Billings Farm and chill

Last year was the first time, in more than 2 decades since I had been to Vermont, and that last time I did it, it was only to go to 1 spot, to get Maple Syrup for myself; and in addition, I took an undeserving NYC modern person* to see something other than that damn job that she is so proud of working, and puts all her LIFE and time into, yet she doesn’t OWN a damn thing in the company. Since I realized that although she wasn’t ghetto, she was a minority raised and adopted by Europeans, I thought she would appreciation something like this- but she didn’t, because she’s really ghetto, culturally– I’ll make my case as we go on. You don’t have to be born in the ghetto to be ghetto, you just have to have a limited mind that cannot appreciate and enjoy anything but the hell your life is- a ghetto. I decided to not get her into a few things I did in Vermont, that I’d love to talk about HERE, on DrunkPhotography.com. It was clear almost 1 hour after we got to the destination that country time life, SPACE, quiet, nature, that just isn’t for people like her and she was just trying to pretend to be like the dominant society for the approval of the dominant society, or any Blacks and Latinos who she is trying to pretend to be better than. In reality, she didn’t like “white people activities” as she would later admit to me. Kind of odd for someone pretending to be ‘assimilated.’ Moreover, I had things lined up to show and expose her too, but it was a waste of time to even try to introduce her to all of that, and what she was really there for was to try to get me to be one of these Democrat plantation boys, because she didn’t have me figured out to be anything but one of the bunch of stepdaddies rewarding baby mamas who aren’t yours, or more than just overseas booty buyers , more than just expensive vacation purchasers who try to escape from their boring/empty lives or flying chicks out to purchase their presence and boxes. She did figure me for a guy who would take chicks to see pretty things like covered bridges to help get ladies in a romantic vibe but that was not as attractive to her as getting her completely wasted in a bar or in a club with hard liquor and then taking advantage of her–that was ‘cool’ to her. 🤦🏾 Romantic movies type vibes are OUT and street-life careless behavior is in with them today. Got it. ✅ Moron people of this society today, I tell you, folks… No wonder Bill Clinton spewed the uncomfortable truth that (our ladies) don’t want to be mothers and wives so we are in decline as a US population thus is part of the plot to bring in all these illegals (who are not European descendants mostly). I mean we have a lot of baby mamas out here, that’s not slowing down any time soon, but there are numbers to support his claim, which is what the European descendent supremacists are mad about because the replacements aren’t looking like them. Lack of wives means more imports of foreign-born home workers too, most Black, who spend more time at European descendant homes than with their own kids at their own homes. It is so much of an issue, Black kweens made a huge stink over nothing based on a Newyorker magazine cover (Norman Rockwell style). I think about this kind of stuff with the company I keep, and I didn’t see myself not renting out a home attendant to clean up on of my spots when I’m not there, and I can cook better than most women, or just order out or just use a meal prep like when training. I really didn’t need this headache person with me, I have migrants workers. Thanks Democrats! 🤣 I surely wasn’t going to waste all of my time with ‘the company,’ I had, but I was here in the area so I did hit up some places I frequent, normally alone, or with an Asian chick, in my old stopping grounds from 20 years earlier. I used to go into Bennington, Vermont, constantly, from Williamstown, Massachusetts, a major college town. This was a crucial point in time for me, when I was living in this area, because I was from NYC but this area was NOTHING like NYC at all (e.g., a lot of space, no crime, no litter on grounds, no homeless, polite people*). It was so laid back, but at the same time, it was a college town. I used to get connects to have access to college type things, but also, I had the connects to do college type thing in Bennington College, which was in Bennington Vermont. I got to meet many people of all walks of life, and no matter their backgrounds, or mine, we all got along and had a great experience. They helped me see beyond ghettos of NYC, which is how I learned the power of getting out and seeing the rest of America, because if you’re from a big city, you don’t know a damn thing about ANYTHING in life. I got to see and experience a lot of great things, especially in nature, and to appreciate life since my life wasn’t on the line daily, unlike when I was living in NYC, where my very own cousin was killed just walking home with his pregnant girlfriend. I had family and friends dropping like flies, and it took a long time to get right in the head, seeing all that death and drugs and all these things to flood areas that WERE NOT EVEN GHETTO. All of the people I met, they constantly went to many landmarks throughout New England, despite their socio-economic standing, because they loved the scenery and history scattered all throughout New England. I had a chance to go to Billings Farm & Museum, once, and I didn’t even take it, because it was too far from where I was, at the time, and it was more than double the distance and 3 times the time it would take to get there, back then. I didn’t have the road trip spirit in me, back then, or not do go at it alone, anyway because was–and is still–considered lame for men to do. 🤡 So, I didn’t go that far up into Vermont when I was handing with this crowd, but we all knew of Billings Farm & Museum, and buddies went there a lot, but I’d normally head back to NYC when it was leaf peeping time because I considered it lame back then, when I was really ghetto. I wanted to see guns get busted, son!!! Not go to some lame Billings Farm with animals and trees, free space to walk, pumpkins, sunflowers, mountain ranges… 🤡 I was a teen then, so I had an excuse, what was this 29 year old lady’s excuse for still being ghetto? In my younger years in the country side, I saw that mainly only the women loved a place like Billings Farm, or overall fall foliage viewing– which brought the guys to please the ladies– so it was like a chick thing to do, in my mind, as a youth until I saw how it affected the female Europeans, their descendants, and Asians. As the countryside started to become more embedded in my life, I realized that bussin’ guns wasn’t as entertaining as I thought, especially if on the losing side of that, so I was into hanging out, doing dangerous stunts on dirt bikes/snow mobiles, skiing, and anything adrenaline based while up there, but still screwed up other chances to hit up Billings Farm & Museum, until adulthood. Sad.

This is what was strange about these areas I flourished in, in Massachusetts and Vermont, because they too have some of these areas with houses, trees, drugs, but the crime was nowhere near the levels of NY, which to me, was HEAVEN. I felt like these areas were like Mayberry or the towns depicted in Wandavision, compared to NYC. These places were SOFT to me, but hard to everyone else from there. After I found out how to get out of a personal hell in NYC, that was thrust upon me without my control, I began to reach out to others, especially men of color, who had no one coming to go back for them, who had no money to spend on specialists to help them mentally, who didn’t get state funding to get out of their terrible mental positions because they’re not Black/Latin/Asian females. I realized that most of my friends, when I was living in New England, where 99.9% dominant society people, middle class, blue collar families, who seamlessly could relate to me, and preferred to hang with me, rather than the rich people at our schools. This time in New England shaped me wonderfully, and made me better, healed me, to make me prepared to come back to NYC, but to be immune to the stupidity of NYC. What these dominant society dudes did was take me around to many places in New England that I would never have known about because there was no Google Maps back then, so unless you had actually been there, or had the printed-out Rand McNally maps, then you wouldn’t know how to get to many of these places– maybe you had MapQuest on your computer but a laptop lasted no more than 2hours max then and cells weren’t ready for graphics. This is how I learned to enjoy things like trees, covered bridge, farms and museums (not the modern types you find in big cities), certainly things like Billings Farm. My buddies took me all over the place, especially in Massachusetts, since we were based out of there, trying to visit ladies at schools we played against in basketball or soccer- our ladies at our school were too focused on school and their future careers*. What I didn’t realize then, that I realize now, is that they opened my eyes to beauty that didn’t exist in NYC, that helped me see that there was something else in life outside of the cold cement and sky high ghetto projects, and I’d take anything other than the projects, at that point. This scenery didn’t click with most of my other buddies from NYC, who went to school with me, because it was boring to them, and they wanted the fast paced city, to be crowded around by people, they hated the silence of the countryside. I couldn’t get any of these other NYC students to want to come with the dominant society guys and me, to see rivers, covered bridges, mountains, etc. I didn’t know then what kind of people these other NYC folks were, but me, I wasn’t into photography then because I couldn’t afford the equipment and didn’t have a darkroom yet. However, I was into painting and drawing, so the mountains were calling me, as I would draw or paint many sceneries like Bob Ross. I felt complete calm in these places, and it helped settle my brain from the catastrophes of NYC. This is what I wanted to help this NYC dame learn, to help her get a hold of herself and her terrible shyte life, when I as thinking about asking if she wanted to see Billings Farm & Museum. Ultimately, I felt that she needed to see a psychiatrist, ASAP, and couldn’t wait to offload her as soon as I got back to NYC. Can’t fix that.

By this year, I had been to the Billings Farm & Museum 3 or 4 times, and it got better and better each year I went because I could appreciate more of it thus spent more time there. It was much better to be in environments that did not include death on the levels we once had in NY, so I naturally attached to anything peaceful. This is really the basis for what I put into this site, a personal diary to keep track of crap that pops in my head, when I’m in these places I go. This NYC broad with me, that I reference earlier, who I tried to get out of her damaged brain, could not see past her ego and constant failure to have success in any aspect of her life, so she couldn’t appreciate some of the things I would like to have lined up for her, so couldn’t appreciate any of the beauty she saw. She didn’t even want to experience the American cultural experience of the mood that covered bridges bring in the fall, and didn’t even understand the appeal of them in American culture. I guessed wrong about her due to her continued fake-dominant society nasal-voice when she spoke, which I knew was not her birth way of speaking. I later realized that her fake valley girl accent was really just her attempt to appear less “BLACK” to onlookers and superior to other Blacks, which is hard to do since she is dark skinned. All of this foliage and Billings Farm stuff, that is being a real dominant society person, she isn’t getting any points for that–or so she originally though–more on that later. I mean she looked at the Billings Farm and she saw it looked peaceful, she saw all the colors, but she admitted that it had no major effect on her, other than when she would tell others (on phone) about what she saw, and ironically, she got pleasure from telling others all she saw with me. However, I HEARD the people on the phone calls and they made her take pics and send to them, which she did which made her look stupid to them. She had these people on the phone in awe, as they were praising Billings Farm photos she took with her iPhone and only AFTER she got this talking to by her people, did she warm to it a little- I told you, mentally screwed up person. It was like a child of 5 years old being told something was cool and then suddenly now it’s cool after she hated it 1 second ago. 🤡 She loved the people asking her all about things we saw together and loved telling them all the details, and suddenly she had love for Billings Farm when we sat down on a bench placed there and we were the ONLY ones there! She was looking FANCY and advances, and NOT BLACK to the people on the phone who said they wished they were there (I gave them instruction on how to get to it from NYC). They were giving her hints to change her stupid mentality and enjoy it, I walked away a little to give space to talk, and I could see/hear her start to complain about how Billings Farm was boring, initially. They learned her quick, that’s why she warmed up. Whoever that last one she was on the phone with, while I was snapping pics, that person really got through and as I was coming back she was over-praising the location, verbally, anyway. When I tried to get her hyped about Billings Farm, she was not so enthusiastic and that’s why I noticed that those phone calls told her to get her act together and get some “act right!” Things I was pointing out to her before, which she was dismissive of and pooh-pooh’d when I brought them up, suddenly she was asking me about, and doing call backs to things I had already discussed. Suddenly, she wanted to learn to be a photographer and get better pictures– to put on social media, of course to promote herself as fancy. 🤣 She was more explosive and happy as she took pictures the proper way, with my helping, and she liked the photos she was taking. You need some technique in some of these scenarios because wind is blowing and when you take your pics, your shutter speed is too slow because the camera phone determined it was a still photo with no movement, and the blowing tree leaves would not come out sharp and in place thus had motion blur. When she learned how to overcome these issues with taking pics of foliage, I could see her now understanding and appreciating why more and more people started to arrive, and these dominant society and Asian couples were coming with their cameras and taking pictures of their families playing. I saw these kinds of scenes finally getting to her brain, it started to register after those phone calls, because I know someone told her to get some act right, likely her European descendant adopted mother. After 1 hour, that enlightenment regressed and she turned back into her normal self so, the effects of that ‘act right’ were wearing off. 🤣 You can take people out of the ghetto; you just can’t TAKE THEM OUT OF THE GHETTO. 😒 Clearly, I couldn’t take that person anywhere, and I couldn’t find people who would appreciate seeing cool things in Vermont, so I decided to go this year without anyone from NYC. I’m telling you, you really don’t want to miss this Billings Farm, or any farm that is an open-air museum, in the fall because you will find that most people don’t even KNOW about such things and don’t know how to get there either, so it’s not going to be overrun with people who will mess up the experience.

Billings Farm & Museum is a big deal to the history of Vermont, and is also a noted place by the National Historical Park of Vermont. Post US Civil War times (1865), Frederick Billings bought land from an early pioneer of Vermont, its first lawyer, Charles Marsh, who owned a lot of land and brought religion to Woodstock by going door to door telling people he won’t live in a town that doesn’t worship God, leading to churches being formed in 1805. He got with another native of Woodstock, Fredrick Billings, who is known for being a principle building of the Northern Pacific Railroad, a key service in the USA at that time. The final connection to these two was Laurance Rockefeller (yes with an ‘a’), who was married to the granddaughter of Fredrick Billings, and he was also the 4^th kid of John D Rockefeller. These 3 are responsible for much of Woodstock, Vermont’s prominence, in the early days, and had almost unlimited power, influence and finances. As you can see, if you know US history, there are 3 powerful last names from powerful families. The Billings Farm & Museum is part of the larger area, which is protected land on in the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. Yes, it’s really a national park area, thus is a popular destination that most people don’t know of still. When they think of Woodstock, they think of druggies doing all day music festivals– that’s the wrong Woodstock, that was the name of a concert that happened in BETHEL, NEW YORK not Woodstock, Vermont. 🤣 Woodstock, Vermont is in the major target for fall foliage, the famous Green Mountains of Vermont. It’s 5 hours from NYC, so I know most city slickers won’t go because they won’t even go in their own state 5 hours to places like Adirondacks!

Back in 1871, after obtaining and proofing the land from Marsh, Billing made the area a farm, and he is credited for being the first ever to import Jersey cows into the USA, which he kept on this farm and took them from the Isle of Jersey, UK, which stocked them. Jersey cows are the ones you always see when you see milk commercials, because primarily that’s the cows you would get the dairy products from. The name comes from where people got the from in the early years of USA, the UK, where their breeding was perfected. See, right there, you learned the history of Jersey cows in the USA. These cows were very special to the progress of the area, as the Jersey cows were the best in the nation, and its products serviced most of Vermont. That’s a 150 year history of existence for the Billings farm, which has 50 blue ribbon Jerseys and many award-winning cheese products such as Cabot and Grafton Village Cheese associates are using milk from these Billings Jerseys. Obviously, the Billings farm has constant maintenance to maintain it but it’s designed to preserve the look it had in 1890. Billings Farm & Museum now has sheep, horses, chickens, in addition to the cows and you can get some amazing ice cream from here. There was no way I was not going to get some ice cream from a farm. Thanks to the buddies I had from when I was younger, living in New England, in particular a lady I used to date, from New Hampshire, I learned about the presence of multiple farms in New England (Kimball Farm Jaffrey). We used to go from farm to farm eating BUCKETS of ice cream made all natural and on the farm itself, using the cows on the farm. This is ice cream that beats out the crap you ghetto people are eating from Baskin Robins. And if you say “well I eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream”, I’ll have you know that we used to eat that too, but from it’s real roots, back in Burlington, Vermont! This is why I’m so crazy for real ice cream, Vermont and New Hampshire has the best cows thus had the superior dairy products, on the East coast.

You can go to Billings Farm & Museum any time of the year, and depending on when you go, you will get a completely different theme. Go in Winter, you have winter wonderland type settings and can do sleigh rides. If you go in Spring, you can do apple picking in the apple orchard and such, and of course, fall, the most beautiful time to go, you can see amazing views of the foliage. The thing that should not be missed though, when you do go, is the best thing about the place, which I spent most of my time doing, viewing the contents of the Billings Museum, including the interactive displays about various parts of life. That are is generally packed, I came back 3 times it was just too crowded, that and the quilt area. The museum tells amazing stories of the early rural life in the area and on the farm. They have some of the coolest scenery set up in this place, with mannequins and full staged still-scenes. The mannequins are posed working with various farm tools and classic machinery that could be found on the farms in the 1800s, some of which I’ve seen before on re-vamped 1800s haciendas in South America that I had stayed in. There are some mannequins posed showing them working with animals and also a family scene staged in multilevel home/farm houses in the 1800s, that I don’t think was the Billings properties, but showed many samples of how life was for people in the Vermont in the early years, such as school rooms and a mock general store at some point. There was also a scene that showed that they were tapping trees for sap in the winter. They had a display that showed many forms of the taps that went into the trees and what it took to covert the sap into the maple syrup.

As you should know, Vermont is pretty much king of Maple Syrup, outside of Canada. What you have highlighted throughout was a changing of the seasons, I noticed, and what is happening in each season and how the farm operated. There was a scene where they show a guy slicing out huge 18 inches blocks that were over 200+ lbs. of ice from somewhere and I had to look into that one a little. That used to cut into a body of water that was frozen over (river, lake), to use the ice to sell (remember there were not refrigerators back then). In early winter, ice blocks were cut from frozen lakes and rivers. Then they had to make sheds to seal in that cold air so the ice would melt, so they ice could be used to cool meat and produce that was sent all over the country. So this was an essential service I didn’t think about previously. So, guess where the practice of ice harvesting came from? NEW ENGLAND, that’s where it was invented, in the early 1800s. By the end of the 1800s, ice harvesting was the number 2 US export, number 1 being cotton being that cotton had the lead due to white enslavement of African descendants and not having to pay them, and invention of the cotton gin, which justified keeping slavery going longer, and then jail tricks being created to get Blacks do to slavery work although slavery was abolished. Ice harvesting died out after FDR implemented the Rural Electrification Administration when refrigerators were being pushed into people’s homes and this industry died immediately, after a 100 year+ run. All of this that I mentioned here, that was essential to a lot of life in the 1800s, that was the livelihood of a great many people, with relation to being able to consume food, and you can see how the Billings fortune remained on the incline. Why is this ice bit important? Well, the modern day ice cream that we eat, the way it’s created and the formulas behind how to make it with its consistency, adding flavors, and even adding salt to it, was an invention of an African American named August Jackson. August was a cook in the white house, since 9 years old, serving under President James Monroe, President John Quincy Adams, and President Andrew Jackson. He popularized the modern style of ice cream because it was his formula that we all use today in ice cream we all eat world wide. The reason we don’t have eggs in ice cream is due to Jackson’s “Philadelphia Style” ice cream, which was his formula to omit eggs and made everything taste better, and it could also be stored longer and to get better consistency to custards when stored, especially with the ice harvesting that was going on in this area.

Ultimately, works of this Jackson broke out of Philadelphia’s African American neighborhoods and went cross-continental, but especially as he moved north. Every ice cream maker in Vermont and on copied his formula and preservation formula, to make their ice creams. So thanks to Nancy Johnson (from NY), who invented the hand-cranked ice cream churner/freezer in 1843, ice cream could be then created by anyone with a freezer, and ice cream could finally be stored by anyone too using August Jackson’s formula. The Johnson invention cut through all the hard work that went into making ice cream, cutting time dramatically, to officially end the ice harvesting requirement throughout the country. And President Thomas Jefferson (3rd POTUS) was credited with creating ice cream and distributing the many flavors out there, which I learned when I was at Mount Rushmore, and that’s a lie. He use pushing one of the many recipes that August Johnson made, which he got from the white house before his time as President. He got the recipes he was passing off as his own from John Quincy Adams, who was the 2nd POTUS. The one he pushed that they claim came from Europe were disgusting, and didn’t survive time, which is why we don’t eat it today. Jackson’s recipes were the ones that worked. That’s what they did back then, stole Black people’s work and passed it off as their own, because Blacks couldn’t get patents due to racist policies that existed back then. So anyone could steal Jackson’s work, and they did, just like Jefferson did. But I did not know this ice harvesting was happening like this, but surely, that water was not pure back then 🤢, but Billings made a KILLING with this line of business and it was key to survival of the country back then, for all races. That’s why Billings Farm & Museum is an important place and has its place in history. How else were you getting your meat and such shipped across the USA? Today you have freezers in trucks but back then, you needed this ice to last the year!

This was an amazing experience to take in. I was so happy that I went there, and when that was done, I went outside to walk the land, to see the gardens, the sunflowers garden (which was almost dead or something in the fall), and they had some ICE CREAM they packaged there. I wished that people, like myself, would go to this place, and take 1 day off from their shyte jobs to get a look at life. I saw maybe a hundred people at this location, nobody who looked like me- there were some people close to looking like me, Indian people, and even they know this is something Americans should do, although likely new to the country. Americans know places like this are treasured places to go to, to enjoy part of American history to really cool backdrops per season. The more that I walked around the Billings Farm & Museum, in fall, the more I realized that this would be an amazing spot for someone to take their families, their wives/girls, but mostly any females. They were going wild over there, many ladies all over the place, no chicks from my background though, but every other lady, yes, there. There was this girl trying to get all in my shot, try to adjust her booty to get my attention, but I wanted her to get the hell out of the way so I could photograph the sunflowers. But scenes like that soften people up, they drop the feminist scrunched up faces and want someone to talk to or to take their photos so they can put on IG. As I went around the place, I just noticed how many of the non-Black or Latinos were there.

I talked with this older Latin lady who arrived with us and she made a comment that she wished her daughter would have come with her, but he daughter also thought it to be boring. I agreed with her, and explained what I started this entry with, which confirmed. All these minorities think they’re too good for something so laid back and relaxed, something so rich in history and with a really cool seasonal backdrop that is part of American Culture. How do you try to copycat and emulate your masters but you won’t even go do fall foliage leaf peeping, which is a cultural experience in the USA? You need to get your assimilation right if you’re going to these places to emulate your masters. The rest of us love to see beautiful things so we are over there, but YOU, who wish to pretend to be like the dominant society, you should go check out places like the Billing Farm because that’s what they’re doing. This is a good opportunity for you to connect with the dominant society so you can feel better about not being like them, but helps in your goal to be socially acceptable to them. 👍🏼This is why I see so many non-European descendants who are not Black out in these places, they’re finding out where all the dominant society people are going and they’re going there too so they can be equal to those European descendants. They’re there trying to be fancy too, like you, so go to places like Billings Farm and get yourself some of this American cultural education with visuals! The Latina who said this about her daughter, I let know that’s why I don’t bring people anymore to places like Billings Farm because they don’t appreciate good things like this. She said she realized that too and laughed as she told me that’s why she also didn’t bother to invite her sisters, because they’re on IG trying to show their booties on IG, at 60, thirst trapping for young boys promising them that they can’t get pregnant. 🤣 She immediately understood assignment and could see what my company was about, and didn’t like it.She was a cool old lady, but confirmed what I was saying, letting me know that I am not that insane. Now, as the time went on, people started coming, in the afternoon, but the flock of people coming in was ‘interesting.’ It was this Latina who pointed out “look at all these single ladies here” while also hinting that no men wanted to see places like this either, and I let her know “look at all these men here, with their women and children” pointing to the many men who were there with their whole families. It was almost like these men were completely invisible to that Latina old lady and I caught her lacking in her comment! Got EEEEEEEEM! 🤣 She was ghetto too, affected with that poisoned idiology and she was just trying to tell me this nonsense like she was on men’s sides because she was trying to get me to bed her! 🤮 They can only keep up this act but for so long. I pointed out that there were many men but they were there with their families or their women, and just because she didn’t see men solo in large numbers, it didn’t mean men weren’t interested. I let her know, it’s not a sex thing, it’s a cultural thing, pointing to the many Asian families that we saw walking by too, they were up there in Billings Farm enjoying foliage like every other sane American. She agreed that the fall scenery helps you to let go of the stress and to dial it down a gram, we are entering the end of the year too, holidays coming up, time to enjoy the scenery and outside before the cold comes in. The fact that he could relate to the things I say here, on this site, was amazing, and that she also made it a point to get to Billings Farm & Museum; although, when she got to her annoying horny-filled-speech trying to hit on me, talking about how romantic it would be if she wasn’t alone without a man, and how she didn’t have kids in the house, but still good men were not knocking on her door because she has a good job, good education and she’s strong… 🤣 You can take them out of the ghetto, you just CAN’T TAKE THEM OUT OF THE GHETTO!

NOTE: If you attempt to do go shooting in the rain, during fall foliage times, then you’re absolutely silly without two things in hand, a gray card to adjust your white balance, and the a POLARIZER! These two are musts, especially if you intend to sell photos to someone. White balance you can change in post, in an editing software but if you get it right in camera, first time, you will notice an incredible POP that takes you a hour a photo to do in post, and there isn’t must to do directly after, so you can quickly get those photos out for sale quick to clients, or out to journalists and whoever you make your content for. Despite what you may feel about that expensive camera you bought, their auto-white balance is subject that that camera manufacturer’s default color science, which is often flat, IMO. If you find you’re editing a lot of photos too much after you take them, this is most likely your culprit you’re trying to counter and silently don’t know what you hate about that camera– it’s their wonky color science that doesn’t match what you see with your own eyes at the location you’re shooting. The polarizer, you CANNOT duplicate in post, even if you try the newer ‘illuminance range’ tools in your favorite editors. Wet leaves will produce extra shine when you shoot, you’ll notice that on most of these here since these are done with camera phones mostly. That shine is taking away from the color and the full design of the leaves, so it’s messing up the photos. This is why people really hate taking foliage photos after rain has settled, but you’re not defenseless, just use a polarizer to kill the reflections coming off of the foliage and you’re back in business– plus, it makes the color pop more if skies clear up a bit. It’s even better to use the polarizer on a blue sky day against foliage because now your colors pop without needing any touching up in post, provided your subject is perpendicular to positioning of the sun, where a polarizer is most effective. Take that to a place like Billings Farm and you’re golden! Get to shooting!

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.