The Cathedral of Learning and the Schenley Bridge on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. I had just finished photographing a march and rally and dropped a fellow photographer back at his vehicle when I thought to see how things looked at Phipps Conservatory. I parked and saw this view in front of me. It was too good to pass up. I ducked around a fence to get a less obstructed view.
Sometimes you have a plan and a goal when you shoot. Sometimes an option presents itself. This is an example of the latter.
Dippy the dinosaur is sporting the finest in winter wear. The Jurassic period star is wearing a Rae Gold creation from the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh on this chilly February day. That’s a lot of neck to keep warm!
The view of Pittsburgh from St. John’s Cemetery is always a stunner. The city sits over a mile away and the houses of Troy Hill can be seen in the foreground. On this particular day I drove in to see how much the rivers had risen due to the rain, but it began to snow. Wanting to get a wider field of view during the squall, I quickly drove up to the cemetery to catch the big flakes. I am really happy with the detail of the snowflakes throughout the frame. The city is softened in the background by the brief squall.
The 24th was a beautifully cloudy winter day. Blue skies behind wonderfully textured clouds prevailed. At points throughout the day, small breaks in the clouds were visible. The contrast of light and dark really drew my eye all day long. when I finally broke down and pointed my camera up, there was a small spot of blue visible.
It was another beautiful warm winter day in Southwestern Pa. I hiked to a new area of Boyce-Mayview park today and this was the first image that I shot. I conceptualized the stark whiteness of the sycamore against a middle grey sky with the parts of the tree away from the sun having a dark shadow. The lightness of a few clouds in the bottom right corner were a bonus!
While consulting my photographer’s ephemris app, I noticed that the sun was going to set directly behind the West End Bridge. I wanted to get a long exposure of the wispy clouds and blur the quick moving water of the Ohio River. With the help of my ND10 filter, I got what I was after. I even managed to get a train passing in the background! Bonus!
What a beautiful late winter day this was. I had spent most of it editing in a darkened room and needed to get out. I went to a local park for the intention of climbing a tree to get my shot of the day, but this scene presented itself less than 2 minutes after I started walking the trail. The subtle curve of the well worn path and the starkness of all of the bare trees was an easy choice for my composition. I switched to my 70-200 and shot wide open for the first shot. It was too much, so I stopped down to the “sweet spot” of the lens, f/8 for this image.
I took a friend of mine on his first Urban Exploration experience on my birthday. We went to an old factory that has seen far better days. His apprehension towards shooting an unfamiliar subject turned to unbridled enthusiasm once we got inside the old building. While walking down a long open room, this little tree caught my eye. It was in the middle of a pile of snow that entered through a large hole in the roof. The isolated spot of lightness between the dark foreground and background made it stand out and even glow a little. I shot with my 105mm f/2.8 to keep the depth as shallow as possible.
While on a walk with my wife, I caught a little pool down over the bank of the Montour Trail. A quick scan revealed a way to get down to view it from the opposite side. Since the pool was at the bottom of a little hill, the trees at the top reflected really well in the murky waters. I really liked how the barkless tree dips in and out of the water.
I pride myself on finding new angles to capture the city of Pittsburgh. I spend way too many hours on Google Earth and my Photographer’s Ephemris looking for spots that I haven’t been to, places that I might be able to get to, and where the light might be when I get there. Pittsburgh has so many wonderful little neighborhoods snuggling right up against the city separated by a few interestingly designed roads. This view from Troy Hill compresses a neighborhood, some of those roads, and the city into one frame. I chose an extremely long exposure to blur the clouds as well as the road’s travelers. I’m most pleased with the layered quality of this image. When you shoot with a telephoto lens, you can compress foreground elements into background and make them appear closer to one another. The houses in the foreground are 1/4 mile away, the PPG building is about 1 1/2 miles away, and the church visible on Mt. Washington sits at a distance of 2 miles. The “base layer” of the clouds has Mt. Washington in front, then the PPG, Fifth Ave. Place and other downtown buildings on top, and then the sister bridges over the Allegheny. Next are the houses on River Ave. In front of those are the roadways. 576 and all of its on and off ramps with a glimpse of E. Ohio St closest. Finally there are the houses at the base of Troy Hill. All of this neatly packaged into one frame.
