Christopher Jordan Photography Photoblog

Cold

christopherjordanphotography — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:53:54 +0000

Well we’ve had our first snow of the season…nothing major but just enough to cover the grass and it was perfect for making a snowman. So, the kids and I went out after dark and did exactly that. I decided to post an ice/snow/cold image and as soon as I decided to do that this image came to mind. I took it about 2 years ago on a very cold day in mid-winter – the temperature was just about exactly 0 degrees F when I shot this. I had wondered around Ritchey Woods nature preserve for about 30-45 minutes looking for something to shoot and was getting a bit cold by the time I took this shot. But I did enjoy the light and reflections playing off the covering of ice over the little stream that wanders through the preserve…. I’m hoping to get more winter images this year!

Ice ~ Reflections

Knowing how to work the system

christopherjordanphotography — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 03:37:51 +0000

I was once again looking through images from the New England trip this evening, looking for something I wanted to post here. While doing that I pulled out 2 images that I had planned to stitch together into a single image since the particular composition I wanted was not quite available with a singe shot. (For those wondering why I didn’t just go wider and crop, I always prefer to option of going slightly narrower and stitching because then I get more pixels to work with in case I want to print large…) While working on the image, my 5 year old son came in and said “Daddy, I really like that picture!”. Well, thank you kindly son! That was really sweet, and very nice for a dad to hear….but he wasn’t done. An hour later as he was getting ready for bed, he informed me that he no longer wanted the cartoon train picture on his wall any more. He now wants a print of the image that he had seen on the computer screen…”The one with the trees on the mountains”. Talk about working the system! Obviously he’ll be getting the print he wants…and Daddy ended up fine tuning the image quite carefully as a result! May not be completely done quite yet, but you get the idea below. This is from one of the overlooks along the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains – the mountain peak(s) in the background are called the Three Sisters, if I’m not mistaken. Which is also an interesting coincidence, given that my wife is the middle of…yes…three sisters.

Three Sisters ~ Fall

Fall Distraction

christopherjordanphotography — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:44:52 +0000

Just wanted to share another image from the Adirondacks…this scene was right along the road I drove every day I was in New York. The Au Sable river runs right next to the road near Wilmington, and you could just pull off into small parking areas and photograph the gorgeous fall color along the river. The color was still not quite at peak, but some spots were very nice. Like this one, for instance! I actually stitched 2 shots together to get this almost square image…. Anyway, every day as I drove along the river I had to keep reminding myself to watch the road – the colors, water and mountains behind were quite distracting!

Au Sable River ~ Fall

Pieces and Parts

christopherjordanphotography — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:43:29 +0000

I have been working through some of the images I took this month, especially those that I targeted at the time to consider as black and white shots. This waterfall is not far off the road in the Adirondack Forest Preserve, though getting to a spot where I could take this particular shot required a bit of climbing/scrambling. This waterfall is quite impressive in person, but I found it a challenge to show just how tall and interesting it is. I decided to try showing just a piece of it, hoping that this would convey some impression of the size of the whole thing. This particular part of the falls is still a good 30 feet high, and the sound was quite wonderful to hear. As luck would have it I knocked my tripod into the stream just after shooting this – from atop a 15 foot high ledge. Fortunately with a very minor repair they survived without significant damage….

Roaring Brook Falls Detail

Close to home

christopherjordanphotography — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:40:30 +0000

Having just completed a truly wonderful photographic trip, I’m still working through downloading and processing all the images I took and trying to work up some that I think I’m really going to like but that need some extra time to get just right. However, Saturday morning I woke up to a lovely frost on the ground here at home, and decided to wander outside and see if there was anything interesting happening with the few leaves on the ground here. I found this very interesting leaf and zoomed in on the junction of the stem and leaf, thinking it might make an interesting black and white image. See what you think….!

Leaf ~ Frost

Completion….

christopherjordanphotography — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:17:01 +0000

Well, the trip is basically at an end now, though I plan to keep the blog going. Yesterday was our last full day at Acadia and we had good conditions all day. We shot lots of different images at several locations. I have not even had a chance to really look at all of them yet, but in looking at a group of shots taken in a lovely little birch forest along the Park Loop road this one jumped out at me. I hope it conveys some of the delicate beauty and sense of peace in this little forest area.

Acadia Birch Forest

This morning we had a quick shoot before heading back home. My buddy Patrick is likely landing shortly from his flight home, and I’m in the middle of my drive home (LOONG drive from the coast of Maine!). But I thought I’d share a final image from this morning – couldn’t leave without going out to the ocean shore one last time. The clouds were kinda nice.

Ship Harbor Clouds

Otter Cliffs

christopherjordanphotography — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:10:17 +0000

We arrived very early this morning (5:45am) at a parking area that gave us access to the most famous seashore cliffs in Acadia – the area around Otter Cliffs. We had the place to our selves to start, but by the time it was about 10 minutes before sunrise the area was covered with photographers. Hey, it’s Acadia, and if you are a photographer you have to do the sunrise scene here (well OK…have to is a little strong). Then again, with light and a landscape like this…how can you go wrong.

Otter Cliffs Sunrise

White Birch Forest

christopherjordanphotography — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:23:48 +0000

We spent a fair amount of time today exploring an area of forest in Acadia that was predominantly white birch trees. The look of the forest is unique (in my humble experience) and quite lovely. The forest is always a busy place to shoot, and it takes a lot of patience to find interesting images. Still not sure which one is my favorite but I am enjoying trying to figure it out….I’ll share this one just to offer a sampling of the interesting character of the location….

White Birch Forest

Well, OK….since I actually stitched a pano together as well, here is another for your consideration….

White Birch Pano 1

New locations, new possibilities

christopherjordanphotography — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:55:05 +0000

I arrived in Bar Harbor, Maine Tuesday evening, and then picked up my buddy and fellow photographer Patrick Matthiessen at the airport Wednesday morning. We are now in the midst of a 5 1/2 day visit to Acadia National Park…and I have already run out of superlatives to use. What an amazing place. Yesterday, I started off the morning down by the ocean not really knowing what I would find or really even where to go. Despite my lack of knowledge of the area, I managed to come away with this to start my day.

Bennet Cove Sunrise

After picking up Patrick, we went on a nice hike along Jordan Pond (yes, I definitely had to visit a location with that name!), and then climbed to the top of Penobscot Mountain. Evidently the folks who make trails around here tend to the macho side, because the route we took to get to the top basically went on a line straight up the mountain – we don’t need no stinking switchbacks. Can you say STEEP? However, the slog up the mountain with camera pack and tripod was rewarded with a view as beautiful as any I’ve ever seen, especially with the clouds and fog rolling in. Enjoy…

Penobscot Pano

A light show extraordinaire

christopherjordanphotography — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:01:13 +0000

This morning was my last morning in the White Mountains, and the area evidently decided to send me off with a flourish. It was the first morning all week that there were actually some clouds in the sky and the possibility of sunrise color. I fortunately was up early enough to go check it out….and as I came driving over the crest of the Kancamagus Pass, I was greeted by this….uh….WOW.

Kancamagus Sunrise

After shooting this until the color started to fade, I hurried back down the road to an overlook I had been eyeing all week, wondering how it would look in morning light. I waited very patiently for the sun to peek through the clouds enough to light up the landscape (took at least an hour for the sun to get high enough, and to find an opening). When it arrived I was very pleased to see that the view lived up to everything I had hoped it would….I show below a section of the view for simplicity’s sake, but I actually got 3 shots that I can stitch into a panorama that should be quite wonderful. It was a great way to spend my last morning in New Hampshire.

White Mountains Splendor

I then traveled most of the day to get over to Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park and my final destination for this lengthy trek. I ran out to a spot just before sunset to start to get a flavor for the area, and ran into 20-25 photographers all trying to shoot the same sunset from basically the same vantage point. Hmm…that will be interesting. Worse than that, my buddy Patrick who is joining me here got a flight delay, missed an connection, and now can’t join me till tomorrow. Oh well…we’ll just get a slightly later start! Can’t wait to start exploring the park tomorrow….