A New Jersey Pine Barrens Ghost Forest
Sometimes as a photographer it is good to take a risk. Not the dangle from a cliff or any put yourself in an unsafe condition kind of risk, this post is about taking subject or compositional risks.
Spring In The New Jersey Pinelands
Here are some recent photographs of Spring in the New Jersey Pinelands.
Fire and Light in the Franklin Parker Preserve
I enjoy hiking and photographing from late afternoon into the evening so headed out to the Franklin Parker Preserve, a favorite spot in the New Jersey Pinelands
Composition For Pine Barrens Photographers
For Everyone Else, Creating Something from Nothing I recently had the amazing privilege of leading a group of photographers on my first Pine Barrens Photography Workshop. It was a great experience showing off this special place to both local and not-so-local photographers. When I teach workshops, I am not there to take photographs. Most of the time, I don't even bother to [...]
A Hike On The Wading River
Mixing Hiking and Photography When it is time to clear one's head or just find a little peace and quiet, the woods are the best place to be. Around here, that woods is the New Jersey Pine Barrens. After spending weeks preparing for my first solo exhibition of photographs from the Franklin Parker Preserve in the Pine Barrens, I felt a [...]
Winter In The Franklin Parker Preserve
When Ordinary Becomes Beautiful Cold Winter Light by Richard Lewis 2017 It doesn't snow much in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, so when it does, it's time to head out to find something to photograph. This old bog in the Franklin Parker Preserve seemed like a nice place to look. Usually the stumps of these old cedar trees look like abstract designs, however [...]
The Franklin Parker Preserve
The Struggle Between the Inner Artist and Inner Engineer Fading Winter Light by Richard Lewis 2017 I love going out on New Year's Day to hike to get a first photo of the year. This year the first photograph of 2017 was made on January 8. Why? Because I've been feverishly preparing for a solo exhibition of my New Jersey Pine [...]
Shenandoah National Park
Happy 100th Anniversary to the National Parks The US National Park system may be the best thing our government has ever done. Preserving some of our best American landscapes has been going on for a hundred years. In spite of some parks being overcrowded with visitors, having an overworked National Park Service staff, and many other challenges, the beautiful landscapes remain relatively unchanged [...]
A Seductive Light
Hiking the New Jersey Pinelands for Therapy and Art I had a knee injury from a bicycle accident a few months ago and have been walking as part of a physical therapy program. On a recent Saturday afternoon, I decided to do some therapy by hiking in the Franklin Parker Preserve, one of my favorite New Jersey Pinelands spots. It ended up being more of a spiritual [...]
Joshua Tree National Park
Strange Trees, Stranger Rock Formations and That Beautiful Desert Moon A few years ago a visit to Joshua Tree National Park was a photographic bust for me. Part of it was timing. We were only there for 2 days, the weather was really hot, blah blah blah. In retrospect, mediocre vision on my part was the real reason my work wasn't what it should be. As a result I [...]
My Week In The New Jersey Pinelands
Shop Local is Good, But is Photograph Local Better? Between commitments and our annual family reunion occurring during Thanksgiving, I decided to challenge myself and spend a week only creating photography in the New Jersey Pinelands. My self-imposed limits were to shoot within a 20 minute drive from my home and to hike no more than 1 mile after I got to a location. [...]
Fall Colors In America
Composition Still Rules This year we were fortunate to experience the Fall colors in Arizona, New England and New Jersey. Photographing these colors on the trees can be challenging because it is easy to be seduced by their beauty and forget what it takes to create a great photograph. The art of photography is more than pointing a camera in the general direction of a [...]