As we mark the 10th anniversary of 9-11, everyday objects seem to recall images of a more innocent past and lost people we’d like to keep in our hearts forever.

This farm is located near Neff’s one-room Schoolhouse on Bastian Road between Kutztown and Lyons Station, PA. Funny things sometimes pop into my head while photographing. While photographing this, I was thinking how sunsets on planets that have two or more suns must pose a unique compositional challenge for photographers on those planets. Yeah, sometimes my mind thinks like that.

3 bracketed RAW frames @ 2 stop increments. HDR and tone map post processing via NIK HDR Efex Pro version 1.1. I used a Cokin Pro-Z filter holder with one 4 stop neutral density filter and one sunset-2 graduated tinted neutral density filter.

I’ve had this shot dancing around in my head for the last several months so I decided to try it on Wednesday 5-11-2011 as the sun was setting over the fields. I wanted a sunset shot with the schoolhouse in the foreground but I wanted to do it in such a way that it would show Mr. Fox’s very unique topiary gardens all around the school. The sun streaming through the shrubs and trees cast shadows towards the viewer’s eye and draw you into Mr. Fox’s world of bizarre shrubbery.

Neff’s Schoolhouse is located on Bastian Road between Kutztown and Lyons Station, PA during lunch. It was used up until 1955. It was set to be torn down when William Fox bought the property and renovated it. It is his hobby to trim and prune the trees and bushes around the schoolhouse into unusual shapes as witnessed by his interesting topiary garden in the front of the school house.

3 bracketed RAW frames @ 2 stop increments. HDR and tone map post processing via NIK HDR Efex Pro version 1.1. I used a Cokin Pro-Z filter holder with one 4 stop neutral density filter and one sunset-2 graduated tinted neutral density filter. I’m not real crazy about the lens flare on the front of the school. I may try this again later this month from a slightly different angle to see if I can control that flare a bit better.

“Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.” — John Lubbock

Sometimes the clouds and sun come to an agreement about their respective place in the scheme of things when it comes time for a sunset, and then there are nights like Saturday. Just when I thought the sun was going to drop below the clouds but above the tree line, the clouds would “sunset block” me. Arrrggghhhh ! Taken at Lake Ontelaunee in Berks County, PA.

I shot this as nine bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments and then combined them into an HDR and tone mapped it with HDR Efex Pro from NIK Software.

The setting sun falls slowly behind a Berks County barn adorned with traditional Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs.

I shot this as seven bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro 4.0 beta 10 and finally, tone mapped that image.

From April 2010 archives…

Lake Ontelaunee is a 1,082 acre reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for the city of Reading Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite fishing spot year round and is surrounded by state game lands and farms. The lake is formed behind the Ontelaunee Dam and was created in 1926.

I shot this as a single exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Graduated Sunset-2, Neutral gray and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

I’ve been thinking about this shot all week, knowing how the weather was being forecasted, and I was really looking forward to today’s 74 degree temps and clear skies.

Lake Ontelaunee is a 1,082 acre reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for the city of Reading Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite fishing spot year round and is surrounded by state game lands and farms. The lake is formed behind the Ontelaunee Dam and was created in 1926.

I shot this as a single exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Graduated Sunset-2, Neutral gray and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

Time to get my creative hat on. I grabbed a previously un-posted shot I took of an adult Bald Eagle flying over the Susquehanna River in Maryland back on 8-1-2009 and combined it with a sunset shot at Lake Ontelaunee in Pennsylvania I took back on 7-15-2009 to make this composite piece. Lake Ontelaunee does have its own nesting pair of Bald Eagles but they are seldom seen this close, so this helps to image what it might look like.

For more information on Bald Eagles, visit the Cornelll Lab Of Ornithology.

This was taken close to the dam at water level about nineteen minutes before I took the sunset shot with the fisherman. The fisherman sunset was taken about five hundred feet further down shore. Lake Ontelaunee, Wednesday night 7-15-2009.

Single RAW exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Neutral gray (ND2) and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

Lake Ontelaunee is a 1,082 acre reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for the city of Reading Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite fishing spot year round and is surrounded by state game lands and farms. The lake is formed behind the Ontelaunee Dam and was created in 1926.

For more information on Lake Ontelaunee, visit this page.

This was Saturday night’s sunset over Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ. Forsythe was my second refuge of the day after having started my day off at 7:00 AM at Bombay Hook NWR in Smyrna Delaware.

I was setting up to do an HDR shot of the setting sun reflecting off the pools near the end of the straightaway on this section of the wildlife drive but never got a chance to do that when my progress to the end of the drive was held up by a pack of five young skunks who took up position in the middle of the road. By the time they decided to creep back into the marsh grass and let me pass, the sun was already down. So I had to settle for this single frame traditional shot taken before my close encounter with the skunks. You would be amazed what emerges out of the marsh grasses when darkness takes over at the refuge.

Single RAW exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Neutral gray (ND2) and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

For more information on the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, visit their web site at www.fws.gov/northeast/forsythe/.