A quick trip to Old Man’s Cave in Hocking Hills

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What to do at Old Man’s Cave

Certainly the goal isn’t to make this a travel blog – the focus here is really great portraits.  I wanted to show some of the photography that we did while hiking about in nature.

Our visit to Old Man’s Cave

First – Old Man’s Cave is in Hocking Hills, which is about 40 minutes southeast of Columbus in an area of Ohio that you have little reason to visit.  Unless you happen to have relatives not far from there, which I do.

Upper Falls

Second – This is a state park.  Why is that important?  National Parks are very awesome and I mentioned Mt. Pisgah in a previous post, but there is a slight drawback to the national parks – they tend not to be as much “fun”.  Use is restricted.  State Parks, however, tend to be more fun oriented (think kid friendly).

 

When you visit, see Old Man’s Cave, Ash Cave and Cedar Falls.  All three are very, very easy hikes and Ash cave is very handicap accessible.  If you have a choice, get there after it has rained in the previous days to insure that the water is flowing – it was a trickle when we were there.

If you have members of your family that are adventurous, you can enjoy some canoeing/kayaking, zip lines, and horseback riding.  The area is abundant with camp sites and cabin rentals where you can stay.  We like rustic so we chose http://www.hockingriver.com/ which has canoeing and kayaking as well as rustic camping cabins.

Fern

For those who need some more modern amenities.  Starbucks is in Lancaster and you aren’t that far from Columbus where you can enjoy the malls and the amazing North Market.

WARNING: When I saythink summer camp.  If taking your own bedding and walking to a place to shower is not your cup of tea……google hotel and not camping cabin.  BUT, if you like sitting around a campfire in the woods and retreating to a mattress and a room with AC…..google camping cabin.

Here is a link to all the caves to visit, we did the first three with a 3 and a 10 year old. http://www.hockinghills.com/parks.html.

Hocking Hiills

Valuing Family

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_DSC0905-Edit

What is the value of family? Priceless. Our recent vacation took us to Mt. Pisgah in North Carolina. Yes the camping was great and the food was great. We did a little bit of hiking and little bit of shopping. But we did a WHOLE LOT of family.

It was an absolutely wonderful time with family relaxing in the woods eating s’mores, chatting, eating s’mores, hiking and then eating s’mores. My daughters had nearly twenty cousins to enjoy their time with.

Why mention that here? For the simple reason that the only thing that we have to remember this by are the pictures that _DSC0832 remain (that and a few pounds from all the s’mores.) I love creating lasting family portraits with the camera – it is my artists brush.

I am only including a few here from some of the landscape images that I had some time to capture – and one image of the s’mores.

Flashback Friday

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We are starting a new tradition here at Keepsake; it is called flashback Friday.

The plan is to select a session from the past and release it through all of our social media.

The first Flashback is Gillian Karhoff-Schumaker.

My memories of the session:  Gillian was an absolute blast to photograph.  Not only was her variety of interests fun, but she had a bunch of props.  What I find interesting is that I was all PC then and she was all Mac…we even did a mockup of one of those “I am Mac. I am a PC” commercials.  Now I have an iMac computer, iPad, and an iPhone.

- Eric Leszkowicz

Gillian is currently in her last week of classes as a Junior at Bowling Green State University. Pursing a career in art therapy and counseling and hope to continue on to get my Master’s degree in the fall of 2014.

She gave is the following exciting news Continue reading →

Commercial Photography Photoshoot

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It is a great privilege that I have to work with so many great individuals on so many projects.  Recently we were able to complete a photo shoot at Findlay’s newest coffee shop, We Serve. Coffee.

The unique twist on this coffee shop is that all the profits are donated to charity.  I am not going to reveal all of the images or the video here, but I just wanted to post a sneak peek.

- Eric

Bowl of Salad

Preserving Memories – Restoration

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What if you have a print that needs restoration

Real Stories:

  • A wallet image of a mother and daughter was the only remaining image of the two of them together.  That image was ran through the wash and most of the paper backing was gone and the emulsion layer (the top layer) was heavily damaged.  We were able to restore the image and create a remake of the print.
  • The portrait pictured below is part of a large, almost 16×20, print that was given to the children by their mother.  This portrait had been pretty well preserved but the printing process itself does not hold up well over time.  The paper substrate is very loose and flakes off easily.

You can see some of the work that is done in restoration to make a clean file to make prints from.  In some cases we print on a similar paper to the original rather than on modern photographic paper.  Framing restorations is always recommended.

Picture Restoration

You can fill out the form below and we can get in contact with you about your restoration project.

PS We also digitize large numbers of files regardless of their format (slides, prints, etc.)

Bonus: Read about the preservation process for the Star Spangled Banner