Top 12 of 2012 - Number 9:Cleveland Ingenuity Fest

Okay, this was a really fun event that we went to this year.  Our close friend and artist extraordinaire, Craig Worrell, told us about this art/music festival that is held yearly up in Cleveland.  I'm not going to try to again put into words about the levels of awesomeness that went on there.  Here's a link back to the post I wrote about the event.

Top 12 of 2012 - Number 10:Dennison Depot

Coming in at number 10 on the countdown is some shots from the day we spent in Dennison at the Soldiers Homecoming Festival from this year.  Now normally they have a nice sized WWII reenactment during the festival.  But for some reason this year they didn't.  Oh well.  The Dennison Depot has great story behind it and has recently been recognized as a national landmark!  So if you are in the area it's really worth a look.  Also while you're down there, across the street from the depot is a GREAT pizza place called Dennison Yard. Tomato Pie with garlic is the stuff of legends!  But that's another story.
But while we were there, I did fire off two images I really liked from this year.  The first was taken in the train yard.  I really like how the lighting looked in this shot.  The rain was on and off all day and the clouds had that late fall darkness about them.  I had to adjust the exposure of the clouds to bring out the details, but I don't think it's cheating that much.

Next was about the closest thing we had to a reenactment. I really like how the lighting and framing of this shot came out.  Don't know why, just stuck with me.

I was interviewed

A few months ago I was approached by the National Trust for Historic Preservation about the photo work I've done in the town of Zoar.  They had found me on Flickr and wanted to know if they could send them a bunch of different shots of the town.  (Original story from an earlier post.) Well that was 100+ GB of uploads to Dropbox ago.  Since that initial communication with them, I was asked to take part in an interview about my work and what I think about the importance of the town.  Last Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, that article went live on their site and was featured on their sister-site PreservationNation.org for a few days. 

I've been blown away for the past week after seeing that article.  I have to say that this is the proudest I've been about my work ever.  If, by the slightest percent, these pics I do help to save the town, then I in my mind, I have accomplished what I set out to do.

Here's a direct link to the article: [SLIDESHOW] A Fall Walk Through the Village of Zoar

The Top 12 of 2012 - Number 11:Tuscora Park

This past summer I had an idea to try something down at Tuscora Park in New Philadelphia, OH.  There is an old fashion carousel there that just screams of awesome.  It started out as just a simple time exposure of the carousel.

But then it turned into something else.  A statement on Autism.  My son, Alex, has Autism.  The thing with Autism is that it's like a snowflake.  Each person is different in how it affects them.  Sometimes I think because of it, the world just passes him by.

But I'm also reminded that as a family, we stand with him through whatever challenge he comes across.  He's had many a challenge, but in each one he's beaten it.

The Top 12 of 2012 - Number 12: Shoot for TCCVB

Here we go!  The countdown of the top 12 of 2012!  In this series of posts I will highlight 12 separate images or shoots from over these past 12 months that I felt stood out from the rest.  So let's get started!
 
Back in September I was approached by the Tuscarawas County Convention & Visitors Bureau to help them out with an idea for the 2013 county visitors guide.  The idea was "Bring your Chevy to Zoar Levee". What I really liked about this shoot was to have full access to the Zoar site thanks to their support.  So for a couple of hours and with the help of my daughter Molly, we took a classic 1957 Chevy around different places in town and went crazy.  In the end, I learned a lot from the shoot. Especially since I had never done anything like this before.   Plus, the owner of the vehicle was FANTASTIC to work with which made the afternoon so much better.  For this post, I'm only going to share the one image from the shoot since I'm not sure which ones they are going to use for their product. 

The halls are being decked, part 2

So I headed back down to Zoar tonight to try and capture some more shots of the holiday spirit.  But, when I got home, I discovered two things.

1.  Overexposures happen.  And there is no getting around it.

2.  My one lens does NOT like to focus in the dark, even though the camera says it is.  

Alas, here are tonight's attempts at photo-awesomeness.  Again, the key word here is attempt.

The halls are being decked

Denise and I went down to Zoar tonight to enjoy a bite to eat at the Firehouse Grill and Pub, (plug for them, good food and service!) and afterwards I wanted to start on my new project.  Many of the houses and site buildings have been adorned with wreaths for the holiday season.  Here's some experimenting I did tonight.  But it is pretty difficult to take 30 second time exposures across a state route at 8 PM at night.  Even more difficult when someone decides to park right in front of you when your all set up with your tripod.