After my first of four photography classes last week, I wanted to put into practice what I had learned.

My main goal was working with depth of field (either shallow or lots of depth) since I have struggled with this in the past. I also had this “capture the light” thing going round and round in my head. In so many instances I have previously been disappointed when trying to capture a certain mood, or light.

Of course I headed straight to Skylands for my practice session!

Here are a few I was happy with given the goals I had in mind for myself.

Light coming through leaves.

Soft light on an yet-to-bloom flower.

 

Even though this photo may look hazy to you, I captured the light perfectly because this is exactly the way it looked. It was very humid, hence the haze. This photo was also taken to get maximum depth of field which was also achieved as you can see the statues all the way at the end of Crabapple Lane.

 

I was down on the ground for this shot. I was going for the play of light on the petals.

 

Most of the flowers were in the shade, but there were a few that the sun was hitting. I focused on the flowers in the foreground in the light and used a shallow depth of field. Kind of a strange shot, I know, but there is something about it I like. You might not! For me it gives more depth to the shot, whereas it could have looked flat if everything was in focus.

 

Again, working with a shallow depth of field for interest.

I am proud to report that all photos were taken on either aperture priority or shutter priority, no programmed modes!

I apologize in advance for talking so much about photography lately. It’s just what I am into at the moment, and let’s face it, my blog features my photography more and more. I used to just take pictures. Now I want to become better. I want to make them; not take them.

I enrolled in a four-course photography class given at Unique Photo, the same place I went for my Canon Discovery class. This week was my first class: The Basics. I’ll be going every Tuesday morning and the class is two hours long.

It was pretty much the basics. Most of the things I already knew except for a few small things in regard to how my camera works (and hey, what I was doing wrong in my panning attempt!). I took the Basics course because you never know what kind of things they are going to teach, so I didn’t want any surprises by starting with the second course.

He did say one thing-—and it was huge—-that made me think differently about taking photos. He said it’s really all about capturing the light in a particular circumstance, not about the subject. It’s all about the light. Here is a quote from our instruction booklet: “Photography is the art or science of recording light. Specifically, you are capturing the light’s direction, color and intensity. A camera is a light recorder. It doesn’t matter what’s in front of your lens because the subject is always in the light. The subject is the direction, color, and intensity of the light.” I have never thought about photography in that way.

Some people in my class I think had never had a camera in their hands before. One poor girl thought that the shutter speed was determined by how long you held your finger down on the shutter button. Bless her heart, but good grief! Maybe she should start with a point-and-shoot camera! But, that’s why she’s there—to learn. Still, she is taking up valuable time for people who at least know how to use a camera. After all, this is a Basic class for people who should know at least that much “basic” stuff.

The second course is all about exposure and metering, which I really need. The third is all about white balance and composition. The fourth and final class is called The Art of Seeing and is about seeing more creatively.

The instructor is great and he certainly has a lot of patience. I’m looking forward to it!

They are offering some great workshops too, such as The Bronx Zoo. Maybe I’ll sign up for a couple of them when my classes are finished.

Hand-held long exposure (f5 at 20 seconds) of the cabana patio lights, doing a figure-8.

The old toll house next to the covered bridge in West Cornwall.

I just wanted to touch again on how state boundaries are funny things. Here in New Jersey we live within a few miles of the New York border. We are constantly going back and forth between the two states. You wouldn’t even know when you were in New Jersey or New York.

The border between New York and Connecticut was palpable. Not only did the countryside change, but the architecture did too. As I mentioned before, houses suddenly sprouted elaborate weathervanes, and were covered in shingle siding and plenty of wood. Large horse properties bounded by white fences were everywhere we looked. Private schools with beautiful stately old buildings and immaculately tended grounds were numerous.

Like I said before, it all read money with a capital M.

Chatting with the piano player in our hotel bar was interesting. I started up a conversation with him after listening to his rendition of “Riders on the Storm.” I couldn’t remember the artist (The Doors). He told us that Michael J. Fox had a house right down the road from there in Sharon; Meryl Streep lived in Salisbury; and Kevin Bacon had a place right around there too. Who knew? I certainly didn’t.

Now at odds with all that was the whole casual atmosphere. Maybe it was all those people from New York City playing at being “in the country” but we were over dressed compared to everyone else. I would not even think of going to a restaurant in my bathing suit and cover-up, I don’t care if it was outside patio dining! Yet we saw many people doing just that. Even in our fancier hotel restaurant people had on shorts or ratty jeans. Very strange. Maybe we were just seeing the “tourists” but I don’t think so because people seemed to know one another like they lived in the area.

The border between Connecticut and Massachusetts was also unmistakeable. Road signs changed immediately. Signs pointing to “Joey’s Auto Repair” and “Country Furniture Store” appeared on corners. These weren’t just signs that someone had put up, but actual street signs. We wondered if people living in Massachusetts were directionally challenged.

The best sign we saw in Massachusetts was before the town of Great Barrington. I wish I had snapped a photo of it, but the first time we were already past it, and the second time I missed it completely. It read “Thickly Settled.” Hmmm … thickly settled. We knew what they meant, but still we couldn’t help but get a visual image of a town with a muffin top around its middle!

The architecture changed again and now we saw many salt-box style houses that we didn’t see in Connecticut. It all looked more New England-y.

Rick really enjoyed his two day course. It wasn’t about driving fast around a race track, but a course to achieve better and safer driving habits. They made them spin out on a wet track and learn how to recover from it, how to swerve to avoid hitting something and still maintain control. Practical things like that.

Another reason he took the course was to learn how to drive Ms Mia better.

I tried my hand at panning and failed miserably at getting a truly clean image! But after my photo class yesterday I now know what I did wrong. No follow-through!!

When class was over the instructors gave rides to the students on the autocross track to show them how a pro would do it. If you want to see the video, go to Rick’s blog here. It’s worth watching! The students drove the same course but at a much reduced speed. Rick later told me that they were also giving rides to the guests as well as the students and if I had come over I could have gotten a ride too. Since Rick thought it was a white-knuckle ride I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it!

On Saturday, I tried again to amuse myself. I had to check out of the hotel by noon so hanging out by the pool was out. Plus it was just too darned hot to do much of anything outside.

I drove back to Sheffield and Great Barrington again. I went in several antique shops (Sheffield seems to be the Queen city of antiquing!) and visited yet another covered bridge. This one is in Sheffield. Here is the Upper Sheffield Bridge.

This one was rebuilt in 1998. Worth preserving!

I drove on up to Stockbridge (home of Norman Rockwell) but the town was so crowded, there was no place to park, and it was HOT and HUMID. I ended up just driving around in a circle and headed out of there.

I ended up back at the race track around 2:30 with lots of time on my hands until Rick was finished at four. I mostly just sat in the blissful air conditioned track house and read (oblivious of my opportunity to be scared silly). Maybe you think it was a waste of time, but honestly I had had enough driving around and heat for one day.

We drove home on a road I was hoping was the roller coaster road, but it wasn’t, so I can scratch that one off my list. I was disappointed. Next time we are in that area we’ll try a different one. It’s there somewhere. Trouble is, if I manage to find it will it really be the same as I remember?

Not quite Christmas in Connecticut*! We sweltered in the heat and humidity. I say “sort of” a weekend because it was really Thursday evening and all of Friday and Saturday. We could have stayed Saturday night but we really wanted to pick the dogs up on Sunday and the only way we could pick them up at the Sunday pick-up time of 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. was to come home after Rick’s driving class wrapped up. It saved us another meal out and the cost of our fairly expensive hotel room for another night. So, it worked out fine.

Like I said in my previous post, the state lines are drawn pretty finely between New York and Connecticut. The architecture changed immediately and weathervanes started to appear on houses. Sprawling estates and big private schools which I am assuming were some kind of prep schools were nearly everywhere we looked. You could almost hear the money rubbing together. But more about that in another post.

We stayed at the Interlaken Inn which was close to Lime Rock Park. It was pretty nice. Although not right on the lake, all you had to do was walk across the road and down to the lake. I walked down there by myself the first day early in the morning before all the little kids arrived to splash around. It was very peaceful. The lawn chairs were all lined up and waiting.

The canoes that were provided by the hotel free of charge still rested peacefully at the dock.

After our dinner on Friday night Rick and I walked down to the lake and sat there watching the sun set and listening to the cicadas. The hotel was setting up a ring of chairs around a bonfire for a family reunion. It had a kind of throw-back feel to it, like something from the era of the 50’s and early 60’s when families flocked to just these kind of resorts in the summer. Like in the movie Dirty Dancing, you know?

To amuse myself while Rick was in class I drove in to Millerton, New York which was just a few miles from our hotel and over the border. Millerton has a special appeal to me since my father used to drive up to Millerton when he owned the town newspaper to get it printed. At least that’s what I think he was doing, or maybe it was special off-set press work that this man did for him.

We used to go on a road that my sister and I called the “roller coaster” road because it had so many hills and turns. I remember holding on to the back of the front seats and squealing for joy, pretending I was on a ride. I was on a mission to find that road.

I asked the man in the local book store and we got out a map and talked about the choices. He didn’t really know which road I was talking about, but he pointed out a couple that he thought might be it.

Millerton has changed a lot since those days. It’s still an old-homey kind of town though. The stores all have what look like the original wood floors. The kind that creak and groan when you walk on them.

We saw quite a few defunct old railroad station buildings, both in New York and Connecticut. They preserved them which was nice. This is a peek at Millerton’s. It looked like it was now a real estate office.

You could see where the railroad used to be, and across the street they have made the old railroad bed into a hike and bike trail which I thought was pure genius.

I also drove to this covered bridge in West Cornwall, CT. As you can see it is still a working bridge with one-way traffic. (For more info on the bridge follow the link!)

If you look closely in this photo you can see the fisherman standing in the river.

And that, my friends, concludes Part 1 of our Weekend in Connecticut.

*One of my favorite Christmas movies: the old 1945 version with Barbara Stanwyck. Classic!