Salem, Massachusetts - Halloween Series

Salem, Mass is a place full of rich and terrifying history, and I figured this was a perfect location to kick off my month long Halloween blog series. Salem is known mainly for one thing - witches. When you think of Salem, the Salem Witch Trials is most likely the first thing that pops into your mind. During the 1600's, there was a mass hysteria involving accusing people of practicing witchcraft. This resulted in a long trial, and in the deaths of many innocent people. This trial and the deaths have stuck with Salem all these years later, and as you can imagine, there are a variety of fun and scary activities in Salem. There are many haunted attractions that you can venture through if you are brave enough. Psychic readings are offered basically all over the place, if you are into that kind of stuff. There is also the Salem Witch Museum that you can visit in order to learn more about the trials. Cemetery's are also abundant in this area, and most of them offer tours (day time and night time tours are available, depending upon your preference). There are a variety of other things in this area as well, and I hope to visit again in the future so that I can do and see more! If I do go again, I will eventually write an updated blog post on new things I have found and done in the area.

Here are my top 5 tips for if you plan to visit Salem -

1) Really do your research before visiting, because there was a lot of stuff I discovered after I had been that I didn't have time to do when I was there because I didn't plan very well. 

2) Wear comfortable shoes, as there is a lot of walking involved with this area.

3) Please be careful, especially when you are trying to cross the street. This is a busy area and some people don't watch where they are going.

4) Make sure you have a good amount of cash with you, as some of the attractions will only take cash.

5) Be careful to not get swindled out of your money. Some of the things are just touristy money grabs that you could absolutely skip if you wanted to. For example, if you want to do a psychic reading, make sure you do your research on which ones are the best in that area so that you don't get swindled out of your money. 

Lyman Orchards

Lyman Orchards is a location in Middlefield, Connecticut that offers a variety of activities for people to enjoy. They have you pick orchards with fruits such as apples, peaches, and pears, and they also have a pumpkin field. There is a market where you can go and get cider and donuts, as well as a variety of other goodies. There is a hay wagon that will take you up and down the hill to get to the orchard, and there is also a corn maze that you can try to find your way through.

Here are my top 5 tips for if you want to go to Lyman Orchards –

1)      There is a huge hill that leads up to the orchards, you can either climb it or take the wagon up – it all depends on what you are more comfortable with.

2)      There were more apples on the grounds than on the trees, so just be careful of where you are walking.

3)      There were also some holes in the ground so be cautious of that as well.

4)      Wear appropriate shoes in order to keep your feet and ankles safe!

5)      The trees towards the front were pretty bare, so the closer you get to the back, the more apples you will find on the trees.

Here is a link to their website if you want to check it out - http://lymanorchards.com/

Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds is a simple, yet effective way of changing up an image and making the focal point not be in the center of a photograph. This helps to draw the eyes to the subject, and then to the rest of the photograph, instead of just drawing the eyes to the middle. Basically, to achieve the rule of thirds, you want to think of the photograph in 9 sections. Top, middle, bottom, and left, middle, right. Think of it like a grid, you want the lines of the sections to intersect at some point with the subject on the grid. I demonstrate this with the frog photograph below. The frog intersects twice, which is what you want.

Here are my top 2 tips for achieving the Rule of Thirds - 

1) With the rule of thirds, the subject is either on the left or the right. Try to stick with this as it makes it easier.

2) Usually, there is only one subject in the photograph as to not distract the viewer too much. However, you can break this rule occasionally if the main subject is bigger or in the foreground. 

Floral Photography

Floral is one of my favorite types of photography, as I love to admire beautiful flowers and capture photographs of them whenever I can. Floral photography is perfect in the spring/early summer when all the flowers are starting to bloom. Floral can be used to showcase professional floral arrangements or to showcase a growing garden.

Here are my top 2 tips for floral photography –

1)      Don’t be afraid to get super up close to the flowers, as this can showcase more detail than it could if you weren’t zoomed in.

2)      If you plan to get up close to the flowers, beware of bee’s and bee’s nest, you don’t want to get stung!

Double Exposure

A double exposure is when you essentially blend two different images together to create one (mostly seamless) image. Even though this seems like a really hard project to master – it’s not! The easiest way that I have found to create a double exposure is to use the Picmonkey photo editor. What you do is choose your base image, then go to the left where all the editing tools are and look for the textures tool. Click on that, and then you can either choose your own pattern with another photograph, or you can use one of Picmonkey’s patterns – the photographs I have worked on show a mix and match of my own versus Picmonkey patterns. The Picmonkey patterns are the ones that have the galaxy print on them.

Here are my top 2 tips to achieve a double exposure image – 

1)      When thinking about what images you want to use, you want to make sure they mesh well together. This makes sure that they appear to be one solid image, not two images mixed together. You can see this mostly with the waves photograph above – it appears to be one image but it is actually two separate images.

2)      In the editor, once you have combined your two images, you can move the overlay around a bit if you need to or you can even change the way it appears by clicking on the drop down that appears when you put the second image on top of the base.

Self-Portrait Tips and Tricks

A few months ago, I wrote a post on how to take great portraits. I included self-portraits in that post, but I wanted to expand on my tips in today’s post. Self-portraits are a fun way to experiment with your camera and with different poses. With self-portraits, you can feel free to experiment a lot more than you might if you were doing someone else’s portraits. This is because you have more freedom to take the portraits how you want to do them without having to worry about anyone else except for yourself. Read on to learn how to take some amazing “selfies”!

Here are my top 5 tips on how to take your own portraits –

1)      Like mentioned in the portrait post, I would recommend using a camera that either has a flip screen, or a screen that you can see (like an iPhone). This makes it easier to pose yourself and to see how your facial expressions look.

2)      I would also recommend using props that fit your personality – like an old camera if you are into photography!

3)      Don’t be afraid to get silly and dance around while you are experimenting! This is how I started out, just moving around and finding out what pose worked best for me, and sometimes I even got some photographs of myself mid-twirl!

4)      I would highly recommend investing in a tripod if you are serious about doing your own portraits. Some of them are fairly cheap, and work really well – or you can get the more expensive ones if you so choose. However, they help to stabilize your camera while you are doing your portraits.

5)      My last tip is to set the timer on your camera. I usually set mine for ten seconds so that I can get back to my spot and get my pose ready before the photograph is taken. One other thing that I have found helpful sometimes is to set your timer, and then set your camera to take a series of photographs as well. This helps so that you are not running back and forth between each pose – you can get a few done instead.

Wadsworth Falls State Park

Wadsworth Falls State Park in Middletown, Connecticut is a location that offers hiking, swimming, biking, and picnicking. There are also waterfalls that you can visit – a big falls, and a little falls. Some information if you plan to hike – it is a bit confusing when you first start to figure out what trail you want to take to get to the waterfalls, so you really need to pay attention when you’re first getting going, as well as throughout the trail so you don’t miss any of the trail markers. It is also a bit of a long hike - about 3 miles there and back – but this depends on if you actually walk the trails or if you park near where the waterfall is. When you reach the end of the trail, there will be a marker labeled big falls pointing you to the right. You want to go in that direction until you come to the parking lot, and then there will be the path leading you to the waterfall. If you park closer to the big falls, it would only be a short walk down a path. I will say though that if you walk the trails be extremely careful because there are rocks and tree roots sprouted up all over the place. Just a word of caution – you are not supposed to swim in the big falls, however some people just don’t listen and do it anyways. Price to park on weekends is $9 for a CT registered vehicle and $15 for a not CT registered vehicle, on weekdays there is no charge.

Here are my top 5 tips for if you plan to visit Wadsworth Falls –

1)      If you are elderly, have young children, or simply just don’t want to do a lot of walking, then I would recommend you drive to where the big waterfall is located and take the short path down. 

2)      Like I mentioned, there are many signs at the falls stating no swimming, so don’t be one of THOSE people (the ones who blatantly disregard the rules and ruin things for everyone else!) 

3)      Wear some good walking shoes so you don’t kill your feet too bad if you plan to walk the trails. 

4)      Preserve the beauty of the park and do not litter!

5)      Watch out for the wildlife. We saw a frog and a snake while on the trail, so go with the “for every one you see, there are ten you don’t see” rule and watch where you are stepping!