The Great Dismal Swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp is a pretty impressive area.  I am surprised there weren't more people there since it is in such close proximity to some really big cities.  I actually didn't see another person in the swamp or lake once I got on the kayak(there were some people milling about the boat ramp area).

The Dismal Swamp is near Chesapeake VA, and it straddles the VA/NC border.  It's about a 6hr drive from Galax if you count the time it took for me to go to Riner and pick up the kayak that a friend foolishly let me borrow.

I got a bit of a late start on the drive due to lunch with the gf and some friends.  So I didn't arrive at the boat ramp until about 7:30pm.  This made it pretty much impossible to get to the campsite before dark, as it's about a 3 mile kayak trip.

Getting dark in the Feeder Ditch

The good thing about the campsite, is that it is located near the lock that keeps the lake level high.  There are some services there including flush-able toilets, power outlets, tables, and a little house where I think a ranger can stay or something.  The REALLY good thing about the campsite was the lights!  It got dark well before I made it to camp, but as I got closer I could start to see fluorescent lights, guiding me there(the Feeder Ditch through the swamp is a straight shot, just loooooooooong)

 The lock consists of a spillway and a cable boat transporter thing.  Basically, you put your boat on it, press a button and it takes your boat up the and over the hill to the other side of the lock.

Due to peet soil or something like that, the water here is brown like tea:)

I slept in that brown building:)

Put your boat on here...

...press a button and it will take your boat over here..

I took this on the way out, since when I started it was too dark to see the sign.

Once I got to the camp, I found out that the sit-on-top kayak I borrowed uses holes in the floor of the rear compartment as ballast.  This normally wouldn't be a big deal but my sleeping bag was at the bottom and therefor soaked:)  Luckily when I picked up the kayak I stole a tarp is well.  So instead of pitching a tent I slept on the floor of one of the screened in picnic table areas(the tarp would be a bit too big of a sleeping back for a two-man tent).

Now to the good part...

I have had some pretty incredible areas all to myself in the past.  I have blazed a trail in fresh snow to Mystic Lake in Montana.  I've sat and watched the stars turn over a moonlit Devil Canyon without being disturbed. I've enjoyed hours in the Stillwater Canyon without seeing a soul.... But for some reason, waking up at 4:30am from a tarp, hopping in a kayak onto what looks like a sheet of glass, and paddling out of the swamp and into Lake Drummond where huge monoliths rise up out of the water, where the sound of the kayak's wake, frogs, and birds are all that you hear(I was up before the planes started flying overhead)... this was one of the most incredible experiences in my life, even if it only lasted for a short time.

It's hard to see in this photo, but the far tree was chock full o' birds

Vibrant green on the edge of Lake Drummond

The southern Edge of Lake Drummond has a different look.   I used a CPL, an ND filter and a Singh-Ray reverse grad to manage an 8 second exposure to capture this scene.

A warbler(I think)

Turtles were EVERYWHERE!

One thing I learned on this trip, is that it is very hard to setup compositions on a kayak.  What would normally be easy to change on dry land is more difficult when working over the side of a boat.  I used 3/4" wooden dowels rammed up into the bottom of my tripod legs to give me the height needed(the lake is about 4-6ft deep).

Click here to view more in Smugmug

The T-Rex (2008 Ford Taurus X)

When I first got this car a few weeks ago, it was freshly detailed and super shiny.  I thought about taking a photo of it looking all cool and shiny... but then I realized that it deserves more credit than that.... since being in inclement weather and muddy is more of its natural state. 

So here it is... the first car I ever purchased from a dealership. 

Its got room for 4 fullsized people + two small sized people(the far back seats are a bit cramped)
All passenger seats fold flat.
It has AWD, a 6 speed auto, and a 260hp engine that helps me get around multiple cars when the center line turns dotted:)

and... I've always wanted a station wagon.... :)



The dealership transferred my plates and everything:)



Comet Pan-STARRS

Last night I set out for Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I was looking for a good place to get an unobstructed view of the western sky(this is somewhat difficult in my area).  Just south of Doughton Park, I found an acceptable spot to sit and wait for Comet Pan-STARRS to show up. 

I arrived about 30 minutes before sunset, and once the sun actually set, my eyes were peeled looking for the comet. 

After waiting about 25 minutes after sunset, I started to get frustrated with not being able to see it.  I even googled how to see it(luckily I had data service), and space.com stated that the comet would be visible just to the left of the crescent moon(at this point I couldn't even see the moon).

...A few minutes later...  Boom, there's the moon, a tiny crescent almost perfectly following the sun.  But still no comet.... So I waited... and waited... and waited... and then I got really frustrated because the wind was howling and I was starting to feel like this whole night would be time spent in vain(even though shots with crescent moons are nice by themselves).

I looked again at where space.com said to look, and took a photo of the general vicinity using my 70-200mm lens.  Then upon viewing the image... there it was.  I tiny little streak in the sky right where it was supposed to be.  It was so small that it was very hard to spot with the naked eye even after finding out exactly where it was.

After I got home and loaded the images on the computer, I noticed that Comet Pan-STARRS was visible WELL before I noticed it on the back of my camera.  It was visible while the moon was much higher in the sky!(and I didn't have a clue)  To see a couple more images click here to go to Smugmug

Oh well.... Enjoy...



Comet Pan-STARRS near a setting crescent moon backed by a rich pre-twilight sky.



Snow is Awesome

That's me, just south of Fox Hunter's Paradise

 

With a little work, snow can be(and always is) a wonderful thing.  Sure, we have to sometimes live without electricity, water, internet, or other amenities.  We have to shovel our driveways or get stuck, we have to brush off our satellite dishes to restore entertainment, we sometimes have to light a candle to create enough light to play scrabble.  I mean, it can be a very traumatic experience.

 

I for one, absolutely love snow.  The more the better.  I love the change in the landscape, the ice natural sculptures of ice, and the crunch under my feet.  I also love how snow can bring on an absolute quiet. 

 

I started my day getting dressed at 4a.m.  Since my area recieved over 6" of snow the previous evening, I new that I was gonna need a good head start to make it to Fox Hunter's Paradise by sunrise. 

 

The county road crew came and scraped our road(with an actual constuction scraper), creating a huge pile of snow at the bottom of my driveway.  I thought I could get a little speed and blast through the snow in reverse, but of course I got stuck.  I don't own a shovel, so I found myself trying to dig my car out with a utility rake.  I had been digging for about ten minutes when my neighbor, a local mail carrier who was on his way to work, came up behind me and offered a push.  This was critical in getting me to the parkway on time(and keeping my car from blocking half of the road).

 

I then drove to the Highway 18/Blue Ridge Parkway Junction and parked my car in a safe spot on the side of the road.  It's just shy of 2 miles to Fox Hunter's Paradise, and since a few 4x4's had driven the parkway the night before, I was able to walk in thier tracks:)  I made it to the overlook at the beginning of blue hour, with stars still showing. 

 

While I waited for the sun to rise, I snapped a few predawn shots before heading down the parkway just a little ways to capture the sun breaking the horizon.  The air was coooooooooooold before sunrise.  I tried to clean my graduated filter by breathing on it and wiping it off(I know, not the best choice) and all I got was bits of ice on my filter as it froze immediately.

 

After sunrise walking back to the car, I decided to stop into gully creek, but the rhododendrons that were pushed down by all the snow made navigating the creek very difficult, so I didn't hang around long...

 

Enjoy the image below, and click the link to view the full gallery from Friday's fun.

 

 

Click Here for the Full Gallery



 

 

 

The Sun breaks the horizon near Pilot Mountain 

 

From Gemini with Love...

I recently had the opportunity to photograph the Geminid meteor shower.  I was in luck because the skies were set to be clear here in southwest Virginia.  I chose to shoot at a small field near the Blue Ridge Music center on the Blue Ridge Parkway just north of the Virginia/North Carolina line.
After showing the final photo, some people were curious as to how I managed to capture all the meteors in one frame.  What follows is what a person needs to know should they want to do this themselves.
The items I brought with me were as follows

Canon 5d Mark ii
Canon 17-40mm f4L(your widest lens is recommended)
Tripod
Intervalometer or Cable Release.
Extra Battery(a battery grip would be perfect for this)
A smart phone with a stargazer app.
A good radio station or an mp3 player with 4 hours of music:)

I knew that the Geminids were going to peak around 2am on the night of the shoot.  So I left the house just after midnight to head to my shooting area(about 20 minutes from my house).

Upon arrival, the first thing I needed to do was find out where in the sky the meteors were going to come from.The Radiant(the constellation in the sky that they seem to fall from) this night was Gemini constellation.  Once I found that constellation on my smartphone I had a better idea as to where to point the camera.  It is not recommended to point your camera directly at the radiant point because a falling metoer hitting your lens can cause serious damage.  Just kidding, the closer the meteors are to the radiant, they shorter they appear(think of someone shooting an arrow directly at you from 100ft away, and then someone shooting an arrow to a point 50ft to your left.  The arrow travels the same distance, but you can see much more of it when it is viewed from the side)

From here on out, all that mattered was how I was going to compose the scene.  I opted to put a tent into my scene, so I placed a light inside the tent to help me compose my scene in the dark.

Once my camera was composed, I set the camera to shoot 30 second exposures at 3200iso, 17mm, f4.  I used the intervalometer as a standard cable release and just locked it down.  If you are shooting with a lens around the 24mm length, I would recommend a shorter exposure time, as the star movement will be more apparent on a longer focal length.

Then, all you do is enjoy the show.  I ended up with several meteors showing up in the resulting images.

Before I packed everything up and left, I needed to capture an exposure for the tent.  You can get really creative here if you would like, with any sort of foreground.  For mine, I stood behind my tent and shined the light for a few seconds.

Since I had been shooting for many hours in the early part of the morning, my camera, tripod, and tent were covered in dew and frost!

Now for the boring part....

It's really easy to blend all the exposures together properly.  First I find my tent picture, adjust the white balance to the light of the flashlight, and save it(note that this will look terrible on the top half of your image)

Then I find all the images that have meteors in them, like this...

 and this...

 and this...

Once I have found all of the metoers, I adjust the image for contrast, sharpness, and very importantly, white balance(from here on out you will be working with jpegs), then save all the images in full resolution.

Next you will need to 'blend' them all together.  This is really easy, just a little time consuming.  If you are not familiar with using layers in photoshop or the gimp, make yourself familiar, then keep reading(sorry no screenshots)

I use the Gimp.  It's free, easy, and exactly like photoshop for the things I do.  All I really use it for is layers and masking, all my other edits are completed with Lightroom and Lightroom plugins.

I opened up all the images as seperate projects(you can open them up as layers if you like working that way).  I like working on them one at a time so I keep them seperate.  Then I copy and past one of the images onto another image and add a full transparent layer mask(make a note of where the meteor is in your image before adding the layer mask, because it will disappear).  Then I use the 'lighten only' brush and draw a thin line over the meteor's trail.  This will expose the meteor, and some surrounding stars, so keep it tight!  Flatten your image, rinse, repeat until all of your meteor trails are displaying nicely in one frame.

Then grab your tent image and add it as a layer.  Using the same principle as before, I added the tent into the scene.except I did not use the 'lighten only' brush, I used 'normal').  Since the treeline in my image was black in both the photo shot for the tent, and the stars, blending them together was easy.

There you have it,  an image with two parts.  The bottom part a tent with a white balance set to the flashlight, and the top part a bunch of meteors raining down in a nice cool blue sky:)

Oh and if you take all those photos from your night and blend them together with star trail software, the results are cool as well:)

One Red Morning

An awesomely red morning on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The sun produces an awesome glow just before sunrise, and is a wonder red orb low in the sky just after.  Then the color goes away and I head in to work:) 

Pilot Mountain Pre-dawn



 

Happy Sunday, thanks for looking. :)

The last of the Fall Color at Stone Mountain...

For the second time in as many days, I went to Stone Mountain State Park in North Carolina.  The fading fall color brings a bit of sadness to my eyes. All of this vibrant color is now dwindling to nothing more than brown sticks reaching for the sky... I guess we just need to enjoy it while it lasts and prepare for winter!

Looking up at a backlit red leaf

Just off the trail near the summit of Stone Mountain.  Rain and flowing water leave thier mark down the mountain.

A view from the homestead

A group of buzzards swooping around and acting like the juveniles that they are

Looking up at Buzzards above Stone Mountain