General Daniele Udree built this grist mill in 1823. During its years of operation it was used to grind locally grown grains into flour. The water source is the Furnace Creek tributary to the Lower Manatawny Creek. The water from the tributary is carried into the mill through a large pipe on the northeast side of the mill. The mill occupies a footprint of 40 X 55 feet and is constructed of field stone. The miller’s house, also known as Oley Furnace Mansion sits across the road from the mill and is where General Daniel Udree resided at the time of mill construction. The Oley Furnace was located to the left and slightly uphill from the mill and supplied ammunition for Washington’s Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The mill was placed on the National Register of Historic Place in 1992. The mill is located on Reider Road halfway between Oley Furnace Road and Mill Road in Oley Township.

Old stone mills are one of the few subjects that look great in the rain especially in B&W. I shot this during a very brief daytime downpour but it gives me a change to mention a new book that came out recently by Lance Keimig called “Night Photography – Finding your way in the dark”. In the book Lance gives not only tips on night shooting but also shooting in the rain and in imperfect lighting conditions. He has a whole opening chapter devoted to nighttime and rainy day shooters in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s amazing what those guys were able to accomplish with the equipment they had back then, and all because they understood what sort of subjects had a certain type of contrast and looked great in the rain and at night. A very interesting read.

Shot as nine bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments then merged into a HDR and tone mapped using HDR Efex Pro from Nik Software. Black and white conversion via onOne Software’s PhotoTools Plugin suite. I used a “U” shaped door frame bean bag that I normally use with the big lens while shooting wildlife. That provided the support I needed to keep the camera still without having to stand in the rain with a tripod and umbrella.

I had been meaning to get to this particular mill for a while and with rain and fog on this particular day(4-25-2010), it seemed like as good as time as any. Nice shooting weather. It would rain and stop, rain and stop all day long.

This mill was built somewhere between 1800 and 1830. It is located in Fawn Township near the intersection of Garvine Mill Road and PA route 425 (aka Woodbine Road). The water source is Bald Eagle Creek. What is puzzling is that on top of the hill behind the mill (the view you are seeing here) is a head race formed by the two foot high rock trough on the left, which would make this an overshot wheel but there is no current water source for the head race. It is said that the Bald Eagle Creek furnished water to the head race but given the elevation I would have to think the creek no longer takes that route. There isn’t a lot of information available on this mill on the Internet so I’ll have to hunt around a bit more to get the back story on how this mill operated and what happened to the original water source. The Miller’s house can be seen across the valley from the mill in the background.

The mill has also been known by the names Anderson’s Mill (named after the original builder) and Rock Run Mill (Not to be confused with the mill by the same name in Maryland). It was originally used to grind cornmeal and in later years became a cider mill. The original mill burned down in the late 1800′s and was rebuilt from the foundation up in the years 1899 & 1900. The original wheel on the mill was wooden and was replaced when the mill was rebuilt. The mill is currently owned by Gene Badders who is refurbishing the mill.

I shot this as seven bracketed RAW frames at .7 stop increments and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro and finally, tone mapped that image before bringing it into Photoshop CS5 and doing the B&W conversion with onOne’s Photo Tools.

When I woke up this morning and saw those big, white, puffy clouds filling the brilliant blue sky, I knew I had to see if they were reflecting off of Lake Ontelaunee which is just down the road from my home. Sure enough, they were reflecting nicely. I walked half way across the bridge that goes over the dam and setup the tripod and took a series of bracketed shots with the intention of HDR and tone mapping them when I got home.

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.

I shot this as seven bracketed RAW frames and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro and finally, tone mapped that image to create the final product.

Despite the constant threat of rain on Saturday 5-16-2009, I decided to go out and do some completely random landscape photography in Berks, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Columbia Counties. I hit the Kempton Railroad, Leaser Lake (now almost completely drained while they repair the dam), nine covered bridges in Columbia County, various old barns and St. Ignacius Cemetery in Centralia.

On the way back on Route 61 south, the weather started looking foul and I noticed the clouds forming into something biblical so I found a turn off in the village of St. Claire and parked in a construction zone. I had my camera in the front seat already setup for five bracketed shot HDR and I had my tripod and cable release so I was able to capture these clouds just prior to the sky letting lose with a deluge of rain.

Processed with Photomatix Pro to make a HDR (High Dynamic Range) image from the five bracketed shots taken with the D300.

A look south, away from the direction of the tornado that hit in Lancaster County on Sunday 3-29-2009. All I kept thinking about was how embarrassing it would be the next day when they would be pulling my Toyota Prius Hybrid and my lifeless body out of the rubble of the State Farm Insurance office and the building’s insurance company would be revealed to be Allstate. Yeah, my mind works that way. Scary huh ?

You can also see a previously posted shot in the direction of the tornado by clicking here.

Shot as five bracketed RAW frames then merged together to make a HDR (high dynamic range) image. The tripod was moving a bit in the 70MPH winds between each shot so there is a bit of noise in the final merged image but in a situation like this, you take what you can get.

Canada Goose in flight. It’s primary feathers tattered most likely from repeatedly taking off on the ground or rocks instead of from water. This happens most of the time when they are startled by people or dogs or people with dogs and they make a hasty take off.

Taken near the Arrowhead Industrial Park Retention Pond in Kutztown, PA on Sunday morning 4-5-2009.

For more information on this species, visit the Cornell Lab Of Ornithology.

An Amish family returns from Sunday church services in their horse drawn buggy and tries to outrace a violent storm that descends upon the small farming community of Strasburg, Pennsylvania on 3-29-2009. I really felt bad for the horse because seconds after I took this, half inch sized hail began to pound down all around the area.

This shot is a single frame (no HDR).   I only wish I had my 70-200mm mounted on the camera for this one to get a little better capture of the detail on the horse and buggy.

So I spent the day at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in the small Amish farming community of Strasburg on Sunday 3-29-2009. The museum normally closes at 5:00 PM on a Sunday but they announced around 4:30 that they were “closing immediately !”, the rest of the announcement was a little muffled so I couldn’t understand why. When I exited through the lobby, I saw the ticket taker running into the museum’s gift shop yelling that they had to close and empty the building because there was a tornado warning !

I’ve lived through several tornadoes but never had the chance to photograph one. Just then a little voice went off in my head asking “what would a famous photojournalist like Joe McNally do in this situation ?” Yeah, so you can picture me out in the museum parking lot trying on different lenses to pick out the most appropriate one for the shots I wanted. Luckily, I had my Cokin Pro Z filter holder and filter set with me and my 10-20mm Sigma lens was already on the camera body since it was my primary lens for shooting in the museum. Next was to pick an appropriate spot. I drove up the road about half a mile until I found a strip mall with a parking lot. It afforded good views over the adjacent farmland and I could pretty much get 360 degree views of the forming storm. I shot up until the 1/2 inch hail started to fall and then I sat in the car waiting to see if anything else would develop. It never did become a tornado but it came pretty darn close. I got the shots I wanted and nobody got hurt so I guess there is a happy ending.

Shot with my D300 mounted on a good, sturdy Gitzo tripod. Captured as five bracketed frames using a Sigma 10-20mm lens with Cokin Pro Z filter holder and Cokin Pro Z neutral density filter (ND4) and a Cokin Pro Z Graduated Tobacco Filter (T2) to bring out the ominousness (is that even a word ?) of the clouds. Processed in Photomatix Pro to create an HDR from the five bracketed frames.