Lancaster Farm Sunset ( Fuji S2, Tokina 28-80 ATX f2.8)

In my previous article: The Bleak Times of Year , I attempted to discuss the difficulties of shooting landscapes in our Appalachian late fall season.

 I neglected to discuss another strategy to obtain interesting images (though I  did, I believe, post an example of this strategy as the article’s original header image).

As it fall drifts into winter, the air gets colder… and drier, as the atmosphere at lower temperatures cannot hold as much moisture as when it is warmer. 

The “crisp fall air” has a striking effect at dawn at dusk, producing colorful, vivid sunrises and sunsets. Given the shorter daylight hours, they tend to occur at times more convenient for us sometimes lazy photographers . Add ice, or fall snow, and the effect is even more striking.

Late October Sunset, Glen Summit ( Olympus E-520, Zuiko 14-42mm f3.5)

 I t goes without saying that you need to steady the camera in the kind of low light situations presented at the very beginning, and end of the day. Tripods are the usual answer, but I have used diverse solutions.

One morning on the Monday of after American Thanksgiving  I sat in my tree stand in the crisp pre-dawn stillness, waiting for the sun to rise and hopefully, a trophy buck to wander within rifle range. It was very cold that morning, and I remember hoping that the small amount of coffee in my thermos would be enough to keep me warm until the our break at lunch.

There are many different kinds of trophies however: I watched as the skies slowly brightened over a nearby ridge: the clear air and complex cloud patterns conspired to create a spectacular display that caused even the most ardent hunters in our group to lose focus on the task at hand, and gaze at the sky. 

In those days good gear took up a lot of space in my backpack. I had only a very modest Nikon point-and shoot camera with me which I sat on the top rail of my hunting stand,  and released the shutter with the self timer, to avoid camera shake.

Hunters Sunrise (Nikon Coolpix 4300)

Shooting horizon and sky in the low light period between day and night, you need to focus carefully, mindful of the fine filigree of leafless branches often silhouetted against the sky. You need to keep the ISOs low to avoid noise in the shadows.

November Evening, New York Harbor ( Fuji F-10)

This gives you something to do for the short run.

Soon the holiday decorations will be put out, the winter snow will fall, and the world will become visually interesting again.

Until then, if the earth’s scenery is dull and lifeless, shoot the sky.

September Maple (Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8)

Good prime lenses have much to teach the earnest photographer. 

Because I’m cheap, and haven’t sprung for the latest hyper expensive, nano-coated Nikkors, designed and optimized for the full frame FX sensor. I am forced to operate with a collection of lenses that I suspect, would arouse sniffs of derision from a “best and latest” FX Nikon aficionado. I don’t yet own a 14-24mm f2.8, or a 24-80mm f2.8 or a 70-200 f2.8VR Mark II. I struggle by with my old 70-200 VR, and my 17-35 f2.8 along with a variety of single focal length “prime” lenses.

This has given me an appreciation for shooting in a fixed focal length .  In other words, these are lenses that don’t zoom. This makes them simpler, and thus easier to design well.  Great “primes” tend to have low distortion, and have great secondary characteristics.  They are also really sharp, often much more so than common zoom lenses. Best of all, “primes” tend to be inexpensive to purchase compared to equivalent quality zooms.

I like that.

The simplicity of construction also allows these lenses tend to be “fast” or in other words to have wide open apertures so they can admit a lot of light to the sensor. With an imager like that of the D700 which has wonderful high ISO capabilities, a lens with an aperture wider than f 2.0 can let a camera essentially “see in the dark”. 

Fishing under the Bridge (Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8)

 Wide apertures also facilitate images with a narrow depth of field isolating the subject from the background. This is very flattering especially in portraiture but it can also be very helpful in landscape work.

Better lenses, but particularly fast “primes” also render the out-of-focus areas of the images they acquire in a smooth, flattering way. That characteristic is called “bokeh”.

On this day, I decided to do some hiking in the Nescopeck State Park, which is near to my home. I chose a part of the park which was previously farmland, bought by the state and cut periodically, to maintain the character of the land.

There was a lot of color already evident in the late September afternoon. Goldenrod had painted the background an almost uniform yellow, but in the fields there were white and purple Asters, Black-Eyed Susans and Pokeberry bushes. There were Milkweed pods, ready to erupt. Monarch butterflies were plentiful, as if waiting for that event.

Pokeberrys (Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f 1.8)

I took the D700 and three primes, but I resolved early in the hike to leave a Nikkor 85mm f1.8 mounted on the body.

This is a mid-level Nikkor prime, though arguably, compared to the other 85mm Nikkors; it’s the most suitable for shooting landscape work. Though it’s not as “bright” (f1.8 vs.f1.4) it has measured in some reports to have the highest resolution across the frame. Oh, and it’s considerably smaller and lighter than its bigger brothers.

 It’s a interesting photographic exercise, to adapt one’s vision to the constraints of the focal length. I walked as usual, with a heavy steel Manfrotto monopod, with a Bogen ballhead, to control camera movement.  With a prime lens, one can no longer twist the zoom ring to frame the image. Instead, one has to “zoom with one’s feet”. Ultimately, this gives the photo a different look than when one just changes the focal length of a zoom lens. It suggests the almost infinite number of choices available to us when evaluating a scene for capture.

The experience tends to teach the true nature of each focal length.

 I love good zoom lenses, but sometimes I think they stop you from thinking photographically. Shoot with primes and you begin to understand not only the framing inherent in the focal length, the changes that occur at different distances from the subject,  the reletive magnification of the foreground and backround inherent in the particular lens length, and the available depth of field at various apertures.

 Also, one sometimes tends to forget how useful, longer focal length lenses are in shooting landscapes. You just have to recalibrate from thoughts of wide scenic vistas, to focusing your attention on a particular detail of the scenery, and using the shorter depth of field, and the bokeh inherent in good long glass, to blur the background into a sort of impressionistic look. This is what good lenses, particularly primes, allow you to do.

Monarch and Goldenrod (Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mmf1.8)

Good photographers understand all the characteristics of various focal length lenses in their bags.

Hopefully, by spending a day with a single prime lens on the front of the camera, you can then begin to use your zooms lenses more thoughtfully and effectively.

Leaf and Log (Nikon E 4500)

At the end of August, in the Appalachian highlands, there is often early evidence of the cool weather that is waiting its turn in the unfolding year.

Autumn touches the ridge tops far earlier than in the river valleys.

    Fall’s opening gambit generally occurs after a late summer hot spell. A strong line of storms usually heralds the season’s first outbreak of true Canadian air. One morning you awaken to a strikingly beautiful sunrise and a crispness that is shocking to one who is well acclimated to the warmth of summer. As the day progresses, the sharp reds of sunrise evolve into a deep blue, more like the skies of midwinter. There is a strong breeze. Small white clouds pass quickly overhead as if embarrassed to deprive us of the brilliant sunshine.

   The next several nights will be unnaturally cool. The day’s winds are becalmed; heat radiates quickly from the earth below. The fans and air conditioners so useful on warm summer nights will be stilled. Sleeping will be more comfortable, albeit with an extra blanket.

   There are potent changes occurring in the natural world. After the first few brisk mornings, other colors will accent the uniform green of the forest. First are the bracken ferns whose early autumn yellow contrasts with the larger cinnamon ferns that now assume a deep rust hue. Low in the canopy, small maples and dogwoods add splashes of red and yellow to the scene, sometimes one branch at a time. Wetlands offer a hiker the first preview of fall colors as the trees and shrubs in those places often change before their counterparts in better-drained areas.

Birch and Maple ( Fuji F-30)

   By mid-September, the hummingbird feeders in our yard hang abandoned, their usual dependents driven south by the early chill. Deer, which were scarce all summer, are beginning to reappear in the yards and gardens. Velvet-covered antlers distinguish the bucks, as they feed on acorns that now litter the lawn.

    On the ridge top scrub barrens, unprotected by the forest canopy, nighttime temperatures will tend to fall significantly compared to the surrounding woodlands. Hiking these areas on a fall evening, one can encounter rivers of cold air as they course though the landscape’s shallow draws, eventually to pool in the so-called “frost pockets.” Here, even in early fall; there may be freezes, which quickly melt in the bright morning sunshine.

September Frost, Arbutus Peak Barrens (Fuji S-2 Nikkor 18-35mm)

    A walk along a lakeside trail in late September reveals further evidence of a transition occurring. One immediately notices the absence of frogs and tadpoles at the shoreline.  The latter have by now, matured into the former and have burrowed into the mud below the cooling waters. Migrating geese visit to feed and briefly rest. Along the shore, fruit still clings to blueberry bushes, though their leaves are already changing to crimson.

First Signs of Fall ( Panasonic G 1, Lumix 14-45mm)

    Summer may yet fleetingly return for one more encore; bowing before it leaves the stage. Eventually the climate will change more definitively, and the forest canopy will explode with color. Fall has returned. Winter will not be far behind.

Summer Sunset Susquehanna (Olympus E 510, Zuiko 14-42mm)

Creating interesting images in midsummer, in the northeastern United States is sometimes a struggle. 

 Now I’m not saying that there aren’t subjects to shoot. There certainly are. 

    Streams, waterfalls, lakes, sunrises and sunsets all are available in midsummer the way they are the rest of the year. It’s just that everything is a fairly uniform green. And one day looks like the next. 

   There’s little change or evolution in the landscape, like in the fall with the leaves that seem to change almost day-by-day; or more obviously in the winter, when a snowstorm can utterly transform the scenery overnight. 

   There is however, a pattern of subtle, but predictable events in rural landscapes. There is for instance, the reliable blooming of summer flowers. If one pays attention during the year, you can begin to date an image by what blooms are present. 

  In early July for instance, here in the Moosic Mountains, purple thistles decorate the sunny edges of dirt roads throughout the region. Three weeks later, the seeds and their white parachutes are grasping at currents of air. 

Cardinal flowers decorate the channels of ephemeral streams that have dried up in the warm dry summer air. Blueberries, their blossoms long gone, ripen on the branches of trailside shrubs. 

Cardinal Flowers at Bow Creek ( Panasonic G1, Panasonic 14-45mm)

  Sunflower blooms appear on their towering stalks sometime later, generally in August, and often well into September, their appearance roughly corresponding to the eruption of yellow in fields of goldenrod, the scourge of allergy sufferers everywhere. 

    On local farms, hay is being cut, depending on the summer weather, for the second or third time. This applies a sweet aroma to the summer breezes. 

   Sweet corn starts to be harvested. Heavy green fruit begins to pull the thin branches of tomato plants downward. Vast armies of wheat stalks bend in unison, to the wind of midsummer storms. 

   For me the goal of scenic summer photography, and for that matter, all seasonal photography is to capture the essence…the feeling of the moment that I and others experience in our little nook of the world. 

    I want my audience to view an image with all their senses, and share the full experience; for instance, the chill of a distinctly cool August morning in the Adirondacks, after a cold front passes. I surely want then to see the glory of the sun as it burns through the early morning fog.  But I want them to inhabit the scene, and to imagine the fresh smell of the dew-laden grasses, and to hear, as I heard that morning,  the distant sound of a loon on this obscure little lake, shrouded in mist (I guess now that I have a GH1, I could just take some video). 

Foggy Morning on Connery Pond (Nikon D2x, Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8)

   I want to convey the feeling as a rivulet of sweat runs down the back of your neck, in the lingering heat of a summer evening, on an uphill walk to an old abandoned farm. 

Late July at State Game Lands 187 ( Panasonic GHI, Panasonic 20mm f1.7)

 Or the satisfaction of a quick Saturday afternoon mountain bike ride to a reservoir high in the surrounding hills. 

End of the Ride (Fujifilm E 900)

 Or the joy of a paddle on the Susquehanna River as the sun sets over the surrounding mountains. 

  I want to evoke the memory of hunting woodchucks at a friend’s farm on an August afternoon…or the joy of the amusements and food at a volunteer fire department “bazaar”. 

Waiting for the "Bull" (Panasonic G1, Panasonic 14-45mm)

Images shouldn’t always just be technically competent and well composed. 

 I believe they need to tell a story.

The Stage Road

The new  photo above, was taken at one of my favorite local places: Hickory Run State Park, which is located at the very western border of the Pocono “Mountains” of Pennsylvania.

   It depicts the “Old Stage Road”, which runs through the park as a hiking trail but converts to a public road at the park’s border.

  Hickory Run is a fascinating place from a geologic standpoint. As I understand it, the park is situated on land at the very end of the  ice sheet that formed over North America 18,000 years ago

    The glaciated, “Pocono” portion of the park on the east is actually a high flat plateau with a mix of woodland and barrens species and the locally famous Boulder field (depicted in a photo published with the “Mountain Laurels” article”). As you travel west, the land falls off and with it, multiple streams tumble off the heights,  through a succession of lovely glens, and over countless small (and some large) waterfalls,  all flowing inexorably  towards the Lehigh River at the park’s western border.

  At places on the property, very dense pockets of second-growth hemlocks block out sunlight even in midday. This helps visitors to this park understand the descriptions  by early settlers quoted in in park’s brochures of the “shades of death” they encountered here.

   This was the description by colonists who travelled this wilderness centuries ago, fearful of attack by predators or aboriginal Americans, that they imagined were lurking among the vast groves of  white pine and hemlock, many of which may have been 2-300 ft tall, and 500-hundred years old.

Those trees are long gone now, logged out in the 18th and 19th centuries for timber and tannin. They have been replaced by ancestors that are by comparison, mere adolescents. Nonetheless, as you pass through these dark verdent sections, you can easily imagine the anxiety of travellers riding on open wagon, in a stage coach, or worse, on foot as they traversed this dark, seemingly endless forest.

But I digress.

  Unfortunately, the method I use to bring higher-quality images to the site does not appear to be available for the header image. I am stuck with less than crisp images at this location on the site.

  I’m working on it.

Front of the Parade

 I have always loved the Fourth of July holiday here in the USA. 

  I will say, that the holiday’s proximity to Memorial day in late May, always makes it seem that the summer is rushing by. Summer, after all, is very precious in the Appalachian mountains. In truth, there are two months left before Labor Day backstops the summer vacation season. After this we will have at least 6 weeks of glorious fall weather before things get brown and chilly. 

  Obviously this holiday marks a profound event in American history: the moment a people decided to stand against taxation and non-representative government. The risk taken by those involved, from the militiaman that stood side-by side against the indomitable British Army, to he founders themselves, are I think, severely under appreciated by modern Americans, save perhaps, those that currently risk it all in the service of our armed forces.

God bless them.
 

  At my home, high in the Moosic Mountains of Pennsylvania, we celebrate the holiday with great enthusiasm. I live in an old Victorian resort community with big old cottages, most built with multiple bedrooms so to accommodate family and friends in the summer months when the houses were open.
On this weekend in particular the houses fill; every one of the little summer bedrooms has a suitcase and rumpled bed; the sound of adults who grew up here, playing with the their children is pervasive and lovely as one walks in the afternoon. 

Since the 1890s, people come here for the same ends: to revel in the summer warmth, but sleep comfortably in  the cool night air, to swim in the lake, hike the trails, ride bicycles, play a little tennis, and to sit on the front porch for a cocktail before dinner. 

The climate is extremely unpredictable in early July. This year it’s going to be brightly sunny and around 90 degrees, though we’ve had years where the temps stayed in the fifties. On that holiday, the only one outside was the griller; the rest of us were inside, gathered around the fireplace. 

We also have a parade. I’m not sure how long it’s been going on, but apparently for 40-plus Fourth of Julys by the accounts of some of the older residents. 

July 4th 2008

The event starts at one pm sharp, so starting around eleven, we gather at one of the larger driveways in the community. A diverse group of vehicles participates, from bicycles, to tractors to ATVs, convertibles, and pickup trucks. The children descend, with tape, and crepe paper ribbons, little American flags and red white and blue pinwheels, and bunting. The children are very enthusiastic, they sometimes fail to understand that in order to drive a vehicle you have to be able to open the door, or see through the windshield. A little parental modification is sometimes necessary. 

Overdecorated

Eventually with issues corrected, away we drive, to our community center, where we are met by the Fairview Township Volunteer Fire Department.
The department is very capably managed by several community residents who I think worry that our huge old wood frame homes are likely to be potential future “clients” for the firemen’s services. Happily for us, the department’s massive and impeccably maintained equipment rivals that seen in big cities. Their efforts in the recent past have saved at least one of these historic structures from complete immolation. 

The Parade lines up.

The fireman help as young children and their parents are loaded aboard the pumpers and ladder trucks. Then we line the vehicles up, and the parade begins, on a route through the network of gravel roads designed so that all may participate. 

The Bicycle

Now I have always tended to be a “parader” but there are others who traditionally serve as “watchers” standing by the roadside in little knots of people with flags and perhaps a camera, waving as the parade goes by. After all everyone can’t be a “parader”. The “watchers” tend to congregate in the same places year to year, ducking as candy rains down opon them, thrown by the gleeful children in the trucks and fire engines. 

From the Truck

It takes about twenty minutes to do the route, then return to the community center and disband. It’s then on to the lake for a community picnic, and later, hopefully, fireworks.
  

  In truth, it’s a small event in a small community in Pennsylvania. 

I love it, because in this neighborhood, we draw together as a community rather than sequester ourselves in our own fenced-in backyards, isolated from our neighbors. I would rather be here no matter what the weather, than at the biggest celebration in New York or Boston.

Undoubtedly, I’d have to be a “watcher” there. 

  After all, I am a “Parader”.

Setting Up

My daughter, Brigid Louise, was graduated  Cum Laude from Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, Pennsylvania this weekend. 

Chairs and Diplomas

This was the 166th commencement ceremony and was beautifully organized. It was chock full of traditions, some of which were lost on this parochial school graduate. They were not lost on the graduates and their parents, many of whom were multi-generational alumni.

Families

Congratulations Brigid. 

Cum Laude

And thanks to the teachers and Staff at “Sem”,  for her wonderful  education. 

Faculty

Assembled

Laurels and Oak

The Mountain Laurels are starting to bloom in Pennsylvania.

    This is our state flower, and its emergence marks the point where our climate finally evolves from the fickle whims of April and May, to the soft summer weather of June. It is a moment of unconscious celebration for people who begin to open their pools, grill in the evening after work, and sit on the porches at night, listening to the distant call of whippoorwill.

   Here in the northeastern part of the state, we are beginning to see the delicate clusters of white blooms open up on the lower altitude woodland slopes in our region. By mid to late June they will bloom in abundance throughout the northern third of the commonwealth.

Spring at Boulder Field

   I have for the last fifteen years, taken a week of vacation at this time, to wander the mountains, either by backpacking, or more recently, because of the burgeoning weight of my photo equipment, and a bad knee, car camping and day hiking. The laurels, and their cousins, wild rhododendrons, provide the forests their last splash of widespread color before they settle in to the monotonous green of summer. Arguably, it is the last time until fall, for a photographer to use wider lenses in the forest. After the laurels are extinguished,  longer focal  lengths become more useful to capture the later blooming wildflowers which are scattered throughout the woodland greenery.

I have several striking memories of this time of year involving Mountain Laurels:

   I first hiked the West Rim Trail of north central Pennsylvania in mid June, perhaps eighteen years ago. I was mainly a mountain biker at the time and hadn’t backpacked in years. I didn’t realize at the time, the different conditioning needed to carry a pack over distance. The rugged trail, plus the weight on my back played hell with my feet.  The weather had been wet, and I remember being extremely eager for the trip to end. I was getting close on the third day. The last portion of the trail diverts west into the Tioga State Forest, apparently to avoid Coulton Point State Park which hugs the rim of the” Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania”  in that location. Within the last four miles of its northern terminus, the trail leaves the woods to once again skirt the edge of the gorge.

   The Pine River gorge at this point is roughly 800 feet above the river, and the edges are swathed in laurel, which was in full bloom as I emerged from the forest on the path as it swerved to edge of the ridge. My jaw dropped at the beauty. White blossoms were everywhere, densely surrounding the trail. To my right was the spectacular vista off the ridge. I photographed it at the time but the small pocket camera and I were inadequate to the task, and the results were unpublishable. The memory of this, however, was worth every blister.

Laurels and Ferns

   A year later, I was on the Loyalsock Trail in the Wyoming State forest. This is a very vertical trail, laid out I am told by an Explorer troop, which must have had very sadistic leadership.

   I was in better shape that year and enjoying as I recall some wonderful June weather with blue skies, seventy degree days, and fifty degree nights. Hiking with several friends, we lugged our heavy backpacks up another of the seemingly limitless up hill climbs that mark the trail’s early miles.

    I remember cresting a hill, and looking down on a relatively old growth stand of trees on the vast wooded slope below. The canopy was quite high, perhaps 150 feet. There was a feeling of being in a vast verdant space. The forest floor was lush with white laurels, all in full bloom, a carpet that extended for as far as your eyes could discern. All of this was dappled with shafts of sunlight, occurring at random spots where the leaf cover was spare. No one could help but to stop, and stare. Though it was only 11 AM, we found a log on which to sit, and ate our lunch early.

June Laurels at Hickory Run

June is a wonderful time of year in the eastern mountains.

 Perhaps God makes the Mountain Laurels bloom, just to remind us.

Ketchum Run

  In the eastern United States, where there are mountains, there will be streams.   

    It’s inevitable. Elevated terrain enhances precipitation, which is absorbed by the soils, gathers together, and then works to find the easiest route off the mountain. In the moist, temperate climate of Pennsylvania Appalachians, this means that thousands of cold, swift brooks cleave the earth in their gathering rush to the valleys below. Many start as tiny flows, emerging from the rocks at a point somewhat below the crest of the ridge. Depending on the vertical rise of the land and the watershed they capture, they gather speed and volume as they cascade off the mountainside.   

    Mountain streams serve as the punctuation for the many long wilderness trails scattered throughout the commonwealth’s wild areas.  In planning a trek through the wilderness, attention must be given to the availability of water at points along the planned route. Knowing the location of streams is essential to avoid carrying large amounts of the heavy liquid.   

Small Stream on The Old Logger's Path

    Many of the small mountainside brooks are seasonal, with no surface water present during drier years. Coming upon a parched stream bed when you were counting on replenishing your water stores is a distinctly unpleasant experience.   

     Where the mountains are steeper, the topography becomes more interesting. In the deepest draws of the northern mountains, the sun rarely penetrates to the forest floor. Legions of ancient hemlocks line the steep side walls of these eastern canyons, cut by eons of the action of water against rock. Glens form, where the land forms force the water to fall abruptly in altitude, increasing its hydraulic power. Ricketts Glen is just one example of this; there are many other spectacular falls and glens which are often quite remote and visited only by intrepid souls.   

Falls at Mc Connell's Mill

    Hiking in the Tidaughten State Forest, deep in a within a mountain glen, I once found a mature American chestnut tree, blooming on a  spring morning. So remote was its location,  it was untouched by the blight, which kills its more accessible relatives while they are mere spindly adolescents.   

   Because of the severity of the terrain in ravines and draws, loggers in the past may not have had sufficient access for harvesting. These draw and ravines, deep in our state forests are wonderful places to experience true “Old Growth” forest. Here you can find four-to-five-hundred year old relics from our pre-colonial past, in this case White Pines and Hemlocks that tower two hundred feet and more over the forest floor.   

Giants on Boston Run

   The climate in these sheltered places is much more constant and gradual than on the nearby ridge tops. Shielded from the sun, snow lingers much deeper into spring.  It is cool here, even on hot summer days, especially where the streams run strongly into the warmer months.   

   On one of the more established hiking trails, such as the Loyalsock or the West Rim Trail, more often than not, a  stream crossing will have acquired a fire ring and informal tenting sites. These are generally fine places to overnight. On a clear winter nights, they can be warmer, the dense cover of conifers preventing radiational cooling.   

    Summer rain is shed initially by the hemlock canopy, making such places are a clever hiker’s refuge in wet weather. The rain comes down eventually however as the accumulated water drips slowly, over days, from the fine interlaced needles.   

  On a hot summer day, glens and ravines are cooled by the shade and the cold creek water. After the sun sets, cool air descends through the ravines from the mountaintops, clearing the air of biting insects, and providing a lovely sleeping experience.   

Morning Campsite

   Sadly, there is a real threat to these wonderful ecotones. An insect called the hemlock woolly adelgid is spreading throughout the state, threatening to wipe out the hemlocks that shelter these lovely places. There are efforts to control the parasites, but they have only partially successful. If they do not succeed, there will be a fundamental alteration of woodland and stream ecology in the eastern forest.   

 Visit these lovely places while you still can.

The quality of images on this blog has been one of the few frustrations of working on WordPress .com.   

Staff Only

   I intended that imaging would comprise a lot of the site’s content. Unfortunately, the aggressive file compression used by WordPress  has resulted in blurred details on photos uploaded to the site.    

   However, their wonderful “Help” resources have given me a partial solution, namely linking to the photos URL on my repository gallery. Posted this way, images look better, though still not as good as on my Photo site. Glensummitimages.com.    

  Still, it’s a start.   

Staff Only

I have begun to update some of the posted images, but going forward the new method will be used exclusively.