Posts Tagged: Poconos
Self Portait
Self portrait taken at Woodloch Pines with Lake Teedyuskung in the background at Hawley, PA
One of my mentors, Herb Ascherman, told me once that you should do a self portrait on occasion for documentary purposes. It sounded like a great idea. As photographers, we spend so much time photographing the world around us that we sometimes forget, we are part of the narrative.
I recently photographed a family at Woodloch Pines Resort in Hawley, PA which is right in the heart of the Poconos and only 90 minutes from either New York City or Philadelphia. It’s a wonderful place I enjoy as often as I can.
Once I had selected a location and had my lights as well as camera set up, I quickly tested all my settings on myself. I used Dynalite Uni400s with Jackrabbit batteries for lights and a Mamiya 645 AFD-III with a Leaf DM33 digital back to capture the image at ISO 100, 1/60th at f/8.
Pastry Chefs
Carolyn photographed making lemon shortbread at the Patisserie Fauchere in Milford, PA. Photo by Alex Cena
Carolyn photographed making lemon shortbread at the Patisserie Fauchere in Milford, PA. Photo by Alex Cena
Benjamin photographed removing bread from the oven at the Patisserie Faucehre in Milford, PA. Photo by Alex Cena
I spend quite a bit of time eating chocolate croissants and drinking coffee at the Pattiserie Fauchere in Milford PA, which is located near the Poconos and the Delaware Water Gap in Northeast Pennsylvania. The food is fantastic, the Wi-Fi is free and the people are extremely friendly. Even though it is a bakery and cafe, they also serve some very tasty soups and sandwiches as well as beer throughout the day. My personal favorite is the carrot ginger soup.In fact, I am there several times a week.
Benjamin the head pastry chef was kind enough to invite me into the kitchen to watch him and Carolyn in action one morning. While they start baking at 4:00 am, I did not come in to capture these images until after 8:00 in the morning. It’s always nice to be able to see where your food comes from. Maybe next time I can do a little food photography to show off some pastries and artisan breads.
All photos taken with a Leica M9 and a 35/2 Summicron.
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- Pastry Chef Salary Doing the Research (yepthatsme.com)
- Chemistry And Sugar: The Secrets Of A Great Pastry Chef (gizmodo.com.au)
- Executive Pastry Chef at the Patisserie Fauchere (alexonlocation.com)
- Pastry Musings (randomramblings40.wordpress.com)
- L’Academie de Cuisine Graduate Wins James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year Award (prweb.com)
Executive Pastry Chef at the Patisserie Fauchere
Benjamin photographed at the Patisserie Fauchere in Milford, Pennsylvania. Photo by Alex Cena
Benjamin is the executive Pastry Chef at the Hotel Fauchere, which is a Relais Chateaux property located in Milford, PA. It’s a wonderful place to stay whenever you want a small place with excellent attention to detail and customer service while you are enjoying the Delaware Water Gap or some other part of the Poconos here in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Benjamin photographed at the Patisserie Fauchere in Milford, Pennsylvania. Photo by Alex Cena
The Patisserie Fauchere is a cafe and bakery next door to the hotel and is where you can enjoy a hot beverage along with your pastry or try one of their sandwiches for lunch. The Patisserie is not just about pastries, artisan breads and a cafe. They also serve bottled beer from various microbreweries. I always enjoy sitting there enjoying a chocolate croissant and coffee while I surf the Internet on my laptop.
I created these images using a Leica M9 with a 75mm Summilux shot wide-open at f/1.4. The camera was set to black and white so these images are straight out of the camera.
The Modern Day Treasure Hunt
John explains the history of geocaching and teaches the proper use of a GPS device to guests who are spending their one year anniversary at the Lodge at Woodloch in Hawley, PA. Photographed by Alex Cena
Geoacaching, which is the modern-day version of the treasure hunt, has turned into a very popular past time. In this game, participants use a GPS device to locate containers called a “geocache” that can be hidden anywhere in the world. The simplest geocache has a logbook where you can enter or log your success, while some can contain all kinds of items. You can take an item and leave an item of equal or greater value. You really never know what you are going to get so it really does feel like a real life treasure hunt. In fact, the geocache items are not always easy to find. In keeping with the spirit of a “cache” the containers are usually well hidden under rocks, fallen trees, inside benches, and sometimes even up in a tree.
My friend Bill loves to go geocaching with his wife. They also love to travel around the world so they always check the Geocache.com website for the coordinates of the more than 1.5 million geocache locations scattered throughout the world. They have actively searched and successfully found treasure throughout the United States as well as countries such as India, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. Once players locate a geocache, they typically write about their experience on their personal blog or one of the many on-line communities dedicated to this activity.
It is an easy activity to try when on vacation. In fact, I did it for the first time at the Lodge at Woodloch, which is an all-inclusive destination spa located in the Poconos. I was accompanied by my guide John, who not only explained the history of geoacaching but also explained how to use the GPS units supplied to us by the spa. We used the GPS units to locate treasure stashed throughout the spa’s 150 acres. At each location, we found containers with items from the Northeast Pennsylvania resort’s gift shop though in a couple of instances we found a cache that simply had coordinates for the next goecache. It was a lot of fun and provided added interest to our hike that afternoon.
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- Geocaching: A Fun, Free, & Unique Family Activity (hip2save.com)
- New Addiction (spacemarine14.wordpress.com)
Christine’s Headshot at the Lodge at Woodloch
Christine Lafferty, hair stylist at the Lotus Salon in the Lodge at Woodloch. Photo by Alex Cena
Christine Lafferty is the Master Stylist at Lotus Salon located inside the Lodge at Woodloch in Hawley in northeast Pennsylvania. She joined this an all-inclusive destination spa located in the Poconos just last summer. Whether it’s edgy & modern, or sleek & elegant. Christine has been trained to create clean, classic, tailored looks for clients. She specializes in custom coloring and styling, as well as being a Certified Hair Extension specialist. We’ve talked about creating a headshot for her for some time now. When the stars finally aligned and we were able to get her done, we were both delighted with the results. The above photo is straight out of the camera. It was simply re-sized for the web.
For you technical gear heads out, here is how I shot this image. I could not set up a backdrop so I just used a blank wall in the salon. The color was actually yellow but I three a little light at it to change the color. My intent initially was to turn it white but I did not want to set up two backlights and blast it so I opted for the color above which is fine since I prefer to shoot against a gray background anyway. She was lit with a single Dynalite Uni400 strobe with a beauty dish at 1/4 power as well as a reflector just below her face. I had my Mamiya RZ67 ProIID with a Leaf DM33 digital back and a 110mm/2.8 lens. My settings were ISO 50, f/11 at 125th of a second shutter speed. I was tethered to a Macbook Pro so I can see what was coming out of the camera.
I left the shot horizontal because it can now be used on the web as a horizontal shot or it can be made square as well as cropped as a vertical 8×10. So many clients are requesting horizontal shots these days for web use that I am trying to force myself to minimize my vertical shots as that is how I see the world. With all these social media and networking sites today, I’m surprised so many people use an image taken by a friend or family member at a party or dinner. In my opinion, those are the wrong images to use especially at a site such as LinkedIn where you should put your best foot forward.
Christine at Woodloch – Images by Alex Cena
Related articles
- The Lodge at Woodloch, Under New Management, Soars to New Heights (prweb.com)
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- The Greener the Better: How to keep the Poconos a gorgeous destination (poconosvacationguide.com)
