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| Early tulips from a Colonial Williamsburg garden (click any image to enlarge) All images made with an Olympus E-M1 Mark II and the 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens 100mm; 1/500th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200 |
This is the second part of my post detailing my very short walk through parts of Colonial Williamsburg. The first part of this photo walk can be found here.
Last Tuesday was a beautiful, albeit unseasonably cold and windy, spring day. The sky was blue with a sprinkling of puffy cumulus clouds. The day had the kind of sky we photographers like for so many photographic occasions. So....
I decided to make the short drive to Colonial Williamsburg, the privately owned preserved and reconstructed 18th century colonial capital of Virginia. If you haven't visited Colonial Williamsburg but enjoy history, this is as an authentic of an experience as can be had as well as it is near Jamestown and Yorktown.
Usually, the 2nd week in April is the peak week for spring color, with the residents opening their gardens to visitors. However, I suspect due to the extended cold weather we have had locally and across the country, the gardens were sparse with a few beds of tulips, some wisteria and various other blooming flowers showing color. Mostly, however, the gardens will be much more colorful in a few weeks when the weather finally reflects spring. As an aside, the 2nd week in November is the peak fall color week, if you plan on visiting and want to make note of that.
I picked up my E-M1 Mark II with the usual 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens attached, my "grab and go" kit, and just went for a casual walk in the colonial area. It isn't yet tourist season so there wasn't much going on but the day was beautiful and I try to practice "seeing" and photographing as much as I can. I ended up only staying about 50 minutes and made about 15-20 images that I feel I can display. These are mostly "postcard" style images, nothing noteworthy.
I find it an interesting phenomenon that, on some occasions, you can grab your camera and go out and see nothing worth photographing but on other days interesting images just seem to "appear" before you, over and over again. Is it frame of mind? I don't know but this phenomenon has been happening to me for my entire photographic career. On this particular day, it just seemed everything just fell into place for interesting images.
I really encourage you to visit, not only for Colonial Williamsburg's historical significance, but also for photographic reasons. I literally have hundreds of images I've made through all four seasons over the past many years I've lived in the area and I always see more interesting subjects each time I visit.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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I can't wait to go there... again. The last time was about 1975. My film photos were terrible haha. These images you are sharing are awesome.
ReplyDeleteThank you Peter. If you ever get back this way, we can go out and photograph. Would make a nice occasion.
DeleteWonderful images! We will be visiting Williamsburg in early May and I am planning my lens selection. It appears you used the wide to normal range of the 12-100 most often. What was your focal length use distribution? Thanks so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteJim, thanks for your kind words. I was trying to figure the best way to break down my focal length selection. I broke it down according to the available Olympus lens' focal lengths for no reason other than if you owned primes, the images would be centered around the focal lengths of the primes.
Delete12-16mm 22.9%
17-24mm 10.3%
25-44mm 20.6%
45-74mm 18.9%
75-100mm 27.6%
As you can see, a pretty wide distribution. If you bring one or two typical zooms, they should cover it nicely. If you like to take close-ups of flowers and such, you may want to bring a macro lens.
You didn't say whether or not your have been to Colonial Williamsburg before. If you haven't and have some questions that I can answer, feel free to email me privately at (and I'll try to disguise this from the spammers) dennis {}{} mook (all together, no space) aht geeee male daht com. Not sure it that works but I have to give it some sort of try. If I can answer questions or anything else, please email me and let me know.
Thanks again for your comment.
Bless your heart and thanks for your work! I am quite surprised at the nearly equal spread of focal lengths in your photography at Williamsburg. I will contact you a little later with some questions and thank you for the offer :-)
Delete