Farm track captured in infrared.
Sunny days in summer are great for capturing infrared images. The lush green foliage is rendered white and clouds and blue sky can provide dramatic contrasts.
This image was captured with a converted Olympus PL-1 and the Olympus 9-18mm wide angle zoom.
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You can view a preview of selected pages here.
Here is information about another of my photo books.
“Asylum” is a photographic exploration of an extraordinary historical site in the heart of rural West Virginia. The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (formerly the Weston State Hospital) is the largest cut stone masonry building in the western hemisphere, second in the world only to the Kremlin in Moscow. Closed and abandoned for many years, the building was closed and abandoned. Now privately owned, it is being preserved and partially restored and is open to the public for tours, ghost hunts, and other events.
You can see some other posts about this project here.
Blackwater Falls
I managed to get out for the day a couple of weeks ago and explored the new “Corridor H” highway that runs west from the Virginia State Line and I think will eventually run all the way to Route 79 in the center of the state. As it is now, it is complete to about 20 miles from Blackwater Falls State Park, so I set this as my destination for the day.
Back in March I photographed some dance workshops that were part of the Berkeley Arts Council’s Dance Works Festival. Nearly 100 young women and girls participated in workshops that were taught by several master level instructors. I was impressed by the focus and determination of these young people as they worked through the exercises and routines to improve their skills.
Photographing the workshops was great fun and it gave me a chance to stretch my skills in a very different way. Due to my chronic back problems, however, it was quite strenuous so on Saturday night I got an assist from my friend Mary-Jo Bennett, who took over and took some nice shots of the performances.
Overall there were a lot of images so I thought one good way to showcase them would be a short slide show with some music. You can check it out below. (Note: if you want to watch it full screen, click on HD first.)
Dance Works Festival 2014, Berkeley Arts Council, Berkeley County, WV-Short Version from Sterling “Rip” Smith on Vimeo.
There is a field near where I live where there is a great open space of hayfield. When the hay is cut and rolled up in large round bales, that is a sure indication that summer has finally arrived. After the past winter, that arrival is a welcome event.
A Sure Sign of Summer
The 81st Cumberland Vally Photographic Salon is a juried photography exhibit sponsored by the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland. I was very pleased to have three of my images selected for this exhibit. Among them is this infrared image of the Glade Creek grist mill in Babcock State Park in West Virginia.
The exhibit is now open and I went up to view the exhibit yesterday so I could look at the work when it was quiet. There are some fine photographs in this year’s exhibit. Also worth looking at is a small collection of Ansel Adams prints in an adjacent gallery.
The reception and awards presentation will be this Sunday, June 28 from 2:30-4pm at the museum. I plan to be there so if you can, come around and see the exhibit and look me up.
Here is one of the drive wheels on one of the largest steam locomotives I have seen. It’s the Norfolk and Western Class A Locomotive #1218 and it’s on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia. The drive wheel is 70 inches (almost six feet!) in diameter and the locomotive weighs 573,000 pounds.
I’ve added a print of this image to my inventory at the Berkeley Art Works or you can order a print right here by following the link below:
Prints are available for this image. These are custom prints made in my studio using a professional pigment printer. The image size is approximately 8 x 10 inches using archival pigment inks on 8.5 x 11 or approximately 11×14 inches on 13×19 acid-free heavy weight fiber based fine art paper. The price includes shipping by USPS Priority Mail within the United States.
Payment is made through Paypal using your credit card. A Paypal account is not required. Make sure, however you provide your full name and shipping address. Other sizes are available. Please inquire to sterlingimageswv@gmail.com.
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This book is a selection of images from my “Forgotten Places: North Dakota” project, photographed during two trips to North Dakota 2010. Although intended as primarily an art project, it serves a documentary purpose as well. Much of the history of the Northern Plains is found in the abandoned farms and all-but-abandoned towns, which reflect the evolving economy of the region.
For informaiton about my other books, go to: https://sterlingimages.wordpress.com/books/
The technique of photographing moving water with long exposure has become somewhat of a cliche, but nevertheless, it is a technique that that creates interest in an otherwise uninteresting shot. I am always intrigued by patterns and textures.
The first image below was captured of Tuscarora Creek by the old foundry building in Martinsburg. This creek provided power for the businesses in the foundry and others nearby for many decades.
The image was captured with a 2.5 second exposure at f/16.
Tuscarora Creek, Martinsburg, WV
The other local waterway was Town Creek in Shepherdstown, just above where it flows into the Potomac River. A wooden footbridge provides a handy spot to set up the camera and the tripod to capture the shot. The image was captured with a 3.2 second exposure. The aperture was not recorded because I used a manual focus lens but it was probably something like f/16 or f/22.
Town Creek, Shepherdstown, WV
No, the title is not really redundant. While in Florida we took a ride to the town of Live Oak hoping, obviously, to find some live oak trees. We found many but most of them were just trees by houses or other buildings, or mixed in with other trees so they did not photograph very well. Then we found an area off the road that had been partially flooded by the recent rains. What an incredible scene. The trees with their amazing complex structures and the Spanish moss presented a scene not unlike some kind of a haunted swamp.These images were captured with the infrared converted Olympus PL-1, further increasing the otherworldly feeling.
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Light, Shadow, Form, and Texture 