i often get the question, "What do you like to photograph?" i have a hard time answering that. the more i think about it, the more unsure i am. the only thing i know for sure is that i don't like taking the same photo over and over. some photographers, including some for whom i have great respect, get caught in a rut and keep re-creating something that they once got right and now seem afraid to leave behind. i resist that temptation with all my energy. while most of these images are available for sale as prints of custom size or note cards, the commercial part of photography has little to do with my motivation. mostly, i'm looking for something that is significant. (as an aside, after writing the last few sentences i tested the page and read some of the descriptions. more than any word, the word "recently" kept popping up. i guess that's because i'm sitll very much in the process of searching for subjects, still in the process of inventing myself.) if you see something you like, contact me.

There's no particular order to the shots in this gallery. For the most part they're images I like and want to share.
I was at a mud sale, a sale that features farm implements, buggies, and assorted goods that the Amish make, sell, and use, when I saw this girl. I had no intention of taking her photograph, but she kept eyeing me with a look of harsh hostility. I mostly ignored her, figuring she didn't approve of my presence; but then I caught her glaring at me and couldn't resist capturing the moment. For reasons that I think are obvious, I named the image "Hex Sign."
At the same mud sale where I took the photograph above, I saw these three boys, sitting and watching the horse auction. Something about the composition caught my fancy.

proving that almost all barriers can be overcome, this image was taken from the back seat of a wildly careening car being driven by Graham Willis, a British fellow who seemed determined to swerve whenever someone wanted to take a picture. i think he felt that if he couldn't take pictures no one should.

we were driving through lancaster county and, fortunately, i had my camera ready. i'm not sure what i was ready for; but this scene appeared, and the sun's brilliant reflection off of the road highlighted the intricacy of the highway and compelled me to capture the moment. the image's name is "zig zag." i rendered in as a black and white because i don't feel it needs any color.
i recently got a chance to go out and photograph the tugboat jupiter. jupiter belongs to the philadelphia ship preservation guild and is berthed at penn's landing in philadelphia. this particular occasion was the annual Santa run, during which jupiter cruises to ships that are carrying crewmembers who won't make it home for Christmas and drops off presents for the seamen. it was a good day for taking photos; add good light to Christmas spirit and you get a great event.
i went to the international sailboat eastern regional championships (that, my friend, is a mouthful) recently and photographed the races and anything else in the area that caught my attention. this shot of the starting line should give you a sense of how fiercely the race is contested. it was an impressive sight.
while i was at the regatta, the weather was chilly and the wind was blowing, so there were some nice sights to behold. i shot this because i liked the contrast between the bridge and the boat; one is structured, rigid, and practical; the other is fluid, a machine that moves with the wind, and quite beautiful.
everyone--that means "seamus"--has been begging me to post some new photos of my buddy, mr. kitty, aka seamus. i took this one a couple of weeks ago because he'd been threatening to withhold all purring if he didn't get coverage beyond my bio. look into his eyes and you'll know he means business.
this is another shot of seamus, rendered as a black & white simply because he needed more diversity in his modeling portfolio. you've got to admit, this is one fine looking feline.
lest there be any doubt about whether or not he was posing, i took this shot a few minutes later. what i like about the shot is the backlighting that's illuminating his wings. maybe it's "her" wings. hmmm... i hadn't given that much thought before.
now i know some of you are doubters and probably don't give any credence to my idea about having worked my way into the good graces of the butterfly world. well, doubt if you will; but later the same day that i took the photos above i was photographin a thistle at Coastal Botanic Garden when this character came along and decorated my image. i didn't notice until much later that he had brought a friend along.
when i was at Coastal Botanic Garden it was fall, and things were coming down at an amazing rate, including pine needles. these were floating on a small pond, and their pattern fascinated me. it's almost as if they were deliberately arranged. i really like the image's etching-like look. if you stare at it for a while, you'll begin to see various images: a rooster, some wolves, a buxom blonde holding a popsicle. maybe i've spent too much time staring at it...
 

horses have long been a favorite subject for me, so when a friend gave me the opportunity to photograph her stallion, i jumped at the chance. his name is "blackjack cowboy," and like most of the horses of his breed--he's a Rocky Mountain Horse--the fact that he's a stallion doesn't keep him from being well-mannered and easy to work with.

hopefully, i'll get more chances to shoot "cowboy" and his barn mates in the near future.
i found this spiral staircase in villa grazioli, outside of frascati, italy. it was then and remains absolutely fascinating for me and i ended up photographing it from several different viewpoints. at some time i'll probably post the other photos. this one is named "eye of the beholder."
i was in daytona beach, florida, when I spotted this woman walking alone on the beach. Her dark skin color and bright dress stood out from the beach, invoking a serene and somewhat wistful image. i couldn't resist capturing the view. surprise, surprise, its name is "beachwalker."
as we were leaving the marvelous castello ruspoli, in lazio, italy, this is the street scene that lay before us. mind you we had just visited a magnificent garden and toured the castle in the company of the princess--really, the princess was there and greeted us--but this is my enduring memory of the visit. the narrow, cobble-stoned street, the "ristorante," and the motor scooter all stick in my mind as typical images associated with this incredible country.
speaking of enduring images, this one was captured in--can you guess?--venice. yes, a group of asian tourists was stopped and listening to their tour guide with wrapt attention. while i've obviously taken liberties with the color, this woman with her bright red dress and matching parasol stood out. the photo's name is "crowd control."
i had to throw in a couple of flowers just so people would know i haven't abandoned my love of macro photography and flowers. below i have a yellow rose that's probably more dramatic, but i love this one for its intricate shapes and textures. it's a bit of a stuffy image, taking the name "white rose cropped."
named, simply enough, "yellow rose 2," i captured this image at longwood gardens one evening. blown up it's mind-boggling.
once in a while--actually, more often than i like to admit--i see something that occurs naturally and wonder how it happened to evolve in such a form. that was my reaction to this water lily. its center is so compressed that i decided to use HDR in order to get all the subtle layers represented. i'm very pleased with this image, but with this lily as a model, how could i go wrong...
water lilies are incredibly beautiful. they are complex and too often hard to get to. i took this shot at longwood gardens, barely did anything beyond processing it as an HDR image, and was really excited about what i got.
recently, i went on assignment for the magazine i write for and spent a day on a tugboat in baltimore harbor. mostly we sat around waiting for a job and chatting. when the tug did get a job, it was to help a car carrier move away from the dock. that probably sounds boring as all get-out to you, but the process was interesting and gave me an opportunity to witness the considerable skills of the tug's captain. while we were sitting next to the ship and awaiting instructions from the pilot, i saw this and decided it might be worth my while to try something i'd never tried before: handheld HDR. this is the result. it's called, simply enough, "the bow."
as the tugboat was headed back to its berth, i took this shot of the crew member. while i say it's a photo of the crew member, it actually means a lot more to me. you see, while i was there Gary, that's the name of the crew member, was worried about his son who was supposed to go on an outing that Gary wasn't sure was safe. he kept calling to try to find out if the outing was still going to go off. so when i saw this image, it came to me as a metaphor for Gary's isolation, his concern, and by extension, the distance that must be endured by men who have to leave their families. the photo is named "gary on the bow," but has much broader meaning.
i toured the martin guitar factory in nazareth, pennsylvania, recently--production lines always fascinate me--and got this shot of a group of model HD-28 guitars waiting to have their necks added. because of the inlay, some people call these guitars "bones." it follows then that this photo is called "martin's bones." my brother, Ed, a serious bluegrass devotee, had this to say:
All D-28's prior to 1946 had wood marquetry on the edges of the tops of the bodies. After 1946 the D-28's discontinued the use of marquetry (#98233) and used black and white purfling instead. In 1976 Martin introduced the HD-28 with scalloped bracing and herringbone trim like prior to 1946 D-28s. In 1978 they introduced the HD-35, with herringbone trim also, but that's another story. 
To make a long story short...the bodies in [the] picture are "bones" just not D-28's.

i was surprised at how hard it is to photograph a covered bridge. they have so many subtle nuances to them. i wanted to be looking through the bridge and to bring some of the surrounding farmland into the picture, and HDR helped me do that. i like the final product.
exactly how much of an image is the shape and texture and how much is the color or warmth of a photo became obvious when i started to play with this image of an old house. roll your cursor over the image and you'll see what i mean: same image, very different feel.
INTERIORS are among my most favorite thing to shoot. they present complex challenges: how to make the light work for you, how to show off the best features of the space, and how to convey what the space means to me. one word sums up the approach i recommend to photographing interiors: tripod.
now i don't want to incur anyone's wrath, but i finally made it to the national cathedral in washington, d.c., and it was nearly impossible to photograph. oh, sure, slices of it worked, but i found it impossible to capture the full scale of the building. too many portable chairs, speaker systems, things intended to make the place flexible all added up to a photographer's worst nightmare. i did get this photo, an HDR shot, that suggests the beauty of the structure; but i wish i had found more nooks and crannies to work with.
this shot was taken at longwood gardens, where joan works. it's an example of HDR photography, my newest photo wrinkle.
STRUCTURES catch my eye when their design incorporates complex angles and shapes. these four are completely different, but i consider each of them both iconic and beautiful.
there's something about the way that Epcot reflects light that could keep me standing there for hours, just shooting different angles. after a while you forget it's an amusement park and begin to be drawn into the flow and mystery of the reflections.
this photo of the museum of natural history on the mall in washington summarizes, for me at least, the grandeur of the city. i never go to washington without being struck by a sense of overwhelming pride. i look around and say to myself, "this is a place that we built to show that we are a great nation." i know, it sounds corny and like something Rush might say, but that's the way i feel.
we had a surprise snowfall recently. snow doesn't usually fall here before december, and this stuff not only fell early but it stuck for a day. needless to say, i saw this as an opportunity and hurried to longwood gardens for some shooting. this particular shot, my favorite of the day is an HDR black and white combined with an HDR color. its name is "peekaboo."
FLOWERS can be difficult to photograph. their subtlety is often elusive. for a long time i didn't want to photograph flowers. i was afraid i'd be pigeonholed or that my growth would be stilted. after i started applying the lessons of macro photography and began to experiment with different ways to approach the subject, i discovered that photographing flowers is a wonderful way to approach nature and the study of color and structures. i try to pace myself, but i don't hesitate to run when i hear of a new crop of buds.
i was at longwood gardens photographing hibiscus when, remembering the good fortune i'd had with the blue poppies, i decided to photograph the back of the flowers. i think it worked! i'm not sure if i'll ever photograph the front of a flower again. the photo on the left is titled "behind the scenes"; the one on the right took the name "spanish dancer."
this view of a blue poppy shows why they are considered so photographable. i'd never seen one before and have to admit that i was very impressed by what i saw.
yet another blue poppy. they're so captivating--is that the wrong word to use? maybe melodramatic!--that i've ended up with about eight extraordinary prints. blown up this is amazing.
this is the last one i'll make you look at. it's probably my favorite shot from the entire day. a print of this is much more vibrant than this appears to be, although now that i think about it, that's the case with all of the pictures on this page. for some reason the yellow fades. hmmmm......
LANDSCAPES, both rural and urban, both exterior and interior interest me because they force me to focus on one element around which i can build a visual impression. it's often harder to do than i had ever imagined. oddly and wonderfully, the world i set out to emphasize isn't always the one someone else sees when he looks at the photo. we bring to a work as much as the creator; how we apply what we bring is ours to decide.
chesapeake bay is an incredible body of water. it's fairly shallow, so it can kick up chop that will make even a short cruise teeth-jarring, or offer up a sunset like this one. both will fill you with awe. i took this shot, named "gathering," from chesapeake bay marina, looking across the bay to annapolis, maryland.
MISCELLANY is a term i apply to the subjects that follow. i don't mean it to be a demeaning term; i think the subject matter is every bit as important and interesting as any other subject. it's just that i don't know how to squeeze them into any single category. sorry about that.
for a long time i focused on photographing horses; they're so beautiful. one day i stopped at a large stable and there were 10 or so carriages there. i asked what route they were taking to go home, sped ahead to find a good background, and took this photo. once i had the photo, it seemed posed more like an oil painting than a photo, so i let it fulfill its destiny.
one night i was at the marina where i have my boat, when it occurred to me that it might be fun to try some night photography. so i walked over to the dinghy dock, rested my camera on a piling, and opened the shutter. what i got really surprised me. the color changes from time to time, but always there is lots of detail. with almost no fiddling, it took on the appearance of a water color. it likes to be called, simply, "night dock."
this is one of those long, repeated image shots that look great in the garage or under your bed. wait a minute, that was a test. it's pastel-like appearance gives it a soothing feel. it would be good in an office, there to be pondered between boring meetings. it took the name "blue bicycle bevy."
i drove down to the marina recently and was greeted by this sight. there has been no manipulation or post-processing here other than a slight tweaking of the basic exposure. it wanted to be called "cathedral," and i couldn't argue.
ordinary things are too frequently taken for granted. these boat jacks were standing there one spring day, their winter work of holding boats off the dirt behind them for a season, and seemed to cry out for some respect. i gave them that respect and, i think, showed that even very ordinary things have a beauty to them. the name of the photo is "sentinels."
i liked "night dock" so much i decided to try the same setup during the day. then to make it a bit more interesting, i decided to take it another step and shoot it as an HDR photo. the result, "at the ready," was a photo i like every bit as much as the first dock study.
to me, at least, it's interesting where images come from. the opportunity for this shot, for example, came as i was carrying a pot of corn to the stove. i looked down, and it was as if the corn was saying, "hey, dummy, have you noticed how nicely we've arranged ourselves?" in the midst of the preparations for dinner, i put the pot down and went for my camera. what else could i do? the photo is called "random symmetry."