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| Typical Lancaster County, Pennsylvania countryside. Yes, the sky was as you see it and they were amazing all week! The landscape is dotted with perfectly kept farms and neatly plowed fields. The county has a myriad of opportunities to make very interesting photographs. (click to enlarge) Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 40-150mm f/4 PRO lens @ 56mm; 1/6400th sec. @ f/4; ISO 200 |
Last Monday, we made the 5 hour drive to the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area in the southeastern part of the state (Commonwealth, to be precise). Lancaster County is home to one of the largest contingents of Old Order Amish (pronounced Ah-mish, not Aim-ish) as well as Mennonite communities. The latest estimate is that there are about 33,000 Amish in Lancaster County. Often erroneously called "Pennsylvania Dutch," I believe the the misnomer is a corruption of the word "Deutsche" or German. According to Wikipedia, their origins are Swiss German, but not Dutch. They are known for their simple living and plain dress. They are a very tight knit community and strictly maintain their religion based culture. If a member doesn't conform to their strict ways of living, that member can be excommunicated and shunned. Maybe that is why they can sustain their way of life and prosper in today's world of declining value sets. They keep their highly valued ways of life as is and don't bend for politically correct reasons or otherwise. But I digress.
Their world, how they live, work and get around is rich with photographic opportunities. It is rich because their way of life is completely different from ours. They ride in horse-drawn buggies, don't use electricity, educate their children in one-room schoolhouses, no mobile phones, don't watch television or use modern appliances. They plow their fields with either horse-drawn or mule-drawn simple mechanical plows and hang their clothes on lines in the fresh air to dry, etc.
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| Baumgardener's Mill Bridge, Lancaster County, PA (click to enlarge) Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 12mm; 1/400th sec. @ f/4.5; ISO 320 |
To add to the unique visual opportunities provided by the Amish, there are other very photogenic subjects in Lancaster County. There are 29 old wooden covered bridges and a Central Market that has been a continuously operating farmer's market since 1730. The green rolling hills dotted with farms are absolutely gorgeous. On top of all of this, the weather was beautiful all week. The skies were amazing! The skies you will see in some of my images are as they were. There was no "adding skies" using Luminar or any other program. You'll see.
For those who like to shop, shopping is plentiful with outlet malls and many local crafts persons selling their handmade quilts, bolts of cloth, crafts and other local items. For those of you who like food, let me just say it is everywhere and plentiful! Did I mention the food we ate at local restaurants was very good? It was.
I plan on including a few images from this road trip each post. Being that I have a good number, I'll post at least three times per week (maybe more) for the near term.
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| Central Market in downtown Lancaster. This market has continuously operated since 1730. I remember my grandmother taking me there in the mid-1950s so she could buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Notice the few people. They were limiting the number of individuals allowed in at one time due to the need to socially distance during this viral pandemic. Also notice how well the Olympus dealt with the extreme contrast of sunny outside and dark inside. Who says M4/3 doesn't have good dynamic range? (click to enlarge) Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 12mm; 1/60th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 1200 |
More images to come...
Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
All content on this blog is © 2013-2020 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.
Nice images and post. Looking forward to the next edition. I noticed “Olympus M1-III” under the images. I just spent a few enjoyable days with a rental M1-III and was greatly impressed. The HHHR and Live ND were fun features. For me, Olympus cameras are about having fun with photography while making fine images. The features expand the “shooting envelope” beyond what I do with my dslr.
ReplyDeleteI have decided to upgrade but was left with the quandary of choosing between the II and the III. I would be interested in your opinion as you have long term experience with the M1-II.
Thanks for commenting. I rented the III for a week. I was critical of the new camera when first introduced and have now changed my mind about it. The new features provide enough of an upgrade that I purchased it. With my kind of photography, the hand healed high resolution will be useful as well as the Live ND. I love the joystick. Also, to me, the focusing seems better when tracking moving subjects. Even though Olympus never made any claims as such, the image quality seems to have improved in some ways. Can’t quite put my finger on it but I think they tweaked their image processor between cameras. Finally, I have no intention of abandoning the m4/3 format and this camera will be a hedge toward the future. I don’t plan on writing about the differences between the II and III, but if I were going to upgrade, I find the III, because of its newly added features, joystick and seemingly a bit better image quality, would be my choice. If money is the differentiator, then get the II. You will like it as well.
DeleteThank you for the helpful information on the III. I could not get the histogram+levels in the viewfinder at the same time. Otherwise, the user experience was flawless. C-AF worked well for ospreys with a sensitivity of 0. Old proverb: Buy the best and cry once, buy too cheaply and cry many times. Thank you for your excellent blog.
DeleteYou can enable the feature in your menu system to have both the histogram and leveling bars appear in your EVF at the same time. Same as in the E-M1.2. I had them both enabled. If you can’t get them both to a[pear, email me privately and I’ll be glad to help you figure it out. You can find my email address on my website.
DeleteTelling the story with your photos & the history with your words, that's perfect as always. Most blogs I skim through and really only read a small percentage of the posts in their entirety but NOT yours! Thanks for what you do here Dennis, its great, old school quality at its finest and very appreciated.
ReplyDeleteThank you Eric. I try hard to make the blog interesting. Your kind words are encouraging. When I think I want to abandon my blog, comments such as yours keep me going.
DeleteI always enjoy your travel stories and posts Dennis, especially at a time when there is some uncertainty about the safety of travel.
ReplyDeleteThat's good to hear about the mark III version. I was shooting this weekend when I thought about how much I would miss the size and features of the whole m4/3 system. Such a versatile system.
BTW, for the most part, my comments don't seem to show up. Not to worry nothing earth shattering or brilliant about any of them, but just thought you'd like to know.
Jim, there seems to be issues with Blogger lately. I get an email of every comment, then I hit the publish button and the comment “should” publish. When you mentioned that your comments aren’t showing up, I went into Blogger and found a recent comment of yours. I never received the notification email. Be that as it may, it has now been published. My apologies. I guess I’ll have to check in multiple ways in the future.
DeleteI, too, would miss m4/3. I don’t plan on selling my m4/3 gear. Over the past several years, I’ve shot with Nikon full frame, Fujifilm APS-C and Olympus/Panasonic m4/3. I always come back to the m4/3 gear. That is what I seem to almost always pick up on my way out. It does everything (and more) that I need for the kinds of photography I practice. Why would I sell it? Even if eventually Olympus cameras and lenses go away, there is still Panasonic. Excellent as well.
Thanks for the update on your recent trip.
ReplyDeleteMy wife & I might want to consider doing a visit to the area.
Did you have some kind of logical order or plan to visit places?
Any lodging options that impressed you more than usual in the area?
Thanks- Chris
Chris, we had friends staying in an RV Park in Intercourse, PA, which is about 7 miles east of Lancaster. We stayed in the Best Western Plus Suites in Intercourse and had an excellent experience. In the past, we’ve had good experiences staying in the Hampton Inn and a Marriott property (not a Marriott but one of their hotel chains) almost next to the Information Center on Greenfield Rd, just off of Rt. 30 bypass. Those two hotels are close to everything. If you are a Costco member, there is a Costco across the street for inexpensive gasoline and a McDonald’s next to it if you don’t want to eat hotel food.
DeleteFor the covered bridges, I have a document showing turn-by-turn directions to every one of the 29 covered bridges in the county. It was given to me several years ago by an Information Center worker. If you or anyone else would like a copy of it, I digitized the info into a PDF and will gladly send you a copy if you email me privately. My email address can be found on my website.
As far as the other things we visited, I checked the days and hours the Central Market was open as well as the steam locomotive tourist train operation at the Strasberg Railroad nearby. As for photographing the Amish, we just roamed the backroads through the countryside and found potential images everywhere. Just be respectful of them, if you will. Also, there are shops everywhere with local food, crafts, curios, etc. Lots of quilt shops, fabric shops, an outlet mall, tours of Amish farms and the Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum. Lots of things to do. Personally, I’ll do without the shopping! Hope this helps.
If you or any other reader has any questions about traveling to Lancaster, please also email me privately. My affinity for the area goes back a long way as my grandfather practiced medicine in downtown Lancaster starting about 1918 and my dad grew up there. So, I’ve been going literally for my entire life. It is one of the few places I wouldn’t mind living.
Thanks for the info - I sent you an email getting a copy of your pdf.
DeleteOn the family history side, my own family has some connections to PA.
I always wanted to explore this region more.
Thanks - Chris in WI