Photolearningism

The learning continues! For some things, I've tried shooting the same image under different settings to get a sense of how much exposure is utilized (which affects how fast the picture is snapped). Also, the Auto white-balance seems a just a hair off, so I've taken to manually setting it as I go. The results do come out better that way. I really wanted to try something new today and continue to challenge myself. While I enjoy photographing inanimate objects that don't move even if I ask them to, I wanted to try capturing some people, so I enlisted the help of my kids. It's a little tricky photographing children who appear to be jumping through space and time against the laws of physics, but I manged to sneak in a few snaps and learned some new things along the way. For anyone who is missing the historical journey, please don't worry! Provided the weather isn't trying to freeze my camera, I'll be "back in the field" next weekend. Today just

I'm taking some time to dig in and understand how to capture images on this new camera of mine. I've never had to factor in settings, such as exposure limit and ISO (These are full auto on the iPhone). I feel like I'm beginning to gain an understanding, but I'm not ready to go back to my usual adventures just, as I want to be well versed in taking good shots with this thing. So today, I took a quick walk around my neighborhood to give myself a few challenges and push myself to begin experimenting with natural light and how much to let in through the lens. I do feel like I'm gaining ground, but have a bit more road to walk before feeling comfortable. That's that for the moment. I'll probably take one more week to get aquainted, then I'll find something to get back into location shooting - I do miss it! Thank you for continuing to check in and enjoy this journey with me! See the rest of the adventure today at my Flickr feed -  https://www

Today, I decided to return to the Hopewell Rec Center to begin the journey anew with a brand new camera (Nikon CoolPix L330)! I'll confess that it's not everything I'm after, but it's worlds better than shooting with my iPhone. It doesn't have quite the manual control I need, which I knew this going into the purchase, but it was the best upgrade I could afford with a gift card and savings. This is not to say that I'm unhappy with the camera, it's just something new to aspire to with future savings! I've enjoyed the quality of Nikon products as of late (I purchased a Nikon CoolPix S9500 for general family use) and have become a full convert from Canon (For clarity, I'm not being paid anything by Nikon to mention them). All that aside, it was a bright and beautiful 15 deg F morning. Being that I haven't had a good daytime opportunity to test shooting with my new camera, I wanted to return to familiar ground and begin to learn how to operate this

I was all stoked to visit Mesier Park this morning, given my discoveries last night, as added to an earlier post ( Hunting for the Wappinger Mill ). I had learned some very intriguing history about the origin of Mesier Park, including that the land (Actually 750 acres) was originally owned in 1741 by two Dutchmen (Nicholas and Adolphus Brewer - Ref -  http://www.wappingershistoricalsociety.org/mesier.shtml ). Adolphus died after being struck by lighting, and was the first to be buried in the Zion Episcopal Church graveyard. The church still stands and I'm looking into visiting Adolphus Brewer's burial site as a future adventure.  This is where the story gets fascinating. I'll quote from the Wappingers Historical Society site: " In 1776, a well-to-do loyalist tea merchant from New York City, Peter Mesier, arrived in Fishkill. He bought the 750 acres of land and the homestead from Nicholas Brewer and opened a small store in the homestead. Mesier angered his cust

Taking a small departure from my usual routine, I went on this week's photography adventure on a Friday, being that I had the day off. I've been searching out historic sites within the Wappinger area and landed today in the Village of Wappinger, trying to locate the cotton-textile mill, originally constructed in 1819. After a little research, it seems that the original construction was destroyed by fire and quickly rebuilt in 1856 (Ref -  http://www.livingplaces.com/NY/Dutchess_County/Wappingers_Falls_Village/Wappingers_Falls_Historic_District.html ). I parked in a comfy two-hour parking slot and went adventuring, starting at Wappingers Creek Bridge (Originally constructed in 1852, but re-constructed and widened in 1884 - Ref -  http://bridgehunter.com/ny/dutchess/1006380/ ), which supplied a fantastic view of the gorge below, but didn't give me any clear hints as the exact whereabouts of the mill. I walked down Market Street for a bit, which proved fruitless, as ever

I decided upon the Wappingers Falls Rural Cemetery ( https://www.facebook.com/WappingersFallsCemetery ) for today's photography adventure. I was scouting on Google maps, looking for a new location and happened first upon the Middlebush Cemetery ( Google Map ), but I was looking for larger ground to cover. In a list of historic attractions, provided by the Office of the Town Historian (Wappingers -  http://www.townofwappinger.us/pdf/Historic%20Sites.pdf ), next to pop on the list for me was the Wappingers Falls Rural Cemetery. It actually took some work to locate, as it isn't registered on Google Maps and doesn't appear to have an official web presence, other than a Facebook page I stumbled onto, which gave me enough clues to locate it by studying Google satellite telemetry. I took a slow drive through the Village of Wappingers and successfully found the entrance. My first challenge was navigating the space, as I'd never been there before and the road is mono-dire