I love how we can just go to a park and let people be who they are…run around, chase ducks, throw a football, etc. It gives you a real opportunity to capture something unique that shows maybe the spirit of the person, even if their face is not showing. Years later, they’ll know it was them and maybe think back to the fun they had that day. Or it will remind them of their inner child when they’re much older.

So, instead of the usual pose, I find that this one is my favorite. It may not be his, or his mom’s, but I love it. And yes, there were a couple of other good ones as well, a few shown below.

iPad Photography app created for Tony Sweet

Some of the latest projects that I’ve been working on are not exactly photography specific, but centered around the iPhone and iPad. One project was to create apps for a daily newspaper, as well as three weekly ones. Another was to create an iPad app for a photographer.

There are two ways to approach building apps like this – native and what are called web apps. Native uses Objective C programming and the other HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript. All of them were created as web apps, but the Recorder iPhone app has also been converted to a native app so that it can be launched in the Apple iTunes store.

The weekly apps are free, so if you’d like to see what they look like, you can download the Adirondack Express iPhone app at this location and the Adirondack Express iPad app at this one. Make sure that you navigate to these links via your Safari browser using the device you want to load the app on.

If you are a photographer, and you have some content that you’d like on these devices, please feel free to contact me. Sometimes the best way to get some of your ideas out there is to create something special for your clients or prospects to view in a very unique way.

Well, two and a half years later, and thousands of frames ‘processed’ on the computer, and the answer is clear to me – it’s about the images. The Adirondacks have to be one of the most beautiful and least photographed places in the United States.

The Adirondack Forest Preserve was established in 1885 by the New York State Legislature. Nine years later, the Adirondacks became the first and only wild land preserve in the United States to gain constitutional protection when New York’s voters approved the inclusion of Article VII, Section 7, the “forever wild” clause, into the state Constitution. Today, at 6 million acres and larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky, and Everglades National Parks combined, the Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve is the largest park in the nation outside of Alaska. It is a photographers paradise.

In this first volume of images, I’m going to take you through my first year of discovery – of a land and its changing seasons and just how beautiful one of America’s last remote areas can be.

David E. Warner, September 2011

Available Now for only $5.00! If you’d like to preview some of the pages, you can see them here. The book looks GREAT on an iPad or other tablet device as well.

So, what does that have to do with photography? Well, for a landscape guy – everything is brown and dead or dying and if you do any urban work – 105 to 110 in the shade becomes 135-140 on the pavement! It just drains the life out of you. I miss the winter in the Adirondacks! There – I’ve gone and said it. No, not the 30 below day that we had LAST winter – but I’ll take anything from minus 10 to 20 above without any complaint EVER again!

I did get out to Lockhart Texas for lunch this weekend and stepped out around the downtown to shoot JUST a bit. Some great wall murals and one of the most fantastic courthouses in Texas.

This was the first autumn that I was up in the Adirondacks and this wasn’t REALLY in the Adirondack Park, but south of there in Cooperstown. The location was Glimmerglass State Park, and what a beautiful lake it is. My wife, brother and sister-in-law were just spending the day walking and shooting foliage.

I’m going to have to admit to taking a LOT of artistic license with this image because I had something very clear in my mind. The beach turned out great, the aircraft perfect, the water just fantastic. However, the foliage was too far away and muted for what I really wanted to see. So, digital tools to the rescue to give me back what my mind’s eye saw. In fact, I had something even more artist in mind when I was thinking of this image and working on it the other day, and that result is shown to the right.

The float plane’s days in the Adirondacks are numbered, as more and more regulations are popping up to ban their flight into the areas lakes. But for now, all of us get one more chance to enjoy the experience for JUST a little longer, with images like these.

So, we packed up some gear and headed to downtown Herkimer. It was a GREAT day weather-wise yesterday – mid 60′s, beautiful blue sky – really just a perfect day to walk around. To be honest, I had a LOT of fun! It’s been a LONG time since I just dropped into an area to walk around and try and get some interesting photos. On top of that, she was a VERY quick student! She picked up the relationship between ISO, F-stop and shutter speed faster than most students I’ve taught. In fact, by the end of the day she was not shooting anything on automatic, but was really trying to figure out the best settings to use on the camera for what she artistically wanted to achieve. Very cool!

I also thought there wouldn’t be much color around, since the majority of the leaves were off the trees. But I was very surprised to find quite a bit, in some of the most unusual areas. We ended the day in Crazy Otto’s diner and had some hot chocolate and desert. This diner is a location that I want to shoot as well – I’ve had a very specific shot in mind, so it was a great chance to scope the place out. While we were there, we met a girl who was one of the waitresses at the diner. She’d make a great candidate for some portrait shots we have in mind – hope she agrees!

So, here are just a few pictures that I got from yesterday’s photowalk in downtown Herkimer. I love the one at the top where Deborah is really getting into the shot…

What you ended up with, is a mixture of trees without leaves and trees with some color. So, it wasn’t the greatest fall color I’ve seen up here in (now) three fall seasons. However, there were a few shots here and there that I was able to capture.

It also seemed like the places that I REALLY wanted to shoot in, just never got the ‘look’ I was seeking. So, without further ado, here are four examples from my brief treks out. The first one (above) is Little Falls New York. They have this great church there, which is one of the most prominent structures in the area.

The farm is in a little area called Manheim, between Dolgeville and Little Falls. In fact, I shot this while taking Baxter (the dog for those of you who don’t know) to the vet. It was just one of those typical upstate New York scenes.

And finally, if you’re wondering why you’re seeing this post yet again (if you subscribe to my RSS feed). Well, it’s because the datacenter where I host had a massive hardware failure and the last backups they had did not include this post. So, not remembering exactly what I wrote the first time, I did my best to recreate it. Sorry – the comments that were made on the images were lost too!

Keegan’s mom Carla is a good friend of mine and she asked me to cover the event for her. Not a problem because I’ve wanted to check the area out anyway, so it was a good excuse to grab the equipment, shoot some foliage along the way and scout some new locations as well.

It was  a private ceremony at the future bridegroom’s home and a reception followed at Lanzi’s on the Lake in Mayfield NY.

Oh yes – the wedding – well, this was not a studio shot, but a quick image just before Kellyann walked out the door and down the aisle. I love it and think that it is a fantastic portrait of her.

Newspapers are very industrial looking places and I wanted to make sure that I captured that. I also wanted to make sure that I was able to show the environment where Kate worked – some of the different sections and to somehow give her something that would be representative of the 18 years she had spent there.

The paper has this HUGE press in the back where they print eight newspapers, special sections, and the like. I have walked past it several times and love the colors, the ‘grittiness’ of the area and the industrial look. One of the photographers I’ve interviewed on LensFlare35 had used colored gels to really give the equipment a different look. So, I planned the shoot and made the filters with the colors that I wanted.

I think Kate was surprised by the amount of setup time that goes into something like this and the amount of equipment that I transported to the newspaper to get the shot. It took about an hour to set up and finally get test shots that I liked before I called her in to pose. This first image is EXACTLY what I had in my head and I’m glad it executed almost perfectly.

In the next image, we wanted to do something that showed the front of the building with the name of the company. Even though it was an overcast day, we were having a heck of a time with her transition lenses getting too dark. And, Kate wears those glasses all the time, so we had to get a little creative. She’s got them off, but they’re still part of the picture. So, today is her last day and I wish her well on her voyage across the country. I think these two images are exactly what we both wanted and that they’ll server as great reminders of her time with the company.

They planned the wedding for Beardslee Castle in Little Falls and we had not photographed in that location before. So, I visited the site and met with management about two weeks before the wedding. I wanted to see what the lighting and conditions would be for the day of the wedding! The outside grounds are just fantastic – well manicured; just a beautiful place for a wedding. However, the inside where the bride was going to dress and where they were going to have the reception was dark! So, a lot of creative lighting was used as well as a whole lot of pre-planning on how things were going to work.

The day of the wedding came, and nobody was clear how the weather was going to turn out. Rain squalls were moving in off the great lakes and one minute it would be beautiful out, the next you’d have rain. Well, it cleared up in time for the ceremony to be held outside, but the cocktails were moved indoors ‘just in case’ another one of those rain showers moved through. Nothing did, except for a LOT of wind and some clouds. Which of course, made for some REALLY tricky exposure issues.

The wedding went off without a hitch, and the reception was just a blast as I caught myself singing some of the great tunes they had selected. And without a doubt, the crowd had a fantastic time. But, this is about the photos, so I picked four of my favorites. What do you think?