Draw the Sword

Recently spent a few very cold days in Gettysburg. Didn’t do much monument project work (most of the battlefield was shut down as they are apparently not salting any of the roads ……), but I did take a few landscape photographs. Hope you enjoy them. If you’d like to view them larger, click on the image to go to Flickr, then select “All Sizes.” I will post a few more over the next few days. Image to the left is a close up of General Buford’s statue out on the Chambersburg Pike west of town.

For 145 years, a silent witness.

This is the huge witness tree near the sharpshooter’s nest at Devil’s Den in sepia tone. Very cloudy day so shooting in black and white worked best. I like playing around with making modern photographs look really old and aged. There aren’t many witness trees left at Gettysburg, of course. I figure it is best to enjoy them and photograph them while they stand … You never know if they will still be there when you come back again.

Ribbons of color over Little Round Top – the Warren Monument on Little Round Top at sunset.

This one is actually unedited and taken straight from the camera — no photoshopping necessary. I think this is probably the most photographed monument on the battlefield. I have many Warren sunsets, and all are a little different. This was a killer sunset.

General Lee on his horse Traveller, top of the Virginia State Monument on West Confederate Avenue, Seminary Ridge.

Used my 300 mm lens to capture the detail on Lee’s coat and to make it seem like I was actually on a plane with the monument. (I wasn’t of course.) I took several, thought this one in profile was the best view. It has been said that this is a particularly good likeness of Traveller.

The Klingel farm on the Emmitsburg Road.

The National Park Service is currently doing work on the Klingel farm to restore it to the 1863 appearance. It was bitterly cold. Note the horse. :) It was so cold that he didn’t even want to come down to the fence this time to get a pat on the head.

Fire in the sky.

This is the sunset on Friday night as viewed from the north side of Little Round Top near the position of the 121st New York Infantry. Silhouetted a giant evergreen against the red sky. It was very cold but one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen in Gettysburg.

I’ll have more photographs to share tomorrow or Saturday.