Newtown Study

I have a confession to make. I live near Newtown, Pa, a quaint old town in the middle of Bucks County. It has a lot of historic buildings and a nice main street. A great place to live.

But I simply cannot get inspired when I attempt to photograph this town. I often return to Newtown with the intention to overcome this deficiency of mine and to make some great images. But I usually leave disappointed. I don't want to simply document the historic buildings - I want to create interesting and unique compositions. I believe the town is so simple (not a detriment) that it does contain many eye-catching features that can be used as main subjects.

The following series of photographs are from a recent shoot that I think yielded some nice results. One feature that I have always like, even though it is not viewable along the main street, is the rear of the Newtown Hardware store. It is an old brick building with a rusty old fires escape and a smattering of windows. When I visited Newtown on this trip the sun was setting and it produced some really nice colors and shadows on this building.

I hope you enjoy them.

A Little Different

It's January and without snow this time of year yields few opportunities for scenic images, at least in my part of the world. The trees are bare, the skies are often dreary, and there is little color anywhere. Let's just say it is a "challenging" photographic environment.

I was out a week ago on the Washington Crossing bridge in the pre-dawn hour on a chilly morning. I was hoping to catch some nice morning light along the Delaware River. The cloudy skies worked against me, but as I walked along the bridge I was taken by some of the nuts and bolds holding this old bridge together. I liked the simple forms and shapes. And with the frost adding a bit of interest I just couldn't help making a few images of these things.

The image below is one example that I particularly like. It's nothing that I expect to sell (I may only make a print for myself) but I think it is a good example of simplicity that is so important in photography. The main subject is obvious, and I worked to get the threads in focus while throwing the background out of focus, since the background included the metal grating of the bridge's roadway.