My Hocking Hills Adventure

Just got back recently from a trip to one of my all time favorite places to take photos - Hocking Hills State Park. Hocking Hills is a photographer's paradise, lots of waterfalls, wildflowers, caves and interesting rock formations. Three of my photographer friends and I stayed at the State Park cottages for two nights and three fun packed days of photography.

The Three Amigos at Ash Cave

To see more photos from my trip to Hocking Hills go here: Hocking Hills Spring 2009

To see on a map where the photos were taken go here: GPS Photo Map of Hocking Hills

I'm On Vacation!!!!

Hooray!!!! My vacation starts tomorrow (5/22) and I plan on spending a lot of time taking photos. First up is the Chagrin Falls Balloon Fest this five day event is always fun with lots of colorful Hot Air Balloons to shoot. I have lots of information posted here Cool Photo Ops - Balloon Fest





Then on Saturday I'm heading down to the Flats and checking out the Veterans Memorial Bridge. If you like Cleveland History this is a cool place to check out. They open the bottom portion of the bridge for self guided tours. Trolley's used to travel through this part of the bridge to get to downtown Cleveland. More info can be found here Cool Photo Ops - Veterans Memorial Bridge Tour.





Next I'm heading down to one of the most scenic places in Ohio - Hocking Hills.





Then on the way home I'm stopping off to check out the Columbus Zoo.

All in all it should be a great time!!!

Bird Identification

When it comes to Identifying birds, I stink! Oh, I can ID a robin, or a blue jay or a blue heron and a few others but that's about it. A lot of times when I'm out taking photos I'll take some shots of some of the birds in the Cuyahoga Valley NP but I have no idea what bird it is or even how I would go about trying to identify it. Until recently I didn't have a clue on how to ID a bird or even where to begin looking in the birding books, but now thanks to the All About Birds site I have a better understanding on how to ID birds. They have some excellent videos that teach you how to ID birds. They have four videos that you can watch online right now to teach you the basics of bird identification:

1. Shape and Size
2. Color Pattern
3. Behavior
4. Habitat

So if you'd like to learn more about Bird Identification then check out this site: Inside Birding, Learn how to better identify birds

Good Sites to learn about birds

• All About Birds
  
• Birds of North America
• Northeast Ohio Birding Thanks Kirby for the link
  

If anyone knows of other great birding sites let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Looking for great places to take photos in Ohio? Then check out my Cool Photo Ops Blog

Chippewa Lake Park

I went on a fun shoot on Sunday to photograph what's left of Chippewa Lake Amusement Park. The park first opened in 1878 and closed for good in 1978. The park has sat unused for the last 31 years and Mother Nature has had her way with the park. Trees are growing through the Ferris Wheel and the tracks of the Coaster. Developers have now taken over for Mother Nature and are tearing down what's left of the park. Thanks to the Cleveland Photographic Society a bunch of us were able to photograph what remains of the park. The tracks for the Coaster are still standing and the Ferris Wheel frame ( with the tree growing through it) are still there, along with the tracks to the Wild Mouse and the Bug ride is still there with a few cars still on the track. There are still a few buildings standing but most of them are gone, either torn down or burned down by local teenagers. Pretty soon it will all be gone and new development will spring up on the site. It's a shame to see all the old amusement parks closing, but I guess it's a sign of the times.

Ferris Wheel

More Photos can be seen here: Chippewa Lake Park

To see a GPS photo map go here: Photo Map of Chippewa Lake Park

Zoo at 12mm

Recently I visited the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo to take some photos, usually when I go to the Zoo, I carry a backpack full of lenses. Not this time, this time I took one lens my 12-24mm and set it at 12mm and left it there. Why would I take a 12mm lens to the zoo? Well, I wanted to be a little more creative, by setting the lens to 12mm I paid more attention to what I was viewing in the viewfinder and unlike with a zoom I actually had to move closer or farther away to frame my shot. I also crouched down and pointed the camera up and down while framing my image. This is actually a good way to learn about the different focal length lenses you carry and how they see the world. It was also great just to walk around with my camera and lens and not lug a heavy backpack around. Try it sometime, it's a lot of fun.



To see more of zoo photos go here: Zoo at 12mm

My Adventures on the Daffodil Trail

Well I got up bright and early this morning and headed to the Daffodil Trail in the Furnace Run MetroPark I got to the park a little before 7am and was the only one there. Right near the parking lot and picnic tables I viewed the first of many daffodils along the trail.

After taking a few photos of the daffodils near the parking lot, I ventured on down the trail an came upon this sign.

The loop trail is about .6 miles long and is a pretty easy hike, as you hike down the trail you run into patches of daffodils, there were a lot of daffodils but it looked like in another week there would be a lot more.

I like to have fun when I'm out taking photos so I took my usual goofy shots, like my "Ant Eye View" photos

Here's another fish eye view




Here are a few more photos:






Here's a link to a Daffodil Trail GPS Photo Map This is pretty cool, click the link then on the map, click on the photos on the right side and you'll see where along the trail I took the photo, when the photo pops up over the green smuggy balloon just click on the thumbnail to go to the gallery.

So, if your looking for a great place to take photos in the spring I highly recommend the Daffodil Trail, get there early though cause when I got done with my hike the parking lot was full.

I'm gonna try and write about all my photo shoot adventures on this blog, if you'd like to keep up to date with my photo adventures just subscribe to the feeds or better yet subscribe via email and you'll be notified when the blog is updated. Just sign up on the right side of this blog.

You may also want to check out my Cool Photos Ops blog, on that blog I'll be posting Cool Places to take photos in Ohio and also listing places where I'm planning to shoot. The blog is a great resource with Weather Maps, sunrise and sunset times and even wind conditions that would be useful when you are going out to shoot macro. To help you get to the locations I also list GPS Coordinates for all of the photo locations and display a Google map so you can get directions to the location from your home address. I also post photos and slideshows so you can see what the location looks like. You can check it out here, and make sure you subcribe to the Cool Photo Ops blog as well to keep up to date with new photo locations.

Cool Photo Ops Blog

Spring is Here!!!!

Well Spring is finally here and it's starting to warm up, so dust off your camera and lets get out there and shoot. Stay tuned to this blog as I write about my photography adventures and also check out my Cool Photo Ops Blog where I will be posting cool places to take photos. The latest post on the Cool Photo Ops site is about a cool place to shoot in April - Lake View Cemetery. Here are a few photos from Lake View. Head on over to Cool Photo Ops for more details