Early Bloom
Thanks to the crazily mild winter that we’ve had here in Eastern North Carolina, signs of spring are already showing up on some confused plant life. In the past couple of days, most of the flowering bushes around my house have bloomed. This morning I woke up and went outside to see that even my Crepe Myrtles were flowering. This is all great until I realize that the grass needs mowed already…
Although I am not sure of what this bush is, it has been my favorite. The flowers resemble roses, although I do know it isn’t a rose bush. There was a morning dew beaded up on its petals and with a beam of sunlight shining down on it, I had to go grab my camera and take a few frames.
The shot on the left was taken with my Nikkor 70-300 VR lens and the one on the right was taken using a Nikkor 50mm 1.8. Both with a Nikon D90 body.
Emerald Isle Photography Workshop
Folks have been asking me for a while now about offering some photography classes and training sessions. I have always wanted to do something along those lines. Although I’m very flattered that people want to learn from me, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t intimidating. Luckily, in talking with my friend and fellow photographer Brad Styron I learned that he was looking to do the same kind of thing. So we joined forces and co-hosted a beach photography workshop on Emerald Isle. It turned out being a great success and with six attendees and two instructors, everyone got a lot of one-on-one attention. We had two classroom sessions broken up by two beach shoots. I didn’t get as many behind the scenes shots as I wanted, but here’s a little collection. Thanks to everyone who came out, it was a lot of fun!
This is the finished version of the shot I quickly went over before we shot the sunset. I thought that the folks attending may like to see how it ended up.
If you didn’t get a chance to come out, there will be more sessions in the very near future. Interested in a workshop in your area? Shoot me an email and we’ll see if we can set one up!
©2012 Zach Frailey
February’s First Eve
Here’s a short video I shot on the night of February 1, 2012. I set out to shoot a timelapse of the sunset, but ended up with a ton of other footage. I put it all together to make a sort of visual narrative. I’m shaking off the video rust, you see, I haven’t done anything since I was in college and even then, I wasn’t shooting with DSLRs as I am now. As anything, it’s a learning process and I like to think each shoot gets a little better!
Shot on the boardwalk behind the North Carolina History Center in New Bern, North Carolina using a Nikon D90, Nikkor 50mm, Nikkor 18-105mm and Rokinon 8mm lenses.
Paranormal Activity?
This was probably the freakiest photo shoot location I’ve been to and am pretty sure I had my first paranormal encounter here. Here’s the story:
This winter, I set out with my friend Ben in Pennsylvania for an abandoned coal facility that I had shot at before. Problem was, I hadn’t been there for over two years. It was a lot freakier this time than the last. To make matters worse, it was cold and pouring down rain. We decided to venture in anyway and immediately I felt some sort of odd feeling that is hard to explain. The whole time I was shooting I felt like I was being watched. People make that statement all the time and it’s easy to roll your eyes at it, but I truly felt that. It seemed as if someone was lurking around the corner at all times.
This feeling of uneasiness lasted the entire time we shot. In the middle of shooting a set of brackets, I started to hear strange metal clanking sounds. (Now is a good time to point out that there was absolutely no wind blowing) Thinking that it was just something swaying or moving from the rain, I kept shooting. The clanking was almost rhythmic, something that a dangling pipe wouldn’t do. It would speed up and slow down, all at regular intervals. Ben and I decided that was a sign that it was time to go. I packed up my gear (at this point the noise stopped) and gathered up my tripod and umbrella. As we stepped outside, the real freak out occurred.
Outside the huge front door, there is an old truck (looked like a 1960’s model) half sunken in the dirt and junk that litters the area. The exposed radiator fan on the truck was spinning full speed, silently. A little taken aback, I walked toward it. As I took a few steps, the fan drastically slowed down and suddenly stopped. Now, being that this truck has been sitting in that spot for all this time, there is no way that rusty fan could turn so easily, right? And what’s the explanation for it’s strange deceleration?
I just wish that I hadn’t put my gear away, who knows what I could have captured if I shot that old truck. It was quite simply the strangest, most unexplainable thing I’ve experienced. Just as the uneasy feeling had swept over me as we entered the property, it disappeared as we left. As we walked back to the car excitement and wonder set in. But the entire time we walked, I couldn’t help but look behind my back…
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photos ©2012 Zach Frailey
Click image for full-size 1920x1080px desktop wallpaper image.
February 2012’s Desktop Wallpaper Calendar
Occasionally I’ll have some trouble picking what image will be featured on the next month’s desktop calendar. As you know, I choose my favorite shot from the month before. January was a great month in that I got a lot of ‘keepers’ as I call them; solid shots that are portfolio worthy. Any month where I have more than one or two is considered a highy successful month.
You can see the original post and image here.
‘Wet Feet’ is now available as the newest installment in my Limited Edition Gallery Series. You can see more information on that here.
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