D-Day

It's June 6 - the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II.  I normally wouldn't think to create a post about this day, but just a few weeks ago I was fortunate to photograph one of the beaches involved in the invasion from a jet I was flying from Germany to the U.S.  It was a very clear day, and although I didn't have a camera with me I did have my Sony tablet.  The camera quality is not very good, but I did get a reasonable photo of the coastline when the pilot announced that we were flying over Normandy.

Here is my photograph:

And here is a Google Maps satellite view, with the corresponding area circled in red.

Finally, here is a diagram showing the different beaches that were invaded as part of that massive effort to attack the German forces and re-take France and eventually all of Europe.  As you can see the codename for the beach I photographed is Utah beach, which was the destination for the westernmost invasion forces during this operation. Actually Utah beach is only about a 3 mile segment of the beach that I flew over.

If you want to read more here is the link to the Wikipedia entry for Utah Beach.

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Alaska Airlines

It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally I will license one of my digital images for various commercial or personal uses, such as advertising or a website. Below you can see one of my Philadelphia images showing City Hall and Logan Fountain in the spring in this month's Alaska Air magazine. 

The link to the online version is here.

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County Theater

I'm still working on my HDR skills. This is a popular local old-time theater in Doylestown, Pa. I hope you like ...


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Flowers of Spring

It's still very early in spring, although we have already have our share of summer-like weather in the northeast U.S. There is always a sequence to the blooming of flowers: Crocuses, daffodils, tulips, forsythia bushes, magnolia trees, cherry trees, then small wildflowers, then onto the larger trees and flowering plants. I'm generalizing, but that's what I see as I drive around the neighborhoods in my area.

At my local nature center there is not much blooming except for a few types of small wildflowers. They are no more than 10 inches off the ground at this point, so I had to employ my tripod that adjusts for low-level shooting (and of course I was using my macro lens). Here are a few examples of the kinds of shots I was getting - adjusted with Adobe Lightroom.





Main Website: Photography by Matt Schrier

Foggy Morning

I was a bit late to get out of bed this morning, but when I did I found a nice fog-cover surrounding the house. Since the start of spring is just around the corner the birds were also active. Here are a few shots from this morning.







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Show Schedule for 2012

I have updated my website with the shows that I will most likely be attending this year. There are six shows at this time - I may add more as the year goes on.

Show Schedule

May 6 - Chestnut Hill Home and Garden Festival
June 3 - Arts in the Park - Elkins Park, Pa.
July 14-15 - Tinicum Arts Festival
August 11 - Lititz Craft Fair
September 15-16 - Doylestown Arts Festival
October 20-21- Crafts in the Meadow - Tyler Park (Newtown Pa)

Finch

Below is another bird photo from my recent shoot at Churchville Nature Center.

Winter Lace

This winter is completely different than last winter. We have had little snowfall, and the temperatures have been above freezing for most of the time. So when we had a bit of snow last weekend I was eager to get out and photograph. But I had a time constraint where I literally only had about 30 minutes of good morning light to catch the snow before it would melt and/or fall off the trees within hours. So I did not expect to find a "keeper" in this short time span, but I tried.

This scene was found at Tyler Park. Normally (i.e. without snow) I would look at this scene and say "What a mess". But with snow it takes on a completely different feel. What I like about this image is the "busy" nature of the trees and branches, pointing in all directions, contrasting with the calmness of the fallen snow and soft morning light. Do you get the same impression?



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Snowbirds

It snowed yesterday, and for me that means either dramatic landscapes or birds. I chose birds, so I headed over to my local nature center to catch the activity.

Click on the image below to take you to a slideshow of a selection of nice photos I captured in the span of about an hour.



Main Site: Photography by Matt Schrier

Ocean City Morning

It was a beautiful morning last weekend along the New Jersey coast. I like the winter trips to catch sunrises because the sun rises so late. A 7:15 sunrise allows me to wake-up as late as 5:00 and still get down there in time to position myself for a nice sequence of shots.

This morning the pre-sunrise color was not that great, even though I thought the light cloud cover would provide very nice colors. But I got a good 30-40 minutes of a fantastic post-sunrise sky. I was very glad to have this because it took me much longer than I thought to locate the old 59th Street pier. I thought I was going to completely miss any good shots but I was able to get a couple of very nice ones.

Below are two choice photos from that morning.







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