Salem County Landscape Photography

This first photo (Photo #1) was taken in Mannington, a township within Salem County, New Jersey. There is an abundant amount of both forest and farmland areas, making it an ideal location for you to visit and shoot landscapes.

Photo #1 one is one of my favorite images because of the mix of motion-blurred snow geese and resting snow geese. I used a tripod to keep the camera steady for this 1/13th of a second exposure.

Photo #2 shows you that you don't necessarily have to avoid photographing trees when they are void of leaves on their branches. The starkness of the bare trees and the ominous sky add to the solemn mood that can comes along when you're viewing a cemetery.

In the landscape photo below the direction and intensity of the light, combined with the still water was a good recipe for a  water reflection photo. In this case, it was a "Reed Reflection."

In photo #3 the sky was a pure white, a condition that is usually not desirable.

I included this abstract landscape photo below (#4) to open up your mind to the possibilities of getting creative with your photography. This is almost the exact same location as was taken to shoot photograph #1, but zoomed in and blurred as explained below the photo.

The warm brown area in the middle of the frame is the farmer's field. The white areas at the top and the bottom of the photo are the blurred snow geese. The big difference is that the camera was moving straight downward as I took the 1/10th of a second exposure.

The next two landscape photos were taken within a few seconds of each other. I shot the moon in one direction (#6), then turned around and shot the sunrise (#7) in the opposite direction.

It was a surreal scene in front of me as the reddish light from the sunrise was splashing on the marsh reeds.

Both the moon photo above, and the sunrise photo below were taken at Kates Creek Meadow Observation Point in Salem County, NJ. I photographed the setting moon above toward the west and then turned around to the east to photograph the rising sun at the same time. 

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Salem Co. Black + White Landscape Photos

I always shoot EVERYTHING in RAW mode so that I can process my original images in several different ways, if I want to. You can do this all from the original file without destroying any pixels. That includes converting the color images into black and white. Many landscape photographs look great presented as black and white.

One of the unique approaches you can play around with is doing some minimalist photography, illustrated in the photo below. Minimalist photography involves keeping the subject matter within the frame limited and often using a lot of "negative space" to keep it simple.

Driving around the area, we came across this hug flock of snow geese. There were several different opportunities to photograph these birds, some stationary and some in flight. I shot several variations of these birds in flight, spreading across much of the sky, photo #9.

The sheer number of geese and the constantly changing formations made it a photography subject I couldn't resist exploring.

This road in Salem County (Photo # 10) shown below  reminded me of a location, Dark Hedges,  we visited when we traveled to Ireland. The trees in this photo are not quite as forbidding as the ones depicted in Game of Thrones, but the black and white look creates an eeriness that makes it an interesting image.

If you recognize the black and white photo below as somewhat familiar, then you have well-developed visual skills and a sharp memory. It's the same image #5 from earlier in this post called "The colors of winter," except this time I process it as a  black and white image.

I hope you got some enjoyment out of these landscape photos taken in the Salem County area. We live on an amazing planet. Let's all strive to keep it that way.  Plan to photo visit to one of the other interesting photography hot spots listed below. Or you can visit one of the well-know picturesque spots in the county, Parvin State Park.

For more information about visiting  Salem County visit their website: https://visitsalemcountynj.com/.

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