On a recent trip to Florida, I visited the Osceola National Forest. The whole time we were in northern Florida it was rainy or at least heavily overcast. The forest was closer to a national swamp than a forest, but it lent itself very well to infrared treatment.
When I visited historic Middleway in Jefferson County, WV in late March, I saw this grand old tree standing guard over the cemetery.
I was interested to see how the flow at Great Falls was following the heavy rains we had recently. It was really quite dramatic.
While I was there I also captured some images with the Olympus PL1 camera that was converted to infrared.
Again there has been a pretty long gap between posts here. I have been occasionally out and about photographing so I thought I would post a few images and get caught up.
The first is an old barn on Route 9 in Virginia that I have passed many times thinking I should photograph it. Finally I stopped and took a few shots. The light wasn’t great but in a way it seemed to emphasize the fact that the flag had faded quite a bit from exposure to the sun.
Old barns are common sights throughout rural America and in the small towns it is likely that you will find old industrial sites that are no longer functioning and have for all practical purposes been abandoned. Eventually many of them fall down on their own or fall to the bulldozer or wrecking ball.
These structures represent a lot of history and I try to capture them whenever I can because once they are gone, they are surely quickly forgotten.
Burlington, West Virginia sits astride Route 50 about 11 miles west of Romney. One of the main features of the village was the volunteer fire department building, which hardly looks large enough to house any kind of a significant fire fighting apparatus. Still, it shows the spirit of volunteerism in small towns across the country.
Finally! Some sunshine and moderate temperatures.
Having driven to Cumberland, Maryland to pick up prints from the Tri-State Photography Exhibit, I decided to take advantage of this first break in the weather to take a little road trip that took me south out of Cumberland, through Keyser and Romney and then back through Berkeley Springs and eventually home.
Keyser is a mix of old and new, and a rail line I suspect at one time supported a wide range of local industry. The one moving train I saw this day was a long line of loaded coal hoppers headed for market.
Out to the west of Martinsburg and Route 81 is an area where orchards dominate the landscape. Very little can better illustrate the harshness of the winter than looking at the rows of bare trees under a grey overcast sky with the remnants of recent snows.
I saw this when I took a ride south on Route 11 from Martinsburg a couple of weeks ago. Not exactly sure what was being rounded up …
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Light, Shadow, Form, and Texture 
Horses and Abandoned Machinery
•February 27, 2014 • Comments Off on Horses and Abandoned MachineryFurther along Route 50 between Burlington and Romney, WV, I passed a field that was littered with old, apparently abandoned vehicles and other farm machinery. Included on the field were several horses, who were probably not finding a lot to graze on with much of the ground still covered with the remains of the recent snows. As I stepped up to the side of the road to take a photograph, one of the horses started walking in my direction. I couldn’t tell for sure, of course, but I thought it likely that I was being checked out as a possible source of something to eat. I left hoping that these horses had not been abandoned in the same way as the machinery scattered about.
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