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| A typical Colonial Williamsburg scene as this horse drawn carriage travels along Duke of Gloucester St. (click any image to enlarge) All photos with a Fujifilm X-T4 and either the 16-55mm f/2.8, 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 or 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens. |
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have read once or twice (or more) that one of my favorite photographic activities is to grab my gear and go out and wander just to see what interesting things I can find to photograph. Hence how this blog acquired its name. Another of my favorite photographic activities is to meet up with a good friend (or friends) and photograph. On those occasions, it is as much about the photography as it is about friendship and sharing the experience. The other day, that is just what I did.
My good friend Dave Hileman (TwoLaneTouring.com) was in Williamsburg, Virginia for a few days and we arranged to meet and spend the day photographing. Dave lives in North Carolina now and we don't get to get together very often, but when we do, we always have a really good time. We don't try to solve the problems of the world when we get together, we just enjoy the moment and laugh a lot. Dave, like me, is a Fujifilm photographer so gear is another topic of conversation we enjoy. If you have any interest in visiting any or all of the National Park Service properties (about 450 or so of them?) Dave has now visited and photographed over 300 and his goal is to visit and photograph all of them. His blog is a wealth of information about visiting and photographing NPS properties. Oh! And gourmet ice cream!
As I had planned to photograph in Colonial Williamsburg during this fall foliage season, that was one of our destinations. With nothing in mind to specifically photograph, we casually walked throughout the Colonial area and made images of whatever struck our fancy. Walk, talk and photograph. A number of those images are here for your viewing pleasure. They can give you an idea of what Colonial Williamsburg is like.
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| A colonial re-enactor awaiting tourists to explain her little part of history. |
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| Duke of Gloucester St. |
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| Bruton Parish Church steeple |
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| A recreation of an 18th century garden. |
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| Mark Schneider as the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general who help George Washington defeat Conwallis and win the Revolutionary War. |
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| Mark Schneider is completely in character as he even speaks with a French accent. |
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| Reenactors in front of the restored courthouse. If you look carefully in between but behind them, you can see the gray painted stocks used for punishing the wicked. |
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| Until recently, there are a line of mature deciduous trees lining the sidewalk. I don't know why they were removed, but being gone it really changes the looks of the 18th century homes. |
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| Virginia Capital Building |
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| Bruton Parish Church |
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| There are active archeological digs in progress in more than one place in the colonial area. This one is excavating the foundation of the first African-American church. |
Additionally, we thought we would see what wildlife and birds were to be seen but found very little to photograph. We did spot this little Eastern Screech Owl and, in a nearby pond, a few mallards. Other than that, the wildlife and birds were nowhere to be seen.
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| This little Eastern Screech Owl is elusive. I've never see it in any but cold weather. |
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| Female mallard. No exotic wildlife but that was okay as finding this female and the male below gave me an opportunity to practice for next month's annual wildlife weekend excursion. |
Finally, we drove over and through the Yorktown Battlefield at the eastern terminus of the Colonial Parkway. (The Colonial Parkway is a wonderful 17 mile drive between Yorktown to the east and Jamestown to the west with Williamsburg in between.) There we made a couple of images, for me, mostly repeats of things I had photographed in past years. I try to return to various locations, even though I may have photographed there many times in the past, always looking to better what I have made previously. In this case, nothing better.
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| One of the roads deep within the Yorktown Battlefield |
Photography is usually a solo endeavor for me, but I enjoy being out and photographing with friends just as much. I find it inspiring and challenging to see the images made at the same time and place as mine but by a different photographer. Those images are normally very different from mine and I benefit from seeing and learning how others see.
None of these images are portfolio quality. They are really a record of where I was and what I saw on one particular day. But, to me, they are also a memory of a good time with a good friend.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a number of my older images from Colonial Williamsburg. You can find them here if you would like to see even more of the restored 18th century colonial area. If you haven't visited, Colonial Williamsburg is both a visual and historical delight. As I said in that blog post, I have no affiliation with Colonial Williamsburg whatsoever, receive nothing from them directly nor indirectly. Colonial Williamsburg is just a really interesting place to visit.
All in all, it was a really pleasant day. The weather was perfect and the company was even better. Then, to top it all off, I brought home some pleasing photographs. What more could I have asked for?
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
All content on this blog is © 2013-2021 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.
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