Fluffed.

Running down by Baldwin Lake in Berea yesterday (my second run of the day), I spotted this guy. So of course I had to stop and try and get a picture of him. I think I annoyed him because he fluffed up at me. I also got a picture of him stalking along the water and just standing looking all impressive.

I also went exploring very briefly in an old cemetery and took some pictures of a few graves of Civil War soldiers buried there. For example, Drummer Hiram Vaughn who served with the 65th Ohio Infantry. The 65th Ohio had a fairly impressive combat record. Here is their combat record from Larry Stevens’ fine website Ohio in the Civil War. After the War, Vaughn was prominent with the G.A.R. locally.

As you’ll notice, I’m a member of Flickr.  I use it to store my digital photographs.  Some areas that might be of interest to my Civil War visitors include my best of the Civil War sets, sets from Gettysburg (working on adding more), and two “kitchen sinks” sets — every picture I’ve taken digitally at Sharpsburg and at and around Gettysburg.  Of course, there are “throw away” shots in the kitchen sink collections, but if you dig through there are all sorts of different angles and shots of the battlefields in there, especially at Gettysburg.

(I’m basically trying to distract myself from worrying about a “routine” CT scan on Monday. There never seems to be anything “routine” about my CT scans, hence the anxiety.)

Signs of Spring: Wildflowers

We have been blessed here in northern Ohio with two gorgeous days in a row — and by gorgeous, I mean it’s picture perfect and warm enough to wear shorts (even when you’re not running).

I’ve taken advantage of the nice weather and run pretty much all over the place.  The picture to the left is along my favorite running trail — the needles from the evergreens make a nice soft carpet for running on.  As usual, I take my camera along just in case I see something worth shooting.

(I carry my camera — a very thin Olympus point-and-shoot model — in an ipod case strapped to my arm.)

There are signs of new life and spring everywhere.  It’s hard to believe that a month ago there was two feet of snow on the ground.

Here are a few wildflowers I stopped to take pictures of along my running route:

Along the suburban areas of my regular running route, I also passed quite a few nice gardens with beautiful spring flowers:

And then of course there are deer everywhere.

signs of spring in Ohio

Signs of spring in Ohio … Even if it is 37 degrees right now and raining …

Gettysburg - March 2008 Highlights

I changed my mind. I’m a woman, we’re apt to do that. =) That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Here are a few of my better photographs from this trip.
Recognize this monument up close? It’s the monument to the 78th and 102nd New York Infantry regiments on Upper Culp’s Hill.

There was great light for a morning trip to Culp’s Hill. I also got a good picture of the Dutchess County Regiment (the 150th New York).

A few more images of the Culp’s Hill area that were particular stand outs appear below.

Images left to right each row: Culp Barn, view of Gettysburg from Culp’s Hill Tower; Monuments to the 5th Ohio including it’s badge; General George Greene’s memorial on the summit of Culp’s Hill near the War Department tower.

This is a detail of the bugler on the Virginia Monument.

I also took a few close ups of General Lee on Traveller which you can see here and here.

Here are some more images from Confederate Avenue:

I must admit I especially like the image of the Bushman Farm with the wild growing (I assume) daffodils. Daffodils are associated with the American Cancer Society. The other farm (on the left) is the Biesecker Farm.

The monument to the left is a detail of the 17th Maine Monument along De Trobriand Avenue near the Rose Farm in the Wheatfield. As you probably are aware, the Wheatfield is my favorite area of the battlefield to study.

Below are a few monuments in the heavily monumented Wheatfield and Loop areas.

The monument to the left shows the Andrews Sharpshooters looking towards the Rose Farm. The second monument is a detail of the 4th Michigan’s Colonel Jeffords. He was bayoneted in the Wheatfield while defending that flag.

And of course you can’t go to Gettysburg with a camera and not stop to take pictures of the Sach’s Covered Bridge. (I also wandered back to take pictures of Pitzer’s Schoolhouse too.)

Other mandatory shots:

While almost no one misses the Pennsylvania Monument, Meade, and Hancock, not everyone bothers with visiting Benner’s Hill and the historic Daniel Lady Farm, but I think it’s worth a look-see, especially this time of year when you can make out the different rooftops and spires from behind the guns of Latimer’s Battery along Benner’s Hill.

And then there are of course some shots you take just because you think they look cool. Into that category falls the following four pairs of pictures:

And then there is of course the mandatory pictures of the Devil’s Den.

And finally I conclude with some images of sunset at Gettysburg. On this trip, I tried to shoot not only old favorites and old stand bys (like Warren and the 72nd Pennsylvania’s soldier swinging his musket at the Angle), but also some different views.

For example, this is Hampton’s Battery at the Peach Orchard.

Some of the images were chosen not because they were spectacular or fantastic but because the sky in them was just so different and unique.

(If I ever start waking up early enough, I will start scoping out sunrise locations. For now, you’ll just have to settle for sunsets.)

My Favorites

I decided to upload my 100 favorite photographs to my secondary Flickr account — the collection includes both Civil War and other stuff. Enjoy!

Photo 365

My friend Ben has been keeping a Photo 365 Blog. I have been long admiring Ben’s Photo Blog and decided I would borrow the idea and start my own. I started on February 28th. Here’s a link to my Photo 365 Blog.

(I used some of the 2007 dates to highlight some interesting or favorite pictures I took in the past if you want to also scroll back through and see more photography.)

more interesting battlefield details

In lieu of the usual monument post today (Leap Year Day!), I decided to do a follow-up post to the “devil is in the details” post I did about a week or two ago.

By the way … Who came up with the idea of putting Leap Year Day in FEBRUARY?!? How about we tack an extra day on to June instead. (I’m thinking whoever came up with the idea must have been from the Southern Hemisphere. Forget the Right Wing Conspiracy thing — It’s a Down Under Conspiracy, I am telling you!)

Rocks!

Row 1: Boulder near Devil’s Den at Triangular Field; boulders on Little Round Top

Row 2: Culp’s Hill boulder; the stonewall on Seminary Ridge

Creatures - Chipmunks

In the National Cemetery and on a wooden fence near the Virginia Monument

Creatures - Birds

On Buford’s head (red-wing blackbird), robin in the Wheatfield, buzzard on Little Round Top

Creatures - Cows (Moooo!)

Row 1 from the Rose Farm, row 2 near the Culp Farm.

Creatures - BUGS! And a toad!

GRASSHOPPER on Seminary Ridge; caterpillar near the Peach Orchard; caterpillar near the Wheatfield; toad in Rose’s Woods

Creatures - Horses!

The friendly gray horse at the Codori farm.

Monumental Inscriptions

Georgia State Monument; Virginia plaque. Indiana State; fading inscription on Little Round Top where Hazlett fell (behind 91st Pennsylvania Monument). 1st USSS (Berdan Avenue); 6th Independent NY Battery (near current Visitor’s Center)

Shadows

Pennsylvania Monument; the Longstreet tower.

Cannons

Little Round Top, Seminary Ridge.

Cavalry

4th New York; 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry

Southern Memorials

Monumental Detail

The Railroad Cut

Iron Confederate Tablets

Historic Farms and Barns

Bronze Officers

Sach’s Covered Bridge

The Union High Command

cold O-h-i-o

It is bitterly cold up here in northeastern Ohio, but the late February snow storm has left my hometown and my running trails looking rather starkly, icily, beautiful.

the arrant thief

“The moon’s an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.” (Shakespeare, Timon of Athens.)

Since my lunar eclipse photos didn’t come out all that well (lousy frozen fingers), I figured I’d dig through some of my battlefield photographs and find a few interesting images that showed off the “arrant thief.” Obviously, you have to get somewhat lucky to catch the moon in terms of the time you visit the battlefields — the moon isn’t visible at all times during the lunar month — and additionally the moon has to be located just right to make for a decent picture. I thought some of these images were kind of cool, though, and worth highlighting and sharing. Anyway, enjoy!

Image to the left above is obviously the moon peaking out behind Warren near dark on Little Round Top.

Monument to Union General Henry W. Slocum, commander of the Union XII Corps (or the right wing, I suppose, if you want Slocum’s take on the whole thing) on Stevens Knoll. Steven’s Knoll is a small rise located between Culp’s Hill and East Cemetery Hill. The moon is about half full and is visible below the horse’s tail.

(Here is an actual attempt to photograph the moon that morning. It was taken from Wainwright Avenue — the lane that runs below East Cemetery Hill. Wainwright Avenue is named for the commander of the Artillery Brigade of the First Corps. It was known during the battle as the Brickyard Lane.)

Of course, one of the Federal corps that fought at Gettysburg had a crescent moon shape for a corps identification badge — it just so happened that the half moons were the ill-fated, incredibly unlucky XI Corps. The XI Corps was commanded by one-armed General Oliver Otis Howard (who I like to refer to as Uh Oh Howard) at Gettysburg. Howard was a pretty pious guy and he wasn’t exactly liked by his men all that much. This image shows the moon over Howard’s statue on East Cemetery Hill. (To pick out the moon in most of these by the way you do need to enlarge the images.)

In a clear case of even the losers get lucky sometimes :) I caught the moon directly above the Lutheran Theological Seminary one morning in the fall on an incredibly bright blue morning — which makes the pale white moon much easier to pick up.

You can view the moon directly above the spire of the famous cupola on Shumaker Hall. You may even be able to see it in the thumbnail image.

(Here’s an image of the moon above another Seminary building on the same bright blue morning.)

Finally, one last image — this picture is taken near sunset, near the clump of trees on a partly cloudy day. The moon is visible just above the thick bank of pink-purple-blue clouds directly above the clump of trees at the Angle on Cemetery Ridge.

I’ve never really tried to photograph the moon per se except in a few limited incidences, but I hope you enjoy the few pictures I have where the “arrant thief” slipped in to a battlefield photograph.

the lunar eclipse

I made an attempt at photographing the lunar eclipse last night.  However, I have a really severe case of Raynaud’s Phenomenon in my fingers (especially my right hand) as a chemotherapy side effect.  Consequently, I couldn’t stand outside too long looking at the eclipse.  I did capture this interesting, blurred image of the rusty colored moon that almost looks like it was taken in time lapse.  I’m sure I couldn’t reproduce it if I tried.

My friend Ben gave me some night shooting tips (I obviously don’t shoot at night very often) — you can see his much better moon shot over in his 365 day photo blog.

(By the way if you looked at the eclipse, the two bright “stars” near the moon were Regulus and the planet Saturn.)