Professional Photography by Jim Crotty serving Dayton, Ohio and the surrounding area. Award-winning fine art nature and landscape. Commercial and portraiture. Workshops and photography instruction.
I'm happy to announce weekend workshop at The Inn at Cedar Falls in Hocking Hills, Ohio for October 25-27, 2013.
The October program will be more for beginning level photographers who are new to DSLR photography. Field instruction will be emphasized on composing and exposing for the fall landscape in Hocking Hills State Park as well as basic digital edit and file management workflow.
These workshops are a blast to present. I keep my students on the move and busy but everyone has a lot of fun.
While in Ohio recently I was hoping to have a day or two following the October 26 - 28 Hocking Hills workshop to hit the trail alone and capture some of that beautiful light of autumn in a landscape that I've come to know and love. But it was not to be so. A painful knee and immobile leg made it practically impossible to transverse the trails through those deep gorges. However, one thing I've learned in working for myself as a professional photographer is that there is a reason for everything, good, bad or just painful inconvenience.
Immediately following the workshop weekend in Hocking Hills I traveled back to the place I call home, Dayton, for an extended, unplanned visit while I had my knee looked at and healed. Even though my current residence and place of business is Hilton Head Island (and even that is going to change soon), Dayton is where I grew up and have lived the majority of my life.
Despite my injured knee I was able to get out and do some photography. My favorite haunt near Dayton is the Sugarcreek Preserve MetroPark, south of town near Bellbrook and Centerville. There is a rolling, open meadow that never disappoints at sunset. I love working from the perspective of being down low at eye-level with the tall grasses and shooting upwards to include a dramatically lit and vibrant sky. In late autumn the grasses offer an array of texture in rich hues of tans and browns.
It was inspiring to walk the old and familiar trails again, both in Hocking Hills and at Sugarcreek. Yes, the natural beauty of the tidelands of South Carolina is alluring but home is where the creative heart resides. It's the connection to my formative years, my "proving ground' of sorts where my passion for camera and film first took root.
I think we tend to be hardest on those places - and often people as well - we love the most. A full appreciation for childhood homeland takes a while to make its presence known. In later years as we grow older we become more fond of the memories - the neighborhoods, the schools, the friends.
With artists the memories are more acute and run just a tad bit deeper. Perhaps it's because the feelings conjured through that touchstone of emotion is always echoed in and through the work they create. Maybe that's part of the reason I am always visually drawn to the fading light of a moody sky. I struggle with finding the right words but I know it when I see it. More importantly, I know it when I feel it.
The old trails through woodland and meadow. Sugarcreek, Cox, Germantown, Ft. Ancient, Little Miami, Clifton Gorge, John Bryan and of course, Hocking. Each season so distinct in light, shadow, color and scent. Familiar ground underfoot and trail side companions of Maple, Oak, Beech and Hemlock. Home. It's always there wherever life takes me.
“A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labours of men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference among the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood.” - George Eliot
The song "My Father's Father" by The Civil Wars provides the near perfect sound and lyrics to the experiences and images that come to mind when I think of my favorite Ohio trails and haunts.
Bad weather is the nature photographer's best friend, especially during spring. Well maybe not real bad weather, but just enough rain and mist to make landscapes, close-ups and macro subjects saturated with soft light that falls on and off the subject versus the harsh directness and hard shadows resulting from direct sunlight. This was one of the more important lessons I was teaching and demonstrating during the field workshop I presented the weekend of May 11 - 13 2012 in Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio.
I traveled back up to my Ohio home - from Hilton Head Island, S.C. - for the opportunity to share my passion for both nature photography and the beauty of Hocking Hills with an enthusiastic group of 19 workshop participants. About half the group had also attended a similar workshop I presented last October, also at The Inn at Cedar Falls in Hocking Hills. I am very thankful for their support and once again reaffirming my love of teaching photography.
On Sunday my group was welcomed by a slow, steady rain. With a supply of shower caps (effective and inexpensive way of protecting cameras) we ventured down to Cedar Falls.
On the Monday morning following the workshop I had just a couple of hours to get out on the trail by myself before the long drive back to South Carolina. I was glad I did because Hocking Hills always delivers with a variety of beautiful subjects. It truly is the place where there is an almost seamless connection between subject and photographer.
In Hocking Hills you can actually sense the land as a living, breathing organism. No two spring seasons are ever exactly alike. The photographic artist notices the smallest of details that sets each apart from the other. The flow of water. The way the morning light is carried on the cool breezes that arise from the sandstone recesses. The towering, dark forms of the giant hemlocks. Maple, beech and elm with branches aglow with the luminescence of new growth.
This was the morning of May 13, 2010. Dawn at Ash Cave.
To capture these images I used a Canon 5D Mark II with Canon lenses that included 70-200mm, 28-70mm and 17-35mm. All are longer time exposures with camera set on a Bogen 3021 tripod and Kirk ballhead.
