Loosestrife and Fog - Troy Meadows, NJ
I saw this meadow driving by one day and knew it had to be photographed in the morning, so I returned and was happy to see ground fog swirling throughout the me...
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I saw this meadow driving by one day and knew it had to be photographed in the morning, so I returned and was happy to see ground fog swirling throughout the meadow which helped create a more mysterious mood. I returned each year and each time it was different until one last time I arrived to find that the forest behind the solitary tree had been bulldozed!! It was a sad day, but not the only place I photographed where that occurred in NJ.
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Jul, 2015Views
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Awards
Fall Award 2020
Superb Composition
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Outstanding Creativity
Absolute Masterpiece
Peer Award
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jjraia
September 18, 2015
Not bad for sitting on the porch waving to the passing traffic. Believe it or not, this is in NJ away from all the refineries and factories, but very close to Rte. 280 so it's not wilderness!!!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
Troy Meadows, in north/central New Jersey. A beautiful spot preserved through the Green Acres initiative by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.Time
Early morning just as the sun rose over the trees in the east at the edge of the meadow.Lighting
The meadow runs east/west, so morning light will rake across the meadow for beautiful side lighting. The bonus was that if it's cool the prior evening, it produces ground fog there even though there is none anywhere else in the area. I captured this area several times over a few years beginning in 1993 until, sadly in 1998, the forest behind the single tree was bulldozed out; so the scene does not exist any longer. Luckily, I have several years of images, each a bit different from the previous year, but the tree remains constant.Equipment
Mamiya 645 Super with a 210mm (about 135mm in 35mm format) f/4 lens, Bogen tripod and Fuji Velvia film.Inspiration
I saw this scene in 1993 from the highway while traveling to bring my daughter to summer camp and knew it would be a good shot early in the morning when the light would come across the meadow. I just didn't expect the fog as an added bonus. Each year afterward, I knew the Loosestrife was in bloom during the first week in August, and tried to get there on a clear, cool morning in hopes of having the same conditions as the first year.Editing
This photo was taken the second year I returned in 1994, so at the time there really weren't digital cameras yet or Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. So prints were made the old fashioned way. More recently, I had the chrome drum scanned and did some minor tweaking to remove some small distractions (to my eye) and some color correction.In my camera bag
Nikon D800, Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 (for greater depth of field since it stops down to f/22 instead of only f/16) and an old Nikon 70-200 f/4-AI-s manual focus for it's sharpness and low cost. Various split neutral density and polarizing filters, and a wireless cable release to maintain the best possible sharpness in the image.Feedback
The most important thing to remember is if you see, take the shot now because it will always be different if you decide to come back another time. Occasionally you may get a better shot if you decide to return, but often you've lost the magical conditions of the original moment that inspired you in the first place. And in the case here, the scene could have been destroyed by unexpected forces. This has occurred to me several times where I have found a spot I wish to return to either year after year or to record in every season, only to find the forest gone or a house built behind the scene.
