Recent Road Trip To Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Part II

Social Distancing?  Amish farmer hoeing his field.  The daylight was quickly fading but he remained in the field until after the sun set.  Sky and clouds are as I saw them. No sky replacement.  (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens + MC-14 1.4X tele-converter; 1/1600th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

Before I continue my story of our recent road trip and tell you about these images, after my last blog post about our trip, I received some questions about safety while traveling during this Covid-19 virus pandemic.  Before considering leaving on this trip, my wife and I sat down and consciously thought through the entire "safety" issue.  I called the hotel at which we were considering staying, asked about what the area's general situation was, what was open and closed and specifically asked about their sanitizing policies.  We didn't want to stay in a place of lodging whose management wasn't concerned about safety.

Briefly, I was told no room is re-rented until at least 72 hours after the previous guests have vacated it.  All rooms are completely sanitized.  Housekeeping only will enter your room if you desire (we did not want nor need housekeeping during our stay so as to keep the room as safe as possible) and everyone in the hotel was required to wear masks.  On several occasions, I saw housekeeping personnel in the hallways and lobby sanitizing anything that could be touched.  The continental breakfast items were individually wrapped (we didn't partake of any food) and the coffee station had cups that were individually wrapped.  We  were instructed to use a napkin to pump out the coffee into our cups. 

As far as the area restaurants and such, the "buffet" style restaurants, which allowed well separated indoor seating, handed out food from the buffet.  Diners were not allowed to place any food on their own plates.  Also, diners were separated from all food by Plexiglas.  You could still eat as much as you liked, you just had to go and ask for what you wanted.  The farmer's market was only allowing a few people in at a time.  That was evident in the image I previously posted.  The same was true of retail stores.  As I said, everywhere we went, everyone was wearing a mask.

Just to be extra safe, we took a box of nitrile gloves, a number of masks, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer.  We used each generously.  When refueling my vehicle, gloves were worn and immediately discarded.  When opening the doors of stores, hand sanitizer was used afterwards.  I carried a small bottle of it in my pocket.  Special attention was paid to never touching our eyes, noses or mouths.  Kind of easy to do if you are wearing a mask.

Before retirement, in my profession I was required to plan extensively and look at things critically.  I came to easily be able to work my way through problems using logic and created a mental ability to thoroughly think through things before acting.  I applied that same method for our travels last week.  We've now been home for a week.  Neither of us has any sign of illness so I think we did all the right things.  I would recommend you get out when you can as I think it is psychologically healthy, but think your way through all of the safety parameters and take all necessary precautions so you stay safe.  We did and it worked in our favor.

Now, back to the road trip and the images.

One of the delights of the Lancaster County area is the ability to witness life as it was led by most of our ancestors.  Life was a bit different before automobiles, electricity, washing machines, indoor plumbing, telephones, etc.  It was mostly an agrarian life filled with a lot of hard work and manual labor.  That is exactly what you see all around Lancaster County.  The Amish have lived and continue to live by a very strict code of conduct, based upon their religious beliefs.  I believe they must enjoy their way of life as their numbers are climbing and only a few choose to leave the Order.  Everything is pretty much done the way it was more than a hundred years ago.  There is something to be said for simple living.

Walking to work. See story in the body of this post.  (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens + MC 14 1.4X tele-converter @ 210mm; 1/400th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

Some of my favorite kinds of photography are finding the old, abandoned, left behind and unique.  I love documenting old ways of life and the objects that represent those ways of life that are either quickly going away are almost all gone.  I like finding and photographing steam locomotives, old iron bridges, old barns, old silos, small towns which haven't changed much in decades, old farm implements, covered bridges, old rusted cars in fields, etc.  You get the picture (pun intended!).  Lancaster gives us that opportunity.  The Amish represent a way of life that has long been abandoned by almost all of modern society.  They continue to hold on dearly to their value system and religious beliefs with very little compromise.  Although deeply entrenched in the area, many Amish farm families have left the area and moved to the Midwest due to the abundant amount of commercialism that is has now overrun the county.  Yet their numbers increase.

A cold drink of water before starting the long, manual work of hoeing this field.  (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens + MC 14 1.4X tele-converter @ 210mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

The brief story of these images.  My wife and I met up with our friends, David and Cindy Hileman (TwoLaneTouring.com) in Lancaster to share the road trip, hang out, photograph and eat ice cream.  Specifically, Lapp's Valley Farm's really, really good ice cream!  Did I mention the great ice cream? I digress.  Yes, Dave and Cindy, before and during our trip, practiced the same safety measures as do we.  We felt very comfortable around them.

Since Dave and Cindy travel in their small Oliver trailer, often times we would gather there to enjoy the evening, sit, talk and listen to nature.  One could hear the "clop, clop, clop" of the horses pulling Amish buggies in the distance.  A nearby lake, filled with geese and ducks, provided a cacophony of sounds as well.  While sitting and talking Dave and I spotted this Amish farmer walking up the hill next to the road.  He was carrying a hoe so we knew where he was going and what he was going to do.  We were back from the road quite a way and we decided to grab our cameras with telephoto lenses and try to capture him as he worked his field.

I was able to capture this mini story quite easily.  I recorded the farmer walking with his hoe up the hill next to the road, walking up the grassy slope into the field, then before starting his work, drinking a large amount of water.  After quenching his thirst, he then walked into the furrowed crops and started working them and hoeing until after the sun sank behind us.  As the evening progressed the sky just kept getting better and better and better.  I don't think it could have been a more rewarding experience.  It was a unique sight with a unique sky.  With today's sophisticated editing software, it is easy to assume I used a "replacement" sky in the top image.  I did not.  The skies almost every evening were spectacular during the week we were there.

The Olympus E-M1 Mark III with the 40-150mm f/2.8 lens + MC-14 1.4X tele-converter attached made capturing sharp, colorful and very detailed images quite easy.  Additionally, with the extraordinary quality of Olympus' in-body-image-stabilization (IBIS), handholding the camera and lens was no problem.  That makes things much easier when having to quickly move around as your scene changes and still be able to get the images you want.  Quickly moving a camera mounted on a tripod around while having to adjust the camera's position on the ball head just doesn't work very well during dynamic situations.  Olympus' IBIS is wonderful!

Being able to roam the beautiful countryside, just spend time with great friends, enjoy their company, the evenings and then the bonus of photographing something one just doesn't see very often made the trip special, especially after being locked down for months.  Great memories.  Oh!  Did I mention the ice cream?  Lol.

P.S.  You'll see most Amish men with long beards.  I believe, if my memory serves correctly, that Amish men don't grow beards until they marry.  Once they marry, the beards are a permanent fixture on their faces.  It seems most Amish men's beards are gray or white, however, I did seem some with beards that were brown.  Obviously, younger men.  I have a couple of images of Amish farmers with darker beards that I'll share next week.

More story and images to come.  Stay tuned...
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Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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