Category: travel

Photographing Star Trails over Havre De Grace, Maryland

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It took 3 hours, and I ruined pretty much 300+ photos from some of the time-lapses due to high ISO noise settings on the camera. Can’t complain, I am learning to shoot the star trails in a hard way.

It was another cold and miserable night, where I was all alone photographing from a boardwalk near the Concord Point Light House. The occasional dog walkers also started disappearing after dark. Even though I wanted to get these photographs at any cost, and I knew these time lapses are going to take good amount of time, I wasn’t so far from being agitated with the fear of loneliness, darkness and unfamiliar surroundings. Every time someone wearing a hoodie, walking in my direction, a deep sense of panic was all around the air.

In between the time lapse shoots, I met a nice guy who is on a sailing trip across the east cost ports on his motor boat. I hardly remember his name now, but he and his nice dog gave me good company for quite some time while I waited on camera to finish these time lapse sequences. He passionately talked about his old minolta 50 mm along with his love for photography and even a little bit of current politics. That conversation turned out to be surprisingly comforting. I managed to keep my internal daemons chained for a while, and managed to hurry up on grabbing more photos amidst of all the conversational distractions.

It was quite a bit of work to clean up the trails of light from flights in these photographs during post processing, and you will realize how crazy our skies are polluted with lights from artificial sources. One another reason why we are are not able to see the milky way above us! Thin and light air of the winter sky might have also helped in better view of the stars.

Hope you have enjoyed the post, check out the links below for related portfolios and blog posts

Inspired by subtle light…

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Sunrise that I rarely see…

It’s always hard to wake up early in the morning and get out for the sunrise… It will get more tricky when it is too cold outside during the winter days. It seems like the trees without leaves adds a bit more character and beauty when mist is hanging around the lake or when morning sun lights up the trees from the side. Drinking a warm coffee and watching the sunrise with the chirping birds is no less than epic that I generally dream and don’t care to wake up, These are some of the photos from my morning walks around the Marsh Creek state park during sunrise, where I actually won over my laziness .

Abstracts created by Ice 

Sometimes, chilly mornings of Jan/Feb months will give opportunities to capture ice formations over the water near the shore line on days where temperature falls sub-zero. These are photos that were framed with my telephoto lens. It’s quite interesting and a time passing job wandering close to the lake to find abstract compositions with layers of transparent ice over the water. If you are lucky you will find a leaf or a small branch that got trapped within ice, creating a beautiful abstract subject against pitch black water surface. Once the sun shows up, the icy layer above the water starts to melt down, and it will be all just water soon. I was freezing, but managed to get away with a few cool abstract photographs even though there weren’t any branches or green leaves that I could find inside the water frozen by the ice.

Waiting for the sunset

Here are a few more photos from the Marsh Creek Park that was shot during sunset. What really pulled me into the first photo was the contrast created by the last bit of sunlight over the woods that was lighting up a small patch of yellow leaves left over from fall season. Along with the light, reflections on the water made the scene quite photogenic. When the blue hour started, a flock of Canadian goose just flocked into the lake for me to pack up the day… 

Waterfalls trails at Bushkill Falls, Pennsylvania

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Overcast light glowing the greens against the silver thread lines created by water adding up to the beauty of Delaware Water Gap in Bushkill Falls during the spring. Here are some photos from my day trip.

Head over to my portfolio pages linked below for more photos.

The Obvious photographs of Niagra Falls by a tourist

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Niagra waterfalls park is touristy(period)!

And this blog post is no different. It’s just the obvious shot of the Niagra falls, that you find everywhere in the internet, that everyone have on their phone. Still, ‘Cave of the winds’ and ‘maid of the mist’ are the other obvious things worth trying in the Niagra Falls state park if you consider yourself as a tourist. The sound and feel of the water when you go close to the bottom of the American Falls is something I quite enjoyed.

Two times I have been there, it’s hard to find something that’s worth a portfolio image. All I find is people taking their own selfie. I can not cross the US border to get the wide angle view of Horseshoe falls either. So this is one of the trips, where camera either stays inside the bag, or in the car itself. When the lights are on after the sunset, I thought of trying a horizontal pano with three images(which I have never tried before), and a wide angle shot of the same composition.

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Walking through Delaware riverfront, without a dog but a camera

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Here are some experimental long exposure photographs of the Ben Franklin Bridge over Delaware riverfront in Philadelphia. I have been there, walking through the Race street pier towards Penn’s landing multiple times watching the beautiful lights from bridge, letting the cold air breeze through my hair. These lights and peer always feels bit historic, but with the wonderful smell of draft beer from beer gardens near the walkway.

This photos are taken over different days mostly after sunset, but with one thing in common – cloudy overcast miserable sky. It did worked well to bring up the contrasty and vibrant bridge.

Race St. Pier | Philadelphia, PA