Ireland

Our family has just returned from a very busy 8-day tour of Ireland, which was concentrated mainly on the western side of the island. I will follow up with a list of things that went well for us, and things that didn't. But first, below are a few photos that stand out from the rest.

"Colorful Cottage"




"Taking a Stroll"




"Irish Hills"

Bing vs. Google

Based on my website statistics I am seeing a much larger amount of traffic from Bing then I ever used to. Google is still the overall winner, but Bing is now in not-too-distant second place (ahead of Yahoo). For all the missteps that Microsoft has made over the years it looks like they've got something right here.

And what is Yahoo doing wrong? I don't really use them much myself anymore - as a web portal it's a bit too cluttered for my taste.

Avalon Sunrise

It's getting harder and harder for me to drag myself out of bed at an ungodly hour to take the 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive to the NJ shore in the hopes of getting some nice sunrise shots. The rewards can be great, but the risk is getting down there and finding too many clouds in the way. I actually woke up at 4:15 AM on Saturday, checked the weather and found cloud-cover over New Jersey. So I went back to bed and I tried it again on Sunday. The downside to this adventure is that when I get home a few hours later I am really beat, and a shower and a nap are in order.

The sky was quite clear on Sunday (a little too clear - a few more fair-weather clouds could have created some nice colors). I set Avalon as my destination and I headed for this fishing pier. The sunrise ended up being quite nice, as you can see below.

After spending some time lingering along the beach I headed up to Brigantine to look for the foxes I had photographed last year. I saw a glimpse of a single fox, but no more than that. Oh well, maybe another time.

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Site-wide 20%-off Sale

I am currently running a sale on my website. All items 20 inches or longer are 20% off. This include loose, matted, framed and canvas prints. The price deduction is visible in the shopping cart.

Below is another image from a recent snowy day. The sheep at the Thomson Neely farm were forced outside of their protective barn as their food was being loaded into the feeder. Here they are forming a nice line as they head back in for dinner.

This panoramic image can be printed on traditional paper as well as canvas.



Site: Photography by Matt Schrier

Perfect Snow Day

I love photographing snow scenes. There's something about the calming effect of a covering of that cold white stuff. But all too often the realities of a snowfall make it difficult to accomplish that photography. Extreme cold temperatures, wind, interference with mobility and parking, quickly melting snow covering, short duration weather events, and more. Too often heavy snowfalls make it nearly impossible to get out and get around. When I want to get out and shoot many parking lots have not yet been plowed, and I can forget about finding a small spot on the side of the road to pull over. Even the slightest of wind can quickly blow the snow off of buildings and trees. Anything more than a very light snowfall is difficult to shoot in since the snow melts immediately when hitting the camera and lens - it is almost like shooting in a light rain.

So yesterday's snow fall had all the elements coming together:

• Fairly light snowfall in progress


• No wind


• Happening on a Saturday morning when I had no other commitments


• Started around 7 AM, so roads and parking lots were accessible


• Lasted most of the day

So I was out for about 2-3 hours, hitting many of the scenic Bucks County spots along the Delaware River and towards Doylestown. I did have to pack it in for some personal errands, but that is a fairly good amount of time. I did have to protect the camera and lens due to the melting snow, but that was the only thing working against me.

Below is the first of a series I will be posting from this day. I did have to park in a precarious spot along the side of the road to avoid a long walk to this field near the Thompson Neely Farm. It was snowing lightly at this point, but the distance to the horses makes it look like much heavier.


"Two Horses"

Sunset Grazing

I was fortunate to recently capture the following image. I was driving northwest through Bucks County towards Doylestown and I passed by a large horse farm. I often pass by this farm and see tempting shots that I cannot take because there is simply no place to park along most of the country roads in this area. But on this day I spotted the setting sun from one corner of the property behind a lone horse was grazing in the enclosed pen. I parked on a cul de sac about 1000 feet away and walked to the scene.

I took a number of photos with my handheld 150-500mm lens on my new Nikon D90, and unfortunately many were trash because I was not paying attention to the auto-focus and how it was frequently locking on to the distant fence rather than the horse. So once I realized this I locked in a good focus with the A/M switch on my camera and took a number of "good" shots. I like this composition best of all the shots I took, since the sun was not too dominant and overpowering, and the horse's outline, as well as both of its ears, is clearly in the frame.


"Sunset Grazing"

Happy New Year

As a gift to myself this year I upgraded from the Nikon D80 to a D90. This is not a significant upgrade but the features that I am gaining will be very useful to me. This includes more pixels, faster multiple frame shooting, and better noise performance. This means I will get better resolution, better selection of action shots (especially birds), and faster shutter speeds in many situations which allows for sharper images.

As I often do I purchased this camera secondhand, from a seller on craigslist. I find this a very useful way to buy and sell camera equipment, since it gives the buyer the ability to check out the equipment and the seller a chance to get cash in hand and/or a quick sale (assuming the item is priced right). There are other sites which are also specialize in camera equipment sales (such as fredmiranda.com) and I have used these as well. This time I just happened to find a lightly-used D90 listed at a very good price, so I wasted no time.

Here is a bird photo I took last fall. It has an ideal background - fully blurred, and a nice color as well.


"Tufted Titmouse"

Main Site: Photography by Matt Schrier

Photo Contests

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. It seems innocent enough. You find out about a photo contest, find your best photos, then upload them. Along the way you select "Yes" or "Agree" to every checkbox you encounter, never bothering to read what you're agreeing to.

You may be lucky enough to win, and that's great. But let's say you don't win (like most people) - what have you just agreed to? As an example here's an excerpt from the Smithsonian Magazine's latest photo contest:

"By entering the contest, entrants grant the Smithsonian Institution a royalty-free, world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to display, distribute, reproduce, and create derivative works of the entries, in whole or in part, in any media now existing or subsequently developed, for any educational, promotional, publicity, exhibition, archival, scholarly, and all other standard Smithsonian purposes. Any photograph reproduced will include a photographer credit as feasible. The Smithsonian Institution will not be required to pay any additional consideration or seek any additional approval in connection with such uses."

Sooooo ... for absolutely no compensation you are giving Smithsonian the right to use your image(s) in any way they want ... forever. Did I mention that you get not a dime from them for that right?

For some contests your entries are limited in size, which is a good thing because it limits the potential usefulness of your image by those running the contest. But the Smithsonian has no resolution requirement:

"Digital photographs should be taken at the highest resolution possible."

Oh, and maybe you're thinking they severely limit how many images you can enter. Nope:

"You may enter up to seven (7) photographs in each of the five categories with a total contest submission of thirty-five (35) photographs."

Thirty Five is a LOT of photographs. And you're just handing over hi-rez copies to a magazine to use any way it sees fit, forever, with no compensation.

Still interested in entering that contest? I'm not.

Feeney's Nursery

The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and for something new this year my work is included in a special item produced by a local landmark. Feeney's Nursery has created an "afghan" (aka a "throw" or blanket) with nine images of local Bucks County scenes, and one of my images is included. The image is a popular winter scene of Lake Afton in Yardley. They are selling it for only $59.99. As an added bonus the store is also selling copies of my prints.

Forgive the quality of the photos below, as I took them with my phone.





Closeup:





Site: Photography by Matt Schrier