Lititz, Pennsylvania - Way Better than Hershey

This morning I found myself, along with the best mothers in the world, my mom and my next door neighbor’s mom that I grew up with, here in beautiful Lititz, Pennsylvania.

It was a gorgeous sunny day around 10am when we met. The temperature was an modest 55-57 degrees and I was looked at like I had two heads wearing a golf shirt and swimming trunks. But let’s be honest- it will get warmer and it did!

My photography club met here this morning to do yet another photowalk of this beautiful town we’re so blessed to have that exists about one-hour away from the Mechanicsburg/Camp Hill/Harrisburg area.

Lititz, PA is known for being a beautiful quaint little town nestled between the hustle and bustle of PA with some Amish influence. They are known primarily for three things: Wilbur Chocolate which is WAY better than Hershey, Sturgis Pretzels and the fact they do NOT allow any Subways, Burger Kings, McDonald’s or any other nonsense disgusting fast food or corporate owned entities encroach in their town. Out of all of the amazing choices, I ate at the Tomato Pie Cafe. I ordered two slices of their signature tomato pie that came with a side of fresh greens and fresh dressing and a glass bottle of Coca-Cola. The meal also came with a scone that was out of this world.

I’m not a historian but I do love history and if you are on my page I want YOU to love history too, so please click here to learn more about Lititz, PA! Please see the images below from my work during my photowalk! And thank you for visiting.

-Mike

Lebowski's Reunion Show! Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center, Harrisburg, PA

Saturday, May 4. First time in a couple years I haven’t heard that absolutely trendy, stupid, lame…nah we’re not going there I’m a grown adult and don’t need to enable the nonsense.

What isn’t nonsense is my buddy Craig (my dude I have Phillies season tickets with!) had a reunion with his band. After eight, yeah EIGHT years, The Lebowskis decided to grace Harrisburg, PA with their presence again! They played their album, Tuesday Nights, in its entirety ending with an amazing song about chicken relating to all of our favorite hockey team.

Now we rely on the opposing NBA team to miss two free throws so we can maybe get a Red Bull or 5-piece if we’re lucky and eligible! Yes, I got screwed out of a Red Bull at a Sixers game because my ticket said I didn’t live in a certain county. What a ripoff!

Anyway, the show took place at HMAC, a really sick venue located here in Central, Pennsylvania. That stands for Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center. And it’s located near one of the best markets in the South Central, PA area: Broad Street. Easily one of my favorite farmer’s markets aside from similar offerings from West Shore. If you’re local, go there. By, “go there,” I mean check ‘em both out! You won’t be disappointed.

BUT to stay on topic- I’m fairly bummed, however, because after calibrating my camera to the proper settings, formatting my cards and bringing extra cards, batteries and a nice bag because it was pouring the rain down outside the venue I forgot one critical thing- shutter speed! So I shot aperture priority all night as opposed to full manual. Oooooffff, Michael… you know better! However, I was there to enjoy myself and watch one of my favorite bands. It was a positive experience and I saw folks I hadn’t seen for years and met new friends. I even befriended some Canadians who hated every band I liked from Canada. At least my country can’t claim Nickelback. Just sayin’.

Here’s some images of the show! What a blast! Check the guys out on Facebook here as well as Spotify.

-Mike

Burritt on the Mountain - HSV, AL

Burritt on the Mountain is one of the first places I visited when I started visiting Alabama.


In 1869, William Burritt was born. He, just as his father was, became a physician. In 1900 he moved to St. Louis, Missouri with his second wife. In addition to being a physician, he became an entrepreneur and investor in industries such as mining, farming and other industrial production.

After his wife passed away, he moved back to Huntsville, Alabama in 1934 where he built a mansion on the property of this mountain. Having lots of money, he was able to go beyond standard building procedures and prepped his house with electrical wiring, even though electricity was not yet available in the area.

Luckily for Mr. Burritt, electricity soon became available in his area of Huntsville. However, one major oversight, lead to the mansion burning down. That oversight- hay insulation. And electrical fire was rapidly spread throughout the mansion burning it to the ground before any help could arrive.

He rebuilt the mansion and lived in it until 1955.

His end goal was to create the first museum in the Huntsville area. So after his death, his property and mansion were willed to the city. The city started moving in and relocating historic log homes, a church and schoolhouse and spread them around the property. These structures have been completely restored and conserved for the public to tour. There are a total of twelve buildings to visit.

Burritt on the Mountain also plays host to school trips, guided tours, weddings and more.

-Mike

Huntsville Botanical Garden - HSV, AL

After two or three prior visits, this place does not get old. Spanning 118 acres off Bob Wallace Avenue, these gardens have a variety of indigenous and foreign plants, trees, annuals, perennials as well as a gorgeous butterfly sanctuary. Unfortunately, the butterfly rooms were closed due to re-population and renovations. I always have Hershey Gardens locally for my macro photography fix. All of the photos below were shot with my medium format Fuji GFX rig, where as I need my Nikon (preferably my Nikon D7200 crop) with my 105mm macro Nikkor lens for butterflies. So this will work out great when I venture to Chocolate Town whenever I please.

Just five minutes off the highway near the US Space and Rocket Center (also an amazing place to check out if you’re in town), these botanical gardens give guests a variety of plant-life, art and hiking trails sure to please everyone. The gardens were founded in 1979. At the beginning of 1980, Huntsville-Madison County Botanical Garden Society gathered amongst their peers and had meetings consistently asking for funding from the city and eventually raised $200,000 with the city matching this to start the acreage on the gardens. Six months later and 35 acres later Huntsville Botanical Gardens were started. Full history here.

As one of Alabama’s most coveted tourist attractions, they do charge admission and offer an awesome gift shop, super clean restrooms and a cafe for refreshments and snacks.

-Mike

Sloss Furnaces - Birmingham, Alabama

I just got back from a week’s long trip to the Huntsville, Alabama area. I ate like a king, watched a lot of hockey, attended a Trash Pandas baseball game and got in some much needed rest and relaxation.

Also, I kept myself occupied with some different adventures starting with Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama about an hour and a half or so from where I was staying.

This was a really fun experience and aside from a creative playground for photography, it was free (donations welcomed, of course). The colors, which were at one point in time rich and vibrant, were weathered and faded. I took creative license to make them pop a little and brighten things up a bit.

Sloss Furnaces was in operation from 1882 - 1971. Using a blast furnace, it produced what is known as, “pig-iron.” This is a crude version of iron used in the production of steel.

It was founded by an industrialist by the name of James Withers Sloss who later sold it in 1886 to investors who renamed the furnaces to Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company.

A full history can be found on the Sloss Furnaces website.

-Mike

Kiwanis Lake, York Pennsylvania - Egret Central

Today, along with my camera club, I visited Kiwanis Lake around 8:00am. At this time of the year, Egrets local to this area are making their nests and getting ready to get greasy and make babies. The males display a beautiful bright green color around their eyes which turns yellow after they’re done having themselves a time with females.

I brought two pieces of gear with me today- My Nikon D850 and my Nikon Nikkor 200-500mm lens. I left my teleconverter at home as I didn’t think I needed it and my thought process was mostly right. It was tough enough to track at 500mm let alone adding the extra length and calculating the extra math. I’m happy with the decision I made as it was simple and allowed me to focus solely on photographing the birds nesting as well as them in flight without using too much brain power.

-Mike

That Solar Phenomenon That Happened Today...

Today I awoke with with not so high hopes as the local news dude whose name I can’t pronounce, Weather.com and Accu Weather had not been giving very promising weather reports.

On any account- I laid in bed drinking Deer Park Sparkling Lime Water (the most flavorful fizzy water on the market in my opinion). I feared the worst as the prior forecasts had stated mostly cloudy. Maybe the sun would bear its face but at the time it looked unlikely. I had already canceled a trip to Cleveland on account of extreme price gouging (I get it) and the gamble of not having good skies to photograph this phenomenon. So instead of 100% totality, best case scenario where I live it would be 92% and some change.

I’m glad I stuck around my house because I was able to contently photograph what was available to me- which was clouds, trees and oh- the sun did decide to come out.

Moving to my front yard I was able to get more views not blocked by other things like branches and sticks.

This was much more challenging than I thought it would be. However, it played out to be a fun and unique experience.

Images shot with a Nikon D850 and Tamron 150-600mm lens with a 95mm ICE ND Filter. Enjoy!

-Mike

Indian Echo Caverns

Today started around 6:15 AM when my alarm went off. I awoke a bit later after hitting the snooze button, groggy and heavy on the allergies acting up. Nothing was stopping me though from today’s adventure- not even the leftover tuna noodle casserole I made the night before with Lipton onion soup mix, fake parmesan cheese and cream-of-celery soup with a couple cans of the “chicken of the sea.” Tuna… they call it tuna.

Around 7:20 AM I fired up Big Red and departed towards Sheetz to withdrawal money for my admission and obtain caffeine. Final destination: Indian Echo Caverns.

I had not visited (and I feel old saying this) Indian Echo Caverns for 30 whole years. Yep. Last time I was there I was probably in third grade on a field trip with Sporting Hill Elementary School! Such a geezer I am becoming!

Call time was 8am for the West Shore Photography Club. Our fearless leader, Joe, gave us multiple focus stacking demonstrations and we met our guides Karen and Mike. Massive thanks to both of them for being our guides and lending their knowledge of the cavern.

Additional thanks to the WSPC leaders Elaine, Mary, Joe and Mike for putting this amazing trip together.

-Mike

Eastern State Penitentiary

Finally, after years of dying to visit this place I got a chance. I met up with a few of the folks from the camera club, some of whom knew this place very well. I opted not to take a guided or audio tour, rather just focus on exploration and taking my time photographing all I could. I live close enough to and frequent Philly enough that I will find some time to carve out to take one of the tours since I love learning history. Their Halloween events look pretty neat as well.

I did miss a few spots in the prison (aside from what was closed off) but overall was able to capture most of what I set out to get. I considered this trip a massive success and was happy with my results as well as everyone else’s from my club.

This prison is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information on this historic landmark, you can visit their website here.

-Mike

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex

Annually, my camera club gets together to photograph the interior (and exterior if we please) of the state capitol complex in Harrisburg, PA. Generally, we get to adventure into rooms normally not open to public tours which gives us more opportunities to explore this architecturally amazing building. The craftsmanship through out is spectacular and gives you a massive appreciation for the amount of integrity builders once had when designing and constructing these buildings. While modern architecture definitely can be stunning, nothing in my opinion, beats these old facilities. Around every corner and space there is an opportunity for creative photography. And just across the street is Jackson House. Meaning, after a couple hours of shooting, a fantastic hoagie is just a few minutes away. Their burgers are most likely the best around, too.

-Mike