Welcome to my second favorite month of the year. I love October. I received a text from a good friend of mine Saturday morning saying that, “I can’t wait to see your pictures from this weekend! The leaves are maybe the prettiest I have ever seen.” So that sets the expectation bar pretty high. I didn’t even get out Saturday with my camera.
After being gone for basically the entire week I needed to catch up on some things around the house and then we had a wedding reception to go to in Maquoketa that started at 5:00 pm.
So on the way home Saturday night I still hadn’t taken my image of the day. Jeanne and I were talking about where I could find a shot and then I decided to go to the recreation area in the industrial park. It was Jeanne’s idea to take the parking lot image with the bright lights. It turned out very nice.
Okay so I’m really getting sidetracked here. The most amazing thing happened to me on Sunday. Jeanne was gone on a mission so I headed out to shoot some of the Fall colors. Remember the bar had been set. So I figured I’d head up to Balltown and shoot some of the great vistas on that road.
I found this scene above and thought it would make a nice image. So I took about three shots and just as I was walking back to the car a lady pulled up behind my car and said “What are you taking pictures of?” Thinking she was interested in photography I say, “Oh that farm scene over there.” She said, “What farm scene.” So I said “The barn, two silos, the fall colors.” She said, “Are you a professional photographer?” “No I replied, I just enjoy taking pictures.” She said “Are you going to sell those pictures?” Now I’m getting a little apprehensive, like there is more to this than an interest in my photography. So I said “No, look I’m just taking pictures, is there a problem?” She said well there have been some break-ins around here I was just wondering.” (Okay I’m wearing my Upde.Net tee shirt driving a car with personalized plates, ‘UPDE’, on it using a professional camera and lens, standing out in broad day light ~ duh!)
She took off, so I got in my car and was looking at my images. I noticed that they were all blown out and then I realized the last time I used the D800 was on a portrait shoot and it was still set up in Manual Mode. I reconfigured the camera and got out to re-shoot the scene. This time she pulled up behind me again with a man in the passenger seat. I ignored them and got back into my car satisfied with my shots and ready to move on. I started to pull out and they blocked me on the shoulder.
The man rolled down his window and so I rolled mine down as well. I said, “Can I help you?” He said, “What’s your name?” I said, “That sir is none of your business.” and he said, “Are your pictures for sale, I’d like to buy some?” I said, “No they are not (and now I’m getting a little frustrated) I said “Look friend, I have the right to take pictures from this public roadway of anything I want. Do you want me to call law enforcement to verify that?” He left. I’ve never been confronted like that for taking pictures of a landscape.
This is a neat image from the stand point that it is actually 7 images stitched together. I had the 70 – 200 mm lens with me and I couldn’t back up far enough to get the entire church in the image. So I did a “Panorama” from the bottom to the top and then stitched it together in Photoshop. Click on the image to make it bigger. Before I reduced it down it was a 147 megabyte image. 🙂
I saw a lot of people stopped alongside the road on my way to and from Balltown taking pictures of the Fall foliage. I wonder if any of them encountered the photo patrol like I did?
Final image of the day. I have several more from the shoot on Sunday I’ll show some more tomorrow. Thanks for listening to my rambling story, see what happens when I go out shooting without Jeanne. 🙂
Thanks for checking out the Blog today. I hope you enjoy your Monday and be careful.
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