Fighter Jets!

I’ve always been fascinated by aviation. Then in 10th grade my science teacher was like, “dude you barely passed algebra and need like tons of physics courses and stuff to get into that.” She told me I was dumb in a really nice way. Bless her heart. Anyway, my dreams of flying the Millennium Falcon or even an X-Wing were completely shot.

Today, though, I got an opportunity I have been seeking for quite some time. I received a ticket to the Air Show at the airport in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I have missed the past few years in Ocean City, Maryland so I jumped right on this chance.

There were several pilots doing really cool stunts in really cool airplanes. I had never shot or tracked anything this fast so this was a great learning opportunity for me. I took full advantage. I brought my Fuji GFX 50S II for my walk around camera using the 45-100mm lens. For the aerial stuff, I used my Nikon D850 with a 200-500mm Nikkor lens with a 1.4TC. I removed the TC as it had trouble tracking in AF-C mode. After removing the TC and simply shooting 200-500mm and fine tuning some settings I was able to get some satisfactory images.

The Blue Angels were the obvious headliners. There was also a solo F-16 flying around as if it were the Ferrari of the skies. In between everything there were other pilots flying some older aircraft doing some phenomenal stunts almost making them look like they’d crash. A P-51 Mustang also raced a Tesla Cybertruck. Guess who won? Unfortunately I was behind the tents so I missed the race.

The Life Lion also took flight. Although no barrel rolls, flips or inverted flight, it was cool to see such an important aircraft to our area do a few pass by’s. It was nothing shy of skillful flight displaying pure ability and talent. These pilots and helicopters are relied on for every day life saving procedures regardless of weather conditions. They are the true heroes of the show. That being said, it was positive experience to see them displaying their flight mastery over the local Harrisburg skies proving their abilities to save lives.

The sheer propensity to control their aircraft and the pure skill these pilots displayed today blew me away and I am now FULLY addicted to continuing to get better at photographing aircraft of all types! What an amazing day! It was also awesome running into my good buddy Kenny at the show! It was his birthday this weekend, so I made sure to photograph him eating his favorite milkshake. Enjoy the photos below.

- Mike

Navy’s Blue Angels #5 and #6 doing some inverted tricks roughly 12-18” from wing tip to wing tip, cockpit windshield to cockpit windshield. These are the elite of the elite. Phenomenal performance. Really makes you appreciate everyone in the military who keep us safe.

Horse Farms and Popes!

Today, May 10, I visited the Hanover Horse Shoes Farms in Hanover, Pennsylvania. These are a pristine series of over 30 farms housing 900+ horses that will be sold as trotters, race horses and work horses. Full history can be found here. I would check it out as they are world famous! They recently sold a foal for over the massive price tag of $1,000,000. That’s a pretty penny.

After leaving the horse farm my photography club visited the Sacred Heart Basilica. This church boasts being the oldest church in the United States of America built of stone. Named a Minor Basilica on June 30, 1962 it’s a church officially designated and given special privileges by the Pope, who is a fellow baseball fan. As a Church of Christ guy myself, I don’t know a ton about the Catholic Church so I can’t comment too much further other than the renovations to Sacred Heart were phenomenal and I enjoyed grabbing a pano from the rear pews.

As for the photos I am presenting, the first three are shot through my Nikon D810 which was recently converted to infrared. The magenta image of the shack was brought into Light Room as shot from camera and tweaked. I kept the IR without converting to black and white for dramatic effect. Those are all shot through a Nikon D810 with 24-120mm f/4 glass. The abstract horse stall, chain and panorama was shot with my Fuji GFX 50S Mark II with a 45-100mm lens.

- Mike

REVISIT: Martin Guitar Factory

Welp, 510 Sycamore St, Nazareth, PA 18064, here I am again. Hello, Hi! Great to see you again.

April comes and May MAY rain down some showers, but Michael (me in 3rd person) makes guitar factory visits. This time I visited with my buddy Nate who can shred with the best of them.

It was great seeing this factory again as many things, including their artists wall, were redone. They also installed a patented machine I probably can’t talk about but watching it is pretty sick. When I was there in the fall of 2024 they were installing it and literally could not speak of it- just that it was a new installation to make their already amazing instruments better. So if you are interested I guess in all fairness you just have to visit. There’s plenty of other cool history to check out while you’re in town.

As always I have nothing but great things to say about this place. For five crisp one-dollar-bills, one crisp 5-dollar-bill you get in. Don’t try a three-dollar-bill, because it might get you arrested. Actually…ya gotta sign up online with a solid piece of plastic. We calls them things debit or credit cards. Either way, the tour is $5 (should be clear by now, nerds).

It is worth every penny. Trust me. Sign up. And please visit this place to eat on your way out of town. They rule and take great care of you. No, I’m not sponsored but I’ll take free stuff if they see this! I recommend the burgers and pierogies.

- Mike

Yeeaaahhhhh, that’s me. I’m playing a $4,000+ Martin acoustic guitar in their, “Picking Room.” What am I playing? Great question. “Horse with No Name” by America. Or Nirvana. Who knows. All I know is I didn’t want to break it!

Pennsylvania State Library - Yes I Visited One of Those!

Nestled between some inconvenient parking garages that discriminate against trucks and annoying street parking is the Pennsylvania State Library. There is WAY too much information to provide for the deep, structured and chalk full beautiful history of this facility so I’ll go ahead and post it here (from their very site). It is well worth the read and the librarians and staff did a fantastic job giving us an overview.

After our orientation, we got to explore all floors and even the basement which houses the archives. Downstairs on the, “G LEVEL” are some really cool artifacts, historical books, (Rick from Pawn Stars would drool over these for his shop), statues, paintings and cool sculptures. We happened to run into an employee who showed us the attached auditorium to the library which was not originally part of our photography club’s tour. Right place right time for sure! This dude made my day!

What a blast today was exploring such an amazing historical building housing so many things I would never touch…books. But those are cool, I guess!

- Mike

Antique Cars; No Coffee with the Cars

It really doesn’t make a difference if there was coffee and cars combined today. I don’t take part in those, “gatherings.” I’m jamming out to some Thursday and Witness Marker enjoying the post production photo editing process and my afternoon / evening.

However, I had my dose of caffeine this morning alongside some leftover shrimp and a bottle of my Gingerbread Oats Overnight. Full disclosure- I rag on Sheetz (SUCKS) all the time for their watered down nonsense they call coffee. They’ve been watering it down for 12-14 years now and it’s obnoxious. But as I was browsing for some tater chips of my one persuasion one fine evening, I found this winter blend (now unavailable from SHEETZ shucks who cares) and pulled the ol’ trigger. It’s actually really good, believe it or not. Even though it is finely ground it has worked well with my French press. Very flavorful and I generally am not a “flavor” coffee fan. Try it. Or not. Your choice. Actually, I’d rather read books than drink this stuff again. But that’s just me.

Man, what a start to this post. What I really meant to say is that I visited Hershey Pennsylvania’s finetastic, yes, FINETASTIC, Antique Auto Museum. Or as they call it, WORLD CLASS. It really is, though. It is well sponsored and funded and at only $16.00 to visit (if you’re under 61 years of age - Fourteen and just two quarters if you’re a geezer) it is full of automotive history from motorcycles, to police cars, to muscle cars to even busses that were used in the film, “Forrest Gump.” There are nostalgic cars for just about every age group going back to the early 1900’s to Tucker’s from the late 40s to again muscle cars and all of that good stuff!

This was my second visit to the museum and it was not as great as the first. I felt like the first visit had more busses and better displays downstairs. However, the vintage Shelby Mustangs (one of my favorite cars) were well lit and on display and I have to say, that made my day! The model train set was also still on display with buttons you can press to make it make sounds and light up.

I brought my Fujifilm GFX 50S II along with me today equipped with a 32-64mm and 100-200mm lens. Below are the images I captured. I went for close ups today as it’s a museum and featuring the whole car is not always possible. The place truly presents awesome opportunities, though! Whether a photographer or just a car enthusiast I highly recommend visiting this spot if you are local or in town. It will not disappoint! I promise!

P.S. Added a couple of these images to my “Transportation” section. Check out the portfolio!

- Mike

Longwood Gardens - Kennett Square, PA

Happy New Years! First post in the good ol’ 2025!

For the second time in a row, I got my mother and myself tickets to Longwood Gardens Christmas lights display. Per usual it was amazing! Not a square inch left untouched by the Christmas Spirit. This place is purely a playground for myself and my photography. So it’s a great mix of spending time with my mother and enjoying each other’s company as well as machine gunning my memory cards. My mom adores this place so it’s much more of a blessing being together than the images I create. Though those are fun, too.

I came home with just north of 500 images to sift through. Below are the ones I chose to edit and display for all to see. Please enjoy!

If you’re in the Philadelphia area and want to check this amazing place out please see this link for directions and information. Their “events” page can be found here. During the prime season (Nov-Jan) I would highly recommend parking in the South Lot (Google Maps can find this) so you can take busses to the entrance. It saves a TON of walking and the bus trips are free.

- Mike

Ashcombe Farms and Friendly Felines

As the years pass by, my Photography Club loves to revisit places. Today was one of our annual visits. The visit: Ashcombe Farms.

Ashcombe’s has been a hot spot for myself and my family since I was just a wee lad growing up in the suburbs of the rough and tough Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. Their soups, jams, jelly, chicken pot pies, cakes, assorted clothing and seasonal decorations have always been popular in my household.

Today we were allowed access inside their stores and operations one hour prior to them opening. Pepper, the cat (he’s a chubby lil fella that loves himself some treats), greeted us and had his own agenda. He was a slick joker and only had one thing on his mind- opening and closing the automatic doors. This was quickly shut down by his owner and after his shenanigans he was told to take a nap and he absolutely did so and posed for several photographers. What a fantastic feline this fella was. A true trickster and an even better napper. Good on this dude.

Anyway, I’m glad I left my wallet in my truck. Not the safest move, but I’m glad I did. Otherwise I would have spent a ton, as I usually do when I go to this store.

- Mike

Jamestown, Williamsburg & Yorktown, Virginia

Last weekend was spent about two and a half hours south of Washington, DC in the historical town of Williamsburg, VA. After stuffing my face at Captain George’s Seafood Buffet, I decided it was time for some photography. My plans of doing a blue hour/night shoot at Williamsburg didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it to (really should have brought my tripod along), but I was able to capture some fun stuff at Jamestown and Yorktown. Of course, I naturally went nuts with the geometrical and abstract stuff, but also had fun capturing the historical things as well.

Overall, this was a great escape from the hustle and bustle of work and a very relaxing and educational long weekend. It was great to revisit after several years. Keep checking back as I was having some computer/internet issues and may have more images to share in the future.

- Mike

Martin Guitar Factory: Nazareth, Pennsylvania

Today’s adventure brought me to 510 Sycamore St, Nazareth, PA 18064. After parking and meeting some friends, we began our tour of the Martin Guitar factory.

For $5.00 who would know you would get such an in-depth tour. We explored MOST of the factory, got to play some expensive guitars in the “picking room” and get financially irresponsible in the gift shop.

Prior to our guided tour, we visited the museum which had a lot of instruments played by current and former artists. They even had their 2,500,000th guitar ever made in the Nazareth factory. It was blinged out, as the kids say, with over 400 diamonds (below).

ARTISTS/BANDS: Click [ here ]
TOUR INFO HERE Click [ here ] to purchase in advance (req’d)

Martin’s 2,500,000th production guitar ever made. It’s lined with around 436 diamonds

After wandering around the museum and seeing some guitars played by likes of The Beatles, Kurt Cobain, Johnny Cash and a massively diverse group of musicians scattered across the spectrum of oldies to new and playing a few showcase guitars, we engaged in our audio tour.

Our tour lasted roughly one hour and hit on virtually every check point Martin guitars go through their 2-3 month journey from concept to completion to dealer to the consumers hands.

Below are some images I took with my Fuji 50S Mark II during the tour and around the facilities. The Mexican facility for the lower-end Martins (if that even is a thing) looks just as involved as the Pennsylvanian factory.

- Mike

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