Blast Furnace Row

Pearl Harbor had Battleship Row — Bethlehem Steel, Blast Furnace Row.  Snapped in late August '06, some of the plant is now a Sands Casino.  Might be worth a return trip, sight-lines have to be better with some access to the plant roads.

Posting motivated by seeing Sean O'Boyle's Bethlehem Steel Gallery.  Motivated enough to buy his book Modern Ruins Portraits of Place in the Mid-Atlantic Region. 

5D with 17-40 f4.0L and 70-200 f2.8L, all likely handheld.

Modern Ruins

Was researching places to shoot and once again went to the Bethlehem Steel site which once again took me to Sean O'Boyle's site which has extraordinary themed ruins galleries.  Not going to drive to Bethlehem today or even likely soon.  In the mean time a couple of snaps ala O'Boyle from the Power Canal off the Connecticut River in Turner's Falls, MA.

Taken with the now trickled down GF-1 and a Leica 35 Summilux @ ISO 125, 1/80, likely f8.0 in May of '10.

More WNC

Washington National Cathedral

The Cloisters, spent a lot of time here waiting — just outside the choir room.  First snapped in November of 2003, this, the latest version, from May of '09.  The lamp lenses that are missing in '09 were missing in '03 too. Someone has a snap on Flickr from April '10 and looks like they might have finally got around to replacing them. Three bracketed shots with the 85mm f/1.2L II on the then very new, 5D Mk II.  Combined using HDR Efex.

From the Bishop's Garden, also the 5D Mk II and HDR Efex, this time with the 17-40 4.0L at 17mm.

Night B&W

Revived snaps from July '05 on the Washington National Cathedral Close.  All clearly on the Gitzo, acquired with the 10D and 17-40L f4.0 @ ISO 200.  Combined with HDR Efex Pro with mild settings, B&W conversion with Silver Efex Pro 2.

Back of Hearst Hall, National Cathedral School.  One exposure at f8.0 another at f11.0 both at 30 seconds.

North Transept Porch, Washington National Cathedral.  Four exposures at f11.0 from 6 to 30 seconds.

Sharpsburg dependencey

This series of bracketed snaps has vexed me since I took them in August of '05.  Small shed in the back yard of a a house on the corner of West Main and North Potomac Streets, in Sharpsburg MD, near the Antietam Battlefield.  The yard was dark and the outbuilding backlit. Just reedited this, probably the best of a ton of attempts since '05 but still too crunchy.  HDR tools trying to make it look non-HDR.

Last time I drove past the building was intact but was shorn of its magnificent foliage.

The Big M

First message on the iPhone landing at BWI yesterday (on time for the first time in quite sometime), was from Bill asking me about a photo of a deer at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park.  Bill has a good memory, that snap was take in June '05.  Drove out there real early from DC, starting out around 4AM I think. Entered the park at Thornton Gap from VA 211 and took the shot below at one of the first overlooks heading south on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Always liked this snap of the sun coming up over the Virginia Piedmont.

Wish DSLRs had built-in GPS, there are ways to do it, some easy and expensive some cheap and somewhat clumsy.  It is easy and essentially free in the iPhone.  Canon 10D with 24-70 f2.8 @70mm, .6s exposure on the Gitzo.

The road less taken

There were roads to the left and to the right — both low roads.  But why choose the low road when the high road is available and unoccupied.  However, footgear other than Alden 6245F Dark Brown Suede is recommended. Ouch!

My superheterodyne iPad app The Photographers Ephemeris calculates the altitude change as exactly 92 feet. So much much for science and automation, clearly an estimate relative to thirty-somethings.

Taken during an Atlas time out on one of the several Boston Harbor Islands that can be driven to, World's End. At the end of Martin's Lane in Hingham, beware pink and green en-route.  Nice spot except for perfect alignment with 4L and 4R at Logan, across the way on some other Harbor Islands.  XZ-1 with EVF, then NIKed. More snaps to follow.

Nantasket Beach from World's End.  Wow, maybe too many layers, lower, upper lower, lower middle, middle...

Dorothy

So... the SO tells me she has reason to believe she (Graceland perhaps) is actually from Kansas — despite the MA in her passport.  I am on the road again and since, unlike Dorothy, she has never sullied her ballet (ruby) slippers in The Sunflower State, I offer this snap from the American Roadways gallery on Smugmug.  Just off KS 177 - Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Flint Hills, KS in November 2007.  Highly dependent on RRS and the Gitzo.

A solitary tree waging the unwinnable war against grass.  The longest running conflict on the planet. More