The Twin Jewels Project: Published

I have previously written several posts about my Twin Jewels Project, a personal project photographing McConnell's Mill and Moraine State Parks, both of which are about an hour's drive from my home. I had several periods of uncertainty during the project, but kept pushing forward. I truly appreciate the comments and encouragement that folks on this blog gave me along the way.

I am pleased that the project has led to the publication of an article and photographs in Nature Photographer magazine. So, if you happen to run across the Fall issue at a bookseller....check out "The Twin Jewels of Western Pennsylvania" on pages 82-85.

In some ways, I would like to think of this as the culmination of Stage I of the project. I am wondering if anyone who has had a project of local interest published has been able to then continue showing it. If so, I would certainly appreciate any ideas. I am thinking along the lines of publishing in other local magazines, local slide shows, local nature or conservation groups etc.. If anyone has done these sort of things I would appreciate any tips as to how to get started, make contact etc.....

I had sent in 20 images to be considered along with my article about the history of these parks, knowing that only a few would be chosen for publication. The following images are the ones that the editors chose:

"Color In Motion"
Copyright Howard Grill

Interestingly, the image above, entitled "Color In Motion", is one that I had a good deal of doubts about as I had expressed in this post. To my surprise, the image was chosen as a full page photograph.

"Foggy Morning"
Copyright Howard Grill

I previously posted about "Foggy Morning" here.

"Icy River"
Copyright Howard Grill

I had posted about "Icy River" here.

"Peeking Out"
Copyright Howard Grill

"Peeking Out", an image from my series of posts about trillium.

"Hells Run Falls"
Copyright Howard Grill

This image of Hell's Run Falls was used as the half-page article opener and is one I almost hadn't submitted because I was uncertain about the composition (I didn't like the thin tree behind the falls) and because I thought the shutter speed was actually too slow, causing loss of definition in the thick 'strip' of water in the center of the falls.

Interestingly, some of what I felt were my better images did not get chosen for the article.

Anyway, I am quite pleased that after several years of photographing the parks I was able to get some portion of the project published for others to see. As I mentioned, any further ideas about how I might use the park images are welcomed and appreciated.

The Twin Jewels Project: Color In Motion

Yup, another Twin Jewels project post. I have written about the project several times before, but if you haven't read about it and would like to know more, you can check it out here.

However, this Twin Jewels post lacks the certainty and self-assuredness of my prior ones. Why? Because I am having difficulty evaluating a photograph that I am considering including as part of the project. Therefore, any honest and constructive input is truly appreciated.

The image is entitled, at least tentatively, "Color In Motion".

"Color In Motion"
Copyright Howard Grill

I took this photograph on a Spring morning, while the wind was blowing. What originally attracted me to the scene were the very saturated colors in the yellow buds on the short plants as well as the reds and yellows in the leaves. To me it looked more like Fall than Spring, but there it was.

I was hoping to capture the sense of Spring renewal in a semi-abstract way....splotches of color on a canvas. I have some straight shots from when the wind died down with no motion blur to the leaves, but I actually thought that the motion blur of the leaves in the trees conveyed the feeling of the wind and helped transmit a nice feel to the image. The contrast between the leaves that were moving and the shorter yellow plants that demonstrated very little, if any, motion blur was also very appealing to me.

One problem in evaluating the image on the web is that the blur of the red and yellow leaves on the tree doesn't come through very well at the very small image size that Blogger allows.

On one level I really like this shot. I like the color pallete and the way the color is seemingly coming from all over. What I don't like is the lack of 'simplicity'. In some ways the scene looks too chaotic to me with just too many twigs, trees, and undergrowth. I think it might have been more effective had the blurred colorful tree leaves been on a simpler background. Yet, when I look at it on another level, not expecting a ‘beautfully composed’ landscape, but just allowing myself to step back and enjoy the colors and the way they play off each other…well, then I like it. It seems to appeal to me on that level despite the lack of simple lines.

I fully realize that the art is for myself and should not be predicated on how I think others will react to it (see my review of Art and Fear by Bayles and Orland). Nonetheless, my feelings about the image are mixed and so I seek other opinions.

What do you folks think, keep it in the project or out...and why? A thumbs down or just a so-so gives it the boot as I am trying to be heavy-handed with my editing.

The Twin Jewels Project: Water Painting

In a prior post, I spoke about and described what I call “The Twin Jewels Project”. Today I thought I would talk about another of the images that I think has ‘made the cut’ for inclusion. It is also the last of the three for the project that I have used in prior different discussions in this blog. Future images I discuss for this project will be new to the blog.

“Water Painting” began as a motion study and ended up as a study in both motion and color. As I was walking by an area of the river that runs through one of the “Twin Jewel” parks, I noticed that there was a lone stone that was disturbing the movement of water going by and I thought it might make for some interesting images if I used a slow shutter speed to blur the water. I stayed at the spot for about twenty minutes or so taking shots at various shutter speeds, hoping that some of them would prove to have interesting shapes captured in the moving water to contrast with the stationary rock.

Several of the photographs did prove to have abstract shapes in the water, but the ones that I found most eye-catching were the ones that portrayed the water in an ‘intermediate’ fashion. By this I mean not totally smoothed out so that the overall sense of motion is lost and yet not so frozen in time that there is no sense of motion blur. My favorite one came right out of the camera like this:

"Water Painting" In Its Most Basic Form
Copyright Howard Grill

I was quite attracted to the preservation of both the shape of the swells as well as the tonal variation. But, in my mind, the image still lacked something; I didn’t feel as if the viewer was drawn into it. It didn’t seem to have that something that makes one want to dwell on and examine all of its nuances.

Boosting the contrast was a start, but I felt that what the image really needed was strong color with associated variations in the color tones to go along with the motion. Despite the fact that the color I was introducing was more ‘surreal’ than ‘real’, I felt that it nonetheless transmitted the feeling I was trying to convey when I took the shot. As I worked with the image, I felt that the linear motion blur of the water seemed like paintstrokes that called for the strong color (and hence the image title).

In addition, as I have also previously discussed in regards to this image, I rotated it since it seemed more peaceful with the rock in the rotated position. And so, I ended up with a final image as seen here, which I think I will likely include as part of the project:

Water Painting
Copyright Howard Grill

Do the saturated colors go to far.......?

The Twin Jewels Project: Icy River

Today, another image from those being considered for inclusion in my so-called Twin Jewels Project. More information on the project itself can be found here.

Before talking about this particular photograph, I did want to say that I do recognize, as has been brought up in prior comments, the importance of a formal artist's statement regarding the project....it just hasn't been written yet (ah, if only there were more time). I do have some ideas about it floating around in my head, but they still need to be put to paper.


The image I am considering is entitled 'Icy River', and is one of the relatively few that I have taken during the dead of winter. I have to say, much as I have difficulty getting myself out to make photographs in the cold, I always come back glad that I did.

So, on to the image:

Icy River
Copyright Howard Grill

There were several issues that presented themselves in either the photographing or printing stages of making this image.


1) Composition

I liked the "S" shaped curve made by the ice on the right side of the river as it receded from front to back. There were several compositions that I made when taking this picture. In this shot, the focal length of the lens accentuated the favorable "S" shape. It also allowed me to frame the image with ice along the bottom edge of the image which, to me, seemed to give it a 'contained' feel.

However, by making the "S" shape that I liked more prominent, I believe I lost something as well. In some ways I think the focal length is too long when viewing the left side of the river. In the best of all possible worlds, I think the solid portion of the ice on the left bank should have been included all the way down to nearly the bottom of the image, similar to the way it is included on the right. The fact that there is so much more floating ice on the left side of the river compared to the right seems to balance this out to a reasonable extent, but I still wish the solid ice extended further to the bottom of the frame. As mentioned, I would have had to use a shorter focal length to do so and would then lose some of the prominence of the "S" shape, so I am not sure how the tradeoff would have worked out.

I should add that I was standing on an overlook and thus there was no option to move closer in or further out.

2) Color Cast

In the image, as it came out of the camera, there was a fairly strong green color cast in the ice and water on the river as a result of the evergreen tree reflections. Though it was 'real', I did not find that it enhanced the image. However, I did not want to simply desaturaute the green as that would have also destaurated the green trees. So I masked out the trees and removed the cast from the water but then found that there was then a stark and unnatural appearance to the monochrome appearing water and ice compared to the background. I therefore re-introduced a touch of blue-green coloration to the dark areas of the water in order to give the image a more natural feel. I then intensified the green/yellow saturation in the trees a bit.

In regards to color, I also like the way the color in the rocks seem to somewhat echo the color in the distant orange trees.

3) Three Dimensional Effect

I wanted the image to pull the viewer in with a three dimensional effect. Obviously, the use of a relatively short focal length sets the stage. This is also the first image on which I have used the Akvis Enhancer plug-in, and I must say that I am very pleased with the result. By enhancing the subtle differences in shades of green, it really allowed the trees take on much more depth. This effect is not so evident with the small image as seen here...however, I have recently discovered a neat new blogger trick. Simple click on the image and a new window with a larger version will appear.

By the way, the same enlarging trick can be used for the Color In Motion image. In the comments section to that post, there was some discussion about how the image might look if seen larger. Now it seems pretty easy to obtain the enlarged view.

So, in short, I think the image conveys the feel of this location in winter very well. However, I think the composition has some trade offs. I would be interested in hearing what others think about how the composition works (or doesn't).


By the way, if anyone is interested, my prior blog essay entitled "Photography and Truth" has been published on Uwe and Bettina Steinmueller's Digital Outback Photo. Though the text is the same as had been posted in this blog, this new version also has photographic illustrations which the original version did not. The illustrated version can be seen here.

The Twin Jewels Project

In several prior blog posts, I have talked about the importance of working on a discreet photographic project. I have been continuing to shoot, as I have for several years, in two nearby local parks (hence the name Twin Jewels). I also mentioned that the photographic portion of my New Years resolution was to try to edit down my images from these two locations and end up with 30-40 large prints. Because I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to printing, and since I have somewhat limited free time, it can take me several weeks to bring an image from RAW format to a final print that I am happy with; one that I think expresses the feeling that I was aiming for.

As the project progresses, I thought that I would post the images that I think can ‘make the cut’, with perhaps a few words about them, how I came to take them, and what I was hoping to express with them. Any comments or feedback as to the success of the images would, of course, be appreciated, and even moreso any comments about the failings of the images or why they miss the mark.

I have used three of the images in earlier posts but will repost these and discuss them from the point of view of the project. The blog entries with these images will be sporadic, and I somehow doubt that the project will be completed within the year, but I am trying. I have 6 or 7 images printed so far.

"Fluidity"
Copyright Howard Grill

I took this photograph because I was struck by the static “V” shape in the presence of the water’s motion as well as the contrast between the smoothness of the water going over the edge and the tumultuousness of the water once it hit the bottom. I was also drawn to the abstract, almost science fiction-like appearance, of the water involuting into the triangle shape in the center of the image. To me, the photograph seemed to work best as a presentation of abstract shapes and motion, but in its initial state still lacked impact. Here in Western Pennsylvania there are not very many bright blue winter days and thus the water often looks quite drab. Changing the hue and saturation of the water seemed to give the image the impact and emotion it needed, though it is clearly not an accurate representation of how the water looked at the time the image was captured.

This presentation is a crop of the initial photograph (the original can be seen below). In the original, the "V" was off center, but working with the image I felt it was much stronger with the "V" bull's eye in the center. I think this is one of those occasions where the rule was meant to be broken.

Copyright Howard Grill

For comparison, here is the exact same shot, (a few seconds later as I didn't want to erase my stored ACR setings) but with only the default Camera RAW auto settings applied. I show this not to demonstrate how Photoshop can arbitrarily alter an image, but, rather, to allow a comparison between the actual capture and the final expression of what I had in mind.

The Twin Jewels Project: Pastel Morning

Today, I thought I would post another image that I am considering for inclusion in my "Twin Jewels Project". There is also a quick story that goes along with this one. I have off one Friday every six weeks and on that day I try to get out to photograph since I am usually devoid of responsibilities, at least for the early morning.

This particular image, entitled 'Pastel Morning', was taken on one of those Fridays. This particular morning sticks in my mind because it was a morning on which I decided I would get up early enough to try to shoot sunrise at one of the "Twin Jewel" parks. That was a little unusual for me. While I usually do get up early on the mornings I go out to photograph, the park is about an hour's drive away, so while I usually get there early enough to have a couple of hours to photograph in nice morning light, I am rarely there early enough to actually photograph sunrise.

After hauling myself out of bed, I found myself wondering if I was crazy to get up so early to catch sunrise on my day off. I wasn't quite sure where to go for a good view and was thinking that, in general, Western Pennsylvania does not even have particularly grand sunrises and sunsets because the very hilly terrain tends to block the lower horizon in many areas. The fact that it was quite cold outside just made matters even worse since, as I have mentioned before, cold weather and I are not the greatest of friends.

Back to the photograph in a minute, but to complete the story, very shortly after capturing the image and having experienced an unexpectedly majestic sunrise, I received a call on my cell phone from one of my partners who needed to get some information about a patient from me. He had expected to have awakened me at home, and when he heard where I was and what I was doing thought I was completely crazy. I had been wondering the same thing myself earlier, but, by this time, I had already experienced the magnificent sunrise and in my mind it was clear to me that the crazy thing would have been to have been anywhere else but this particular spot on that particular morning.

"Pastel Morning"
Copyright Howard Grill

Back to the photograph. I decided to photograph sunrise over the lake in the park. Of course, I wasn't quite sure where over the lake the sun would rise ( I guess you could call that ill prepared, but that is one of those things that I just never seem to be able to figure out....can anyone tell me how to do so reliably?) so I just got into position pointing generally east, according to my car compass.

As I mentioned, I wasn't prepared for anything spectacular. While it was still fairly dark, I picked out an area across the lake that I thought had the most interesting graphic appearance I could see. I liked the way the mountains seemed to cross the flatter foreground at an angle.

As sunrise approached, the sky started to glow completely orange! I had never seen coloration so intense in this area before. As it got brighter, the open sky stayed orange and the cloudy areas became an unusual pastel blue color. It was most definitely worth getting out of bed and into the cold.

I remember thinking that one of the great things about nature photography is the surprise of never knowing ahead of time what you are going to see and be able to photograph. The mornings when one gets up early and nothing materializes just serve to intensify the incredible feeling you get when you are 'out there' and this sort of scene plays out. I do realize that other areas of the country have much grander sunrises and landscapes in which to portray them, but, for the area I am trying to portray in my project, it simply doesn't get any better than this.

The final image is cropped a bit from the original frame. It struck me that the pink and blue bands were very linear graphic elements of the image and that even the green tree lined land areas seem to fit in as a linear band. I cropped a bit from the top and bottom of the image until the width of the bands of color seemed to complement each other just right to me.

After sitting through the sunrise, I was not only amazed by how quickly the light got more and more intense, but also by how it faded just as rapidly. It was all over within 30 minutes, at the most. I had to snap a picture afterwards as a great example of how important it is to be at a location at the right time and just how quickly the light and mood can change. So here is 'Pastel Morning Plus Thirty Minutes". Don't be late!

"Pastel Morning Plus Thirty Minutes"

Copyright Howard Grill

Rejuvination!

I was feeling very bogged down and concerned that my photography was getting a bit repetitive.....and thus took a break, delving into Holga/Diana and pinhole imaging. It was time well taken. Making images with those cameras is truly an enjoyable experience, and I plan to continue photographing with them. But, most of all, it has allowed me to feel quite rejuvenated. So I am once again turning attention to my 'Twin Jewels Project'. As I think about my progress with this project, I realize that it has slowed for many reasons....and I found it useful to think about and enumerate them as part of a photographic process of 'self discovery', if it can be termed that.

After self-examination, I can recognize the following reasons for delay:

1) Concern (? fear) that the images are just not good enough. Concern that I would have put in a great deal of time/effort/expense and, in the end, it would have not been a worthwhile or successful endeavor.

2) Concern that by working on making the prints for this project (it takes me a while to make a print I am happy with) I am spending time that I otherwise could use to make prints from my multitude of backlogged images from past workshops, which, as individual prints, would likely be more powerful than any single print from this project. The corollary is fear that by showing the project I might get judged by criteria which assumes that this is my best work, as opposed to my best work from this one particular location (ie, a variant of the 'project vs greatest hits' issue).

3) Concern (?fear) that, once completed, there would be no venue to show the work.

4) Revisiting work. After I have completed a print, I will frequently return to it and decide that it would look better a bit warmer toned, a bit cooler toned, a bit more/less saturated....you get the idea.

5) Desire to go back on location and improve on particular shots (shooting close to home can, I guess, be a detriment as well as a benefit).

6) Desire to shoot specific locations within the parks that I have not yet had the chance to go to.

I have taken time to think these issues over, revisit some thoughts generated by reading the superb book 'Art and Fear', and have even spent some time (re)listening to some of the Brooks Jensen LensWork podcasts on the subject, which I find quite motivational.

The time thus spent has been quite helpful, and I have come to some conclusions and decisions.

First of all, I must produce a finished version of this project. If it ends up having no venue for presentation, so be it (though as part of the thinking process I have some ideas which I think could come to fruition in this regard). However, unless I finish it I will never know how it might have turned out and never feel comfortable, or perhaps even confident enough, to move on to the next project. Whether it is successful, of course, depends on the yardstick used for measure, and independent of it's success there is no question in my mind that the endeavor will be worthwhile.

Secondly, I must 'let go' of the artwork. While my 'revisitation' of the images and the improvements that I might make to them could well prove beneficial to any one given image, they are clearly, by significantly impeding progress, detrimental to the project as a whole . Once I consider an image finished, it is not to be revisited until all the images are completed and efforts are being made to obtain a venue to show them.

Thirdly, I will not go back to purposefully reshoot images that have already been made, though it seems reasonable to try to capture them in a different season etc. There are also one or two more locations that I would like to try to capture.

Finally, I will need to give up at least some of the time that I would spend out photographing in order to work on the prints.

I have some ideas for different projects, but will not even think about working on those images until this project is complete. I am, however, going on a workshop to the Smokies in October and will take a break for that.

As a result, I have taken the bull by the horn, so to speak. I have, literally, close to a thousand images from the parks (granted some of them are bracketing, different focus and apertures etc...I tend to take a lot of images from one spot) and, prior to this, had been picking out images for printing one at a time. Since my last post, I have gathered them all together in Lightroom and 'brutally' edited them down to probably 60 or so that I think might be included. Are they all wonderful stand alone images....no, but I think they do nicely depict the personality of these parks as part of a themed project. I probably have 10 or so completed previously and would like to end up with 40-45 images in the project. I have started to work on them in earnest.

In the coming days/weeks I will post other images that I have completed or am completing as part of the project. I am also giving thought to an "Artist's Statement" to help pull it all together.

It turns out to have been quite helpful to really sit down and be brutally honest with myself about where I am going with this and how it is progressing. There are probably multiple times throughout everyone's artistic career that a session like this can be helpful!

Twin Jewels II

I have previously written about what I call The Twin Jewels Project and mentioned that I would intermittently be posting images that I think might ‘make the cut’ for project inclusion.

Three Trees
Copyright Howard Grill

This image is entitled “Three Trees”. Right next to one of the park’s parking areas was a tract of forest with the ground covered with fall leaves. I knew I wanted to capture an image of the trees and ground but was left with what, for me, always seems to be a problem with photographing forests and trees. That is, how to simplify the composition; to ‘clean it up’ so that what is included in the frame produces a harmonious graphic composition and doesn’t just look like ‘a bunch of trees’. In my mind, this is a classic situation that the saying “painters start with nothing and keep adding until they get something beautiful and photographers start with everything and keep removing until they get something beautiful” pertains to. Well, I might not have gotten that quote exactly right, but you know what I mean.

So I stood along the roadside trying to visually isolate a grouping of trees that looked like it could ‘stand on its own’, along with enough of the ground to show the leaves. I was also hoping to find a grouping that would work together graphically but not be right next to each other, in order to introduce a sense of depth into the image.

I was ultimately drawn to this particular grouping. I tend to find, when working on composition, that once a ‘problem is solved’ things are still never as settled as one would hope. There is always the next level of ‘discovery’ within the composition to work on. In this case, I found the grouping I wanted, but then started wondering how the three main trees should be oriented with respect to each other. It was obvious that their relationship to each other could be changed by merely moving the camera a few inches to the left or right. I ultimately decided that the best approach was my initial reaction, which was to have the three trees oriented in space so that they didn’t touch and had equal spacing around them.

Sometimes, after the fact, relationships are found in a composition that hadn’t been planned on and which turn out to be a surprise. In this instance, I had liked the appearance of the greenery growing by the closest tree. What I hadn’t realized is that there was a bit of an ‘echo’ of this throughout the picture, with the most distant tree also having an associated green plant of its own. The tree on the left does not have a plant beside it, but the green discoloration of the tree trunk and the small patch of green grass to its right side seems to make up for this. I also like the way the yellow canopy of leaves echoes the darker leaves on the ground.

Finally, and this is not at all apparent on a small web image, I added ‘extra’ sharpening to the most forward tree during post-processing, which allows it to ‘pop’ from the image even more and enhance the three dimensional effect.

Based on my rather verbose description, it is probably obvious that I think this image ‘works’, but I am always interested in the impressions of others. I do find interesting the amount of thought that can go into making a picture of something as simple as a grouping of trees.

Ramblings About Uncertainty

I continue to think about (and be plagued by) the whole issue of 'greatest hit images' versus images that serve as part of a 'self-contained' project. I have posted about this before and, almost assuredly, will do so again in the future, as it continues to be a source of confusion and uncertainty for me.

The issue, in brief, concerns the use of images that are related as a project in some way, as compared to what one might consider a collection of their best images. The obvious example I have in mind is my Twin Jewels Project, which I have written about before. It is a project that seems to pull me in two directions since, on the one hand, I want very much to complete and 'market' it, in terms of having it shown but, on the other hand, the images simply aren't my 'best' work because the beauty of the locale is quite subtle. If one took ten of my best shots of this particular location and mixed them in with ten of what I consider to be my best landscape images (taken around the country), I suspect that most people would be able to fairly accurately divide them into two separate piles. If one has not had many local area showings, wouldn't it be preferable to have their best work shown? On the other hand there is certainly something to be said for work from one location that is coherent and would also have local interest because the parks are nearby? See.....back and forth, back and forth, while at the same time I continue working on the project because I know it is something that I want to and should do.

Let me give an example that consists of two images, the prints of which I just completed. As individual 'stand-alone' images, I don't find them particularly compelling but they do convey a feeling about the location where they were taken; at least that was my intention.


I will sometimes post images on a photo review and critique forum or two, and did so with these two shots. Neither of the images received much attention or garnered any notice. Only one comment was made , and that person felt the image was mediocre. To be fair, I am not at all sure that I would have paid much attention to them as 'stand-alone' postings on a critique site either. But how do they fare as part of a larger project aimed at depicting one location or area? Should they be judged as if they were one lone picture on a wall looking for 'stardome' or judged in another fashion, as part of a greater whole and as an image of a location that will never be particularly grand by 'grand landscape' standards. How can one tell if an image is effective as part of a greater whole? I know that when reading LensWork, for example, I see portfolios that hold together extremely well but I know that I would not be excited about many of the images if viewed singly and out of context of the greater project. And how does one reconcile this with a desire to have the project shown on 'gallery walls', if you will, if they don't stand up as individual pieces of art?

Rocks And Mist
Copyright Howard Grill

Walking Into Winter
Copyright Howard Grill

So, in this, more than any other posting, I really am searching for people's comments as to how to reconcile these issues. Any 'answers' to the above questions would be appreciated. Any honest comments about how these two images relate to the answers and if they seem like they would be expressive as part of a greater project (or do they not convey any feel at all?.....I was aiming for a sense of tranquility with the first and a cold sense of endless winter with the second) would be appreciated. I think it would help me and probably also make for some worthwhile discussion.

OK, I better post this before I decide not to....

Warming Up

I often find, when starting to take photographs in a specific area, that there is one idea for an image that fairly quickly comes to mind. I may well know that there are likely better approaches to creating the image, but I don't fight that initial urge, even though I know that it is not likely to yield the best shot that I can get at a specific location. Instead, I give in to the urge and take the shot. After all, it is not as if I am using 8 x 10 inch sheet film. I consider fulfilling that initial urge akin to 'warming up'.

Once I take that initial shot, which inevitably is a fairly standard view, the fun begins. I try to force myself to see the area differently. Often, the best way for me to do this is to force myself to look at things from a different perspective even though I might not have pre-visualized the photo from that viewpoint. Nonetheless, it helps to move around and actually get down...or climb up....and look through the viewfinder to see how changing perspective, position and orientation makes the scene look.

I was taking some photographs of a waterfall for the Twin Jewels Project and, after taking a few of what I would call 'standard' shots, decided to try some different angles to see what I could come up with. My favorite image of the falls was this one, from almost directly underneath it. I took several photos, each with different shutter speeds, but ended up liking this one, as it is different from the type of waterfall images I typically make. For this photograph, I chose to use an intermediate shutter speed in order to partially freeze the moving water instead of the long shutter opening I would typically use to get silky water. This final image is significantly different, both in appearance and perspective, from my original 'warming up' shot.

'Over The Top'
Copyright Howard Grill

Shooting Locally

In my post entitled 'Western Pennsylvania's Secrets', I mentioned the benefits of photographing in one's own area and the advantages that one has as a 'native', as opposed to a visiting, photographer. Specifically, when one lives in an area, the locale can be photographed throughout all the seasons, in many different weather conditions, and at various times of the day. As I was looking through some photos I had taken and was considering for inclusion in my 'Twin Jewels Project', I ran across one that I thought really exemplified this advantage.

This particular location is usually quite non-descript and very ordinary appearing. It is on the edge of a small body of water that is out in the open and which, on most days, is illuminated by very harsh light and is, overall, not particularly appealing. Nonetheless, every time I would drive by it I kept having the nagging feeling that it should be appealing. It just never seemed to reach what I thought it had the potential to be, at least from a photographic standpoint.

I was out photographing quite early on one foggy morning and wondered what the fog might do for the location and decided to drive by and take a quick peek. Not only was there fog, but the whole area was warmed by filtered light from the rising sun giving it a nice warm, yet contrasty feel.....so I pulled out the camera and tripod and gave it a whirl.

Foggy Morning
Copyright Howard Grill

For the adventurous, it can be difficult to return to the same location many times over. But it can be worth it.

How Big Is It?

If there is an overriding presence of anything in the parks that make up my 'Twin Jewels Project', it is water. Lots of water. Creeks, rivers, lakes, waterfalls....you name it. Nothing on a grand scale, mind you, but one of the purposes of the project is to depict the beauty that can be found in these parks, independent of their scale and without trying to make a comparison to what can be found elsewhere.

"Veils"
Copyright Howard Grill

This waterfall really caught my eye. One of the nice things about photographing without anything clearly demarcating scale, is that the subject is removed from it's context. To me this has all the beauty and elegance of a twenty or thirty foot falls, even though, in reality, it is really quite small. I guess that is one part of what this project is all about....showing that there is beauty all around us that need not be on a 'grand' scale.

B&W

I was very pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised to find that an image I had submitted to B&W Magazine many months back had been awarded a 'Silver Medal' in the Seascapes/Water category. This image is a black and white conversion from a photograph taken as part of my "Twin Jewels Project".

"Fluidity"
Copyright Howard Grill