving it a try.

Believe it or not, it does have a noticeable effect on exposures and I’ve had to make some adjustments.  But it seems to be working well, and for most subjects it’s a perfectly valid way to go (although there are still circumstances when switching to the spot meter will save your butt).

Bucknell University chapel

Our final stop was nearby Bucknell University, where we were stopping to see the senior show put on by one of Mandy’s friends.  Finding Bucknell was easy, but finding our way around the campus wasn’t – the place is huge!  We finally found a campus map posted in the admissions lot; we hopped out to check it out, and I caused a bit of consternation when I wandered right past the map to capture the last of the sunset light on this chapel.  The campus has a very New England feel to it and being the university photographer there must be a delight – the place just oozes photogenic.  I’d love to be able to make some images there.

(For the record, once the light was past (aka in the dark) I went back and read the map and got us where we needed to be.)

New York City is, in a word, iconic.  The Empire State building, Central Park, Times Square – these are places that nearly everybody knows the name of and has seen in movies.  There is a magnetism in the city that draws people in and captures their imagination.

Although I am not a city person by nature – given the choice, I usually head away from population centers – I found myself back in the Big Apple this past weekend.  I say “back in,” although I have to use that term loosely; the last time I was in the city was over a decade ago when I went and stayed a week with an uncle.

So needless to say, things have changed since then, or at least aren’t quite as I remember them.  But back then we didn’t spend a lot of time walking through the city, so returning this weekend was like seeing it anew.  And there was a lot to see.

I’ll preface this right now by saying that this was not a photography trip, although I did come home with hundreds of images.  This was a trip down with Mandy to visit some friends on Long Island, who took us into Manhattan to play tourist for the day.  I left the DSLR and lenses at home and instead traveled light with the Powershot SX120.

I might as well admit that I was overwhelmed most of the day.  My photography lacked any clear purpose or direction – I wasn’t intent on photographing people on the streets, or making perfectly aligned shots of the architecture, or carefully composed images of, well, anything.  I spent most of the day slack-jawed, gawking up at the skyscrapers and trying not to walk into hotdog stands (which I think must spawn uncontrollably at night, and now proliferate on every single street corner).

We started the day with me driving everybody into Manhattan, which was frankly an adventure unto itself.  (Sorry, no photos, as I had both hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.)  We left the car at a parking lot that – and I am not making this up – put the cars on lifts and stacked them vertically, like bottles in a vending machine.

On the streets of New York City

The New York City subway – a legend of its own, and the next experience added to a quickly growing list of firsts.  By this time I managed to actually get the camera out of my pocket and try shooting, compensating for the dim light by boosting the ISO and leaving the shutter speed slow, so the trains blurred as they came into the station.  A subway station is a gritty place, a quality which is easily accentuated in the photo.

NYC Subway

The Museum of Natural History has long been on my list of places to visit, and was out first stop of the day.  We didn’t get to see much of it, since you could easily spend an entire day there.  Although I usually don’t bother with museum photos, I actually shot a few – particularly of the life-size blue whale that dominated the Marine Animals exhibit.  The light was low and blue, as if you were underwater, and made shooting difficult.  Cranked the ISO back up and actually braced the camera against a railing for the exposure, since even with the IS it was too long to hand-hold.

Blue Whale in the Museum of Natural History

From the Museum we crossed Central Park, another place where you could easily spend an entire day roaming with a camera.  Unfortunately this was one of those points in the season where the greenery is dead or dormant, but there isn’t any snow, either.  But even in this bleak state, the park was lovely – I can only imagine what it’s like the rest of the year when it’s vibrantly alive (although I’m told that the crowds then are much larger).

Lunch occurred back in the city, at the Carnigie Deli, a place that is under the impression that a a sandwich, say for instance a turkey sandwich, should literally arrive with an entire turkey sliced and stacked between the bread.  It’s touristy, exorbitantly expensive, and a lot of fun – and if you leave hungry, you’re probably not human.

Photo Credit: Mike Ross

I submit that it’s hardly worth shooting in the city if you’re not going to bother heading up.  There’s no shortage of places where you can go up, and we went to the Top of the Rock.  Rockefeller Center, on the uppermost observation deck, where there is no plexiglass partition around the sides, offers an incredible view across the island and beyond.  The first inclination is of course to go wide, which I did, shooting a series that I stitched together in to a panorama.  Aperture at the max (f/8), ISO 80, with plenty of shutter speed at the very beginnings of sunset.

Looking north from the Top of the Rock

It’s an impressive site, the wide expanses of human construction, but I soon found myself drawn to the details.  Small bits of light amid the shadows, the geometry of the buildings below, wisps of steam trailing from air handlers – I put the full zoom range to good use.

NYC from the Top of the Rock

Steam in the sunset

Naturally you can’t visit Rockefeller Center without seeing the skating rink.  And although the giant Christmas tree was already gone, the rink itself more than made up for it.  This is another of those shots that I’ve always wanted to make, and I’m certain that I’ll go back to make it again.  We’re in the shadows of the buildings here, with the sun setting – the street lights can’t make up for it, so the shutter speed slows.  Shooting at the widest angle to take advantage of the f/2.8 aperture, ISO around 400, I once again braced the camera on a handrail and let the shutter drag.  The skaters in motion go soft and leave a trail, while those who are resting a moment stay sharp.  It’s a beautiful scene to watch, and made the images that are probably my favorite from the trip.

Ice Rink at Rockefeller Center

Trying to get home before too late an hour, we finished up with a stop at St. Patrick’s cathedral just prior to the evening mass.  This is not your ordinary church, and the sense of quiet reverence inside is incredible.  You feel like it’s an honor just to photograph in there, and you’re actually allowed to in all but a few places.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Finally, Times Square, a fitting place for the journey to end.  The New Year’s ball is overhead and the streets of overhung with giant glowing billboards and neon lights.  It’s Vegas with a windchill, baby.  Neon and music and people having what looks to be too good a time.  It’s entirely a tourist trap, I’m told, but who cares – it’s a fun place to be.

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Times Square after sunset

If you’ve stuck with me to the end, thank you.  This was a long one, but there’s no shorter way to share NYC.  I wasn’t sold on the place when I arrived, but I am now.  If you’ve never been, you should try to go – and if you haven’t been back for a while, perhaps it’s time.  I know that we’re already planning to return sometime in the spring.

Just be sure to bring extra cash for the tolls.

The draw of this particular weekend in November, which is making this an annual pilgrimage, is the Remembrance Day Parade.  Although reenactors can nearly always be found somewhere in Gettysburg, this is one of the two weeks each year when the town is full of them (the other time being the anniversary of the battle itself).

The parade itself would be best shot with a full DSLR and a long lens; in fact, I spied one gentleman at the end of the parade route setup with just that gear, tripod mounted for ease of use over the hour or so that the parade lasts.  From my own experience, 200mm is probably the shortest length you want on the long end.  Unfortunately, this year I opted for ease of movement over quality of equipment and came armed with just the G10.  Let me blunt; great little camera that it is, the G10 is not suitable for this kind of work.

First off, the focus speed is far too slow and it is nearly impossible to pick a focus point on-the-fly.  Second, the max zoom is too short.  And third, the burst speed is far too slow.  I was able to get a handful of images that were good enough to bother posting on here, and a couple I’m even pleased with.  But the simple fact is, a full SLR and telephoto lens would have worked much, much better.

The trick, as I finally figured it out, is to more or less forget about the masses of men marching down the street and instead use a long lens to focus in on an individual at a time.  In each group there is at least one character, a reenactor who stands out from the others for his expression, costume, or attitude.  For the best images, I think I’d need to isolate that character, which was nearly impossible with the setup I had with me, although these start to come close:

The other tip I have to remember for next year is to stand on the other side of the street.  For the last two years, the group I’ve gone down with have insisted on standing so that we face the side of the street facing the McDonald’s and Chinese buffet, which make terrible backgrounds that I am constantly fighting to keep out of my shots.  Which is stupid, since I could have crossed the street and shot back the other way, where my backdrop would have been an empty field with some trees – a much more natural setting altogether.

Therein lies the problem with taking a trip and trying to play tourist and photographer at the same time; divided attentions and purpose result in weaker images.  I was luck with a few, but it frustrates me to know that I could have done better if I had been able to focus just on the images.  That’s why there’s next year.

On a final note, I stuck with B&W for all the parade images; it helps hide the backgrounds, and it appeals to my historical aesthetics.

General Lee at the head of the Confederate troops.

Ithaca sits in the hills at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, the longest of NY’s Finger Lakes. It is most definitely a college town, filled with a mix of student-oriented businesses and tourist shops. Overall it is quaint, with a bit of a hippie feel.

For nature photographers, it’s a sort of Mecca. “Ithaca is Gorges,” say the T-shirts, and that’s the truth. Within an easy 15 minute drive from downtown, there are at least 5 waterfall sites open to the public, covering everything from informal city access to lovely state parks. Over several years of visits I’ve seen most of them, as well as a few located farther from the city. On this trip, however, we only went to one – Lucifer Falls in the lovely Robert Treman State Park.

Lucifer Falls

Robert Treman State Park (not to be confused with Treman Marine Park on the lake) is set back into the hills a short drive west out of Ithaca. It is essentially comprised of a hiking trail that follows along the creek as it descends through a series of waterfalls before finally leaving the park at the lower entrance, which is a popular swimming hole. We hiked in from the top, since the most impressive falls are within the first 1/2 mile or so, culminating with Lucifer Falls itself.

I’ve done the hike before with a DSLR and backpack full of gear; even with the carved stone steps and excellent trail, it can be challenging with the extra weight. Since I was more interested in enjoying the hike, I took the little G10, although I unfortunately neglected to bring my table-top tripod. A combination of ISO 80, f/8, and the built-in ND filter let me reach shutter speeds as low as .3″, which was enough to let the water stream out, at the same time being just about too slow to hand hold, even with the IS. Where possible I braced the camera or myself against the stone; otherwise I went up a third-stop to 1/4 sec and shot multiple frames, hoping for a sharp one. This “spray & pray” philosophy wasn’t very advanced, but it did pay off with a few good shots.

Without the built-in ND filter, I’d have had no chance of slowing the water down, which goes to show just how bright the light really is, even on overcast days.

Overall, it was the perfect afternoon to be working around the falls. The foliage is still decent in the area, and the warm mineral tones in the rock mirrored it. Definitely better than a day in the office!

The replies that were posted weren’t quite what I expected. I figured that most photographers would be like me and would respond, “Yes, I do feel limited by my location. I wish I lived in __________!” But instead, there were a lot of people who said No, they were happy where they were – that they found plenty to photograph in their own cities or neighborhoods or backyards. A friend of mine in Philly went so far as to say that he’s lived there his whole life and is still finding new things to shoot. And he really is.

The sentiment “the grass is always greener” always holds true, but I still have to wonder that so many people seem to have gained such wisdom about it. Me, I suffer from wanderlust several times a year, that insatiable urge to just get up and leave, go see something new – lots of things new – and if you like it there, well, no one said you have to come back.

The sad thing is, because of responsibilities and logistics and finances, I never really take off and go roaming. Instead, I try to placate myself with day trips and short excursions that rarely go beyond the state I’m living in. Which is why I come back to the original question and say, “Yes, I feel limited! I feel constrained! I feel – goodness forgive me – bored with where I live!”

I want to travel to Wyoming and shoot the Tetons and the Snake River. I want to go to Glacier, Yosemite, and Olympic National Parks. I want to hike the Great Smokey Mountains and visit the Cumberland Gap and Harpers Ferry. I want to live a little like Moose Peterson, shooting the Reno Air Races one weekend and a workshop in Maine the next.

But then there’s the other side of the fence. My father is a pilot, so I know something about what it’s like to be away from home for extended periods, to always be on the run. I know that the shine would wear away and I’d become exhausted and dream of going home at the end of each day.

Perhaps we just can’t win.

Or perhaps we can. Perhaps winning has more to do with a frame of mind than with long airline trips and exotic locations. Perhaps it has to do with, as others have said, finding new ways to see and experience what you have around you. I may long for mountains and rivers, but I live in one of the most scenic states on the east coast.

So, as I sit here watching the rain come down outside, I think I’m going to give myself a new challenge: as this dismal, depressing weather continues, I’m going to take photos of the same old boring, bland, blah scenes that make me want to leave, and see if amid all that I can’t find something to celebrate.

You cannot visit Cooperstown, NY, without visiting baseball. You don’t have to be a diehard fan, you don’t even have to know the names of any players, or the rules of the game, or the roar of a stadium around you. Cooperstown is the home of baseball, the place where it is celebrated most. Even before you reach the Hall of Fame Museum, it is apparent that you are in a world that is defined by the game. The shops all sell baseball bats and memorabilia; the entrees in the cafes have names like “Shortstop stack of pancakes;” and in the center of town Doubleday Field holds court.

Cooperstown Diner

Doubleday Field is the birthplace of baseball, at least if you believe the plaque. It is a modest little field – a far cry from Yankee stadium – but with the modesty comes the feeling that you are welcome there. That you can climb into the stands and watch a game without worrying about anything, because there baseball is played not for money, but for love of the game.

Doubleday Field Plaque

The game at Doubleday Field

Baseball is original America, like Route 66 and Elvis and Independence Day. It is honest and pure, at least in this form. Step away from the major leagues, where the players are paid hundreds of millions of dollars to dope up and get caught in scandals, and you find a different game – a game that is still about nine guys on a field ready for the ball.

Watching a game at Doubleday field is an experience. This was the perfect autumn morning, crisp, with a sky so blue. This was a group of men – and even a woman – who were obviously there because they love baseball. They all wore different jerseys and sometimes it was a wonder that they even knew who was on which team. When they came up to the plate, they became serious and took their turn and made the most of it. But in the dugout they were light hearted and made jokes, and no one was strutting around or spitting chew or doing anything that would embarrass the game. You kind of got to figuring that these guys would rather do anything than embarrass the game.

In the dugout

Baseball. The crack of the bat, the puffs of dirt under a runner’s shoes, and the look of a field in the sunlight. I could have sat and watched all day. This wasn’t a commercial game, this was an art form, and the players artists.

If all I had been able to do this trip is sit and watch the game, it would still have been worth it.

At bat

Doubleday Field

Babe Ruth at the Baseball Hall of Fame

While we were there, the Fall Festival was taking place. The primary attraction? Giant pumpkins; huge, oversized, mutant pumpkins, pumpkins that are small if they only weight 800 lbs. Pumpkins so large that it takes a front-end loader to lift them onto the scale. Pumpkins that, after being weighed in and admired, are the next day hollowed out and floated across the lake in a regatta (I didn’t get to see that part, sadly). It is a quintessentially American celebration in the most quintessential of American towns – a celebration of home-grown excess coupled with bizarrity. And it was wonderful.

The weather was lovely, a blue autumn sky and puffy clouds in the morning, the sort of day where you don’t need the “vivid” setting on the camera – lift itself is vivid enough. I was using the G10 all day, carried along for convenience. This was a trip to make photos, but primarily it was a trip to get away and spend some time with Mandy, so juggling the DSLR and lenses was out. But that didn’t matter, the little Powershot was plenty: at ISO 80 and f/8, I was still getting good shutter speeds, and everything from here to Canada was in sharp focus.

In a place like this, where everything looks scenic, I tried to take shots that would show something true about it. The Fall Festival was remarkable for the pumpkins; the main street for its lovely, olden-time charm; the lake for the reflection of the sky and foliage on the water.

I ended by the lake, in a small park at the very headwaters of the Susquehanna River. It is hard to believe that such a large river, a river I grew up around, has such modest beginnings, but then I suppose that’s the way of most things. I spent some time photographing the headwaters, trying to capture the green tint. And I spent some more time photographing sailboats at their moorings, with the whole lake and autumn hills behind.

This was the most challenging set of the day; the scene was beautiful, but the light was starting to fall flat as the clouds built up. Without a tripod, true HDR was out of the question (the G10′s continuous shutter speed is far too slow to try and handhold three exposures). I settled for shooting a single RAW file at the best exposure I could get, and then processing it into a psuedo-HDR image at home. It was just enough to kick an edge back into the scene, without looking too fake.

This is the time of year when photographers should be out and about. It is a time filled with festivals, filled with celebrations of the harvest and of life, when small towns really shine and the hills are filled with color. Pretty soon we’ll all be griping about winter, dragging on in its third month of gloom. Find the time to enjoy autumn while we have it.

Planning on needing umbrellas, we headed to Quechee – a town best described as “touristy” which I remember visiting as a child, although I doubt I ever approached it with as much excitement as I did today.  It’s funny how that happens – places you found boring and dreaded as a kid become interesting as you grow older.  At any rate, our first stop was VINS – the Vermont Institute of Natural Science.

VINS is an exceptional organization, dedicated to education and protection of the natural wonders of Vermont, but most especially in regards to avian species, from song birds to raptors.  Their facility serves as a rehabilitation center for injured birds from across the state, and each year they manage to release hundreds of birds back into the wild.  When birds are found injured, hit by cars, attached by cats, this is the place to call – you’d be hard pressed to find a more dedicated group than this.

Of course, not all the rescued birds are fit for release back to the wild, sometimes due to the severity of their injuries, and sometimes because the birds no longer have a fear of humans, or worse, have come to depend on humans for survival.  This mainly occurs with raptors, and when it does, some of them become permanent residents at VINS, either as display examples of the species, or as educational birds who undergo specialized falconry training so that they can perform during educational presentations.

When I say “perform,” don’t think the circus; the birds respond to falconry commands, moving to and from their handler.  If you’re not familiar with falconry, it is the ancient art of training birds-of-prey for hunting, and is still widely practiced today.

The show we watched was fascinating, and at the end I photographed the display birds in their enclosures.  I left the 50D home for the day and shot with the G10; today was a day where I wanted the ability to stuff it in my jacket pocket.  Add to which, the birds are in enclosures – it’s not like I needed 400mm to reach them, the G10′s zoom was plenty.  All were shot at f/4.5 (full zoom), ISO 200, and between 1/10 & 1/60 sec.

Notice that I’m not trying to hide the enclosures – no drastic out-of-focus backgrounds, no fancy compositions that hide the fencing.  These are captive birds and it’s only right to show them as such – taking captive critters and portraying them as wild shows a severe lack of photographic integrity, and furthermore, is rather silly.  Captive animals may well be easier to shoot, but that doesn’t make them any less valid as subjects.

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After lunch – amid the promised downpour that forced us to cancel our hike down into Quechee Gorge – we stopped at Simon Pierce Pottery & Glass.  Glass blowing is a fascinating art, and after you look through the sale floor and feel your wallet wheeze just thinking about buying anything ($50 for a single wine glass!), you can head downstairs to see how it’s all done.  All the workers are craftsmen and watching them at work is captivating.  The conditions are tough for image making; subdued lighting vs. the intense glow of the furnaces.  Instead of trying to fight the motion blur, I chose to work with it.

Again, all shot with the Canon G10 at the lowest possible aperture, 1/8 – 1/30 sec., ISO 400.

But as in so many places, small and remote is a good thing – the summit is easily reached via road and offers several stunning views out across the Valley and Lake Champlain, and into the Adirondack Mountains of New York.  Birds of prey drift on thermals, clouds float by, and a few other visitors soak in the view from the comfort of sturdy Adirondack chairs.

The afternoon was a bit hazy, helped by the use of both a circular polarizer and a split-ND filter.  The panorama is composed from 7 images, all shot hand-held on the 50D + 17-40mm at f/11, ISO 200, 1/40.  Although better software may exist, I use Canon Photo Stitch, which comes with nearly all Canon cameras.  It’s simple and does most of the work itself, which is fine by me.

For those of you who might be geographically impaired, Vermont is a state located between New York and New Hampshire.  It borders Massachusetts on the bottom and Canada on the top.  Yes, it is rural and, in places, rustic.  No, everyone doesn’t have cows in the backyard.  Yes, there are cities…er…well…towns, at least.

I grew up in Vermont and since leaving, these are answers to the questions I’m asked, on the rare occasion that I admit to having grown up there.  Not that I’m ashamed of the fact, I just don’t hold a lot of fondness for it, either.  Frankly, Vermont is an excellent place to visit and explore, but a sucky place to live, for reasons that are predominately economic, political, and social.

Enough of that.  I’m on vacation, let’s keep this light.

The list of likely upcoming highlights includes:

* Stream/falls @ Kent Pond                          * Panoramas from Deers Leap

* Many more covered bridges                     * Views from Mt. Mansfield

* Smuggler’s Notch                                           * Downtown Burlington & the waterfront

* Quechee Gorge                                                * Wildlife images (esp. birds)

* Model shoot w/ Allie                                    * Whatever random stuff I end up with

Stay tuned!