Delaware Canal Barge Mule
This was shot back in late September. I meant to post it sooner but just never got around to it. I found this guy taking a break in his small coral while taking a walk along the canal. He had a buddy in the coral with him. He looked so content and hardly even took notice of me while I took his picture. I thought he looked pretty sweet and since he was so obliging I wanted to post his picture.The Delaware Canal which was completed in 1832, was used to move goods to the cities up until railroads took over. The last canal boat run through the Delaware Canal was on October 17, 1931.
This 60 mile canal is the oldest, remaining, continuous, intact, canal in the nation and retains nearly all of it's original features. It is now a tourist attraction and offers scenic rides along the historic canal from May through October, weather permitting.
I wanted to just mention that I am sorry that my links page is gone, but I was trying to edit it and ended up breaking it...Ooops...my bad. I am working on an updated page and will try to have it up and running just as soon as I can.
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Project New Jersey
A collaborative photoblog created and administered by:
Justin Gaynor
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Project New Jersey
A collaborative photoblog created and administered by:
Justin Gaynor
ABOUT ME
HOME
posted by Laurie at 12:00 AM
19 Comments:
i love your b&w treatment of this shot; really nice work.
He is so handsome, and quite deserving of one of your b&w conversions! The contrast on his harness gear is beautiful!
Excellent choice of B&W for this quite handsome fella! I love it.
Great shot. He does look quite content.
Excellent use of black and white and a really good closeup.
Great shot of a very handsome horse. There is great detail on that harness.
can really see anything to imrove upon...8.25/10
Very pretty, what a beautiful shot of a magnificent animal.
We have narrow boats for living in or hiring on our canals, it is agreat way to wind down from modern life, do you have similar on your canals ?
Old Sal has some great looking tack there! Nice shot.
A horse! :) Nice one.
I really like photos like this. The silver is especially lovely. It's a very intimate portrait of him.
Cute :) I like the B&W effect.
nice shot, the horse looks beautiful.
just a question though, do you think it would have looked good in colour as well, with a blur around the horse??
Sidak...thanks. Usually when I take a shot I know what I want the end result to be. This was definitely one of those shots. It was rather dull in color. The light was flat the day was somewhat gloomy, the mules colors were sort of mousey brown, his harness was soiled light blue cloth and the leather bridal was rather dull and dusty, and just in general the overall scene was dull. I knew when I shot this that I would go with the black and white. I always shoot RAW so it is always color to start out, but I knew I would be converting this one even before I even clicked the shutter. The lens I happened to be using didn't have a larger than f3.5/4.5 for this shot which accounts for more DOF than I originally would have liked, but I had that lens on this walk and didn't change it out to my f1.8 for the shot. I don't usually PP shots very much really, other than to convert to B&W and or mimick filters that would be available for traditional film photography, so what you see is what you get with the DOF. If I'd had the time, I would have changed out the lens for my 85mm f1.8 which would have given a much more blurred background, but a dusty riverside path was not the best place to change the lens and I didn't have time to make my way to a cleaner spot, so I used my "all purpose" lens. I actually ended up liking the background in the end though, since it lends some sense of the entire scene, context if you will. I love rustic post and beam structures. I was very happy to get a profile of the mule. It reminded me of a charcoal sketch I had in my room of a horse in profile when I was a young girl. I always loved horses, and even though this guy is a mule. I still thought he was sweet.
Jasp...The canal from this shot is no longer used except as a tourist ride. It is not a mode of transport but it is a pretty neat slice of history for tourists. There is also an old steam train that runs in the same town. New Hope is a very trendy tourist/artist colony town. We don't spend a lot of time there because it just gets so very crowded with sightseers. We only go maybe 2 times/year, parking is horrific there and expensive too. Although the town and restaurants and shops are definitely worth a visit.
I don't know of any other canals that still run barges. I'm sure there are some that still do tours but I only know of this one.
hey nice shot,
lover the black and white conversion,perfect tones,
thats stil something i need to learn, a normal de-saturation just doesnt cut it....
Excellent portrait d’un de mes animaux préférés, Merci !
Sincères amitiés@+
This shot is fantastic Laurie, I'm very impressed at how quickly and steadily your post-processing is improving. I agree with everyone's statements, the treatment is great. Beautiful.
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