For Photo Journal entries
After finishing up with my images of Glen Hope covered bridge, I turned West, and headed up the creek to see what I could find.
It was easy to see, that the water level was down, which made it a little easier for me to explore and walk.
I ended up doing 5 series of HDR captures, and this is the first one that I have processed and published.
What do you think?
Finally, it seems that my project to photograph the Covered Bridges of Chester County is done!
It was a wonderful trip down to the “Southern Most” Covered Bridge in Pennsylvania.
I approached the bridge from the North side, and immediately knew I wanted to capture the windy road heading into Maryland.
Driving through the bridge, I parked on the small hill on the South side, and got out of the car.
While unpacking my gear and surveying Glen Hill, I really had to question myself on the location!
I thought I was back at Linton Stevens CB!
I did check the GPS, just to make sure…
I missed this bridge the last time I was down here in September by ‘fat fingering’ the GPS coordinates and driving into a townhouse area without any creeks, streams or rivers!
Waking into the bridge, I looked for the plaque, which is located on the Northern side of the bridge.
While taking my images of the plaque, a truck pulled up to the Southern entrance, and I signaled it go continue.
As the man passed me, he stopped, and we began to talk, and after a minute or two, he pulled over, and we began to talk more.
He introduced himself as Jamie Crouse of Crouse Auto Body in Elkton MD, and had lived in the area all his life.
As we walked and talked around the bridge, he keep telling me more about its history, such as the over weight truck being stuck inside the bridge during the 1960s.
Jamie also pointed out the char marks from the arson fire that destroyed the bridge in 1987.
Jamie continued to explain that a great of effort was made to recover as much of the original wood as possible for the rebuilding, which included Bongossi wood from Africa.
If you look closely at the floor in this picture, you will see large indentations, which were caused by the burning bails of hay and gasoline used to start the fire.
Some of the vertical posts still show charring from the fire.
He continued to say, that the two men responsible for the bridge fire are still in jail, and had also been linked to other arson attacks in the area.
On a more humorous side, he recalled that during his teenage years, two local girls visited Glenn Hope and other local covered bridges of the area, and carved “Boobless Wonder Strikes Again” on the down-creek side and “Woogie” on the up-creek side of the trusses.
We chatted a little more, and thanked him for the background info, and then he was off.
So now, where do I start my images?
The lighting was bouncing all over the place!
There was a stormy cold front passing over the area.
Short bursts of direct sun light, followed by various types of clouds, dark ones with rain and white fluffy ones.
Exposure nightmares!
But since I was doing HDR images any way, it really was not an issue.
In this image, you can see the Sun light popping in some areas, but not others.
HDR and ‘Mother Nature’ work wonders some times!
What I find most striking in this image, this the different layout of the support beams.
This was the first time that I saw the short ‘horizontal’ support beams instead of the long full-length ‘vertical’ beams of the other bridges, and certainly makes for a different visual capture!
I moved West up the Little Elk creek, and was able to capture this image looking East.
Featured Image and Photographer (November 2010) – Pennsylvania Covered Bridges
I did move further up the creek and managed to rip my Domke jacket… My first rip in the 25+ years I’ve owned the vest!
Bummer… Not a bad rip, but…
I went up about another hundred feet or so, and took some more images of the rocks surrounded by flowing water.
I still need to process those, and post them in another entry.
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10/25/2010 – Finally posted the HDR images to PhotoShelter, Flickr, RedBubble and Panoramio accounts. Also updated the Google Maps.
10/18/2012 – Notes from a talk given at the Citadel Credit Union about the Covered Bridges of the Oxford area.
After my presentation, I got to chat with several folks about the bridges, and during one conversation, I was introduced to Joe Chamberlain, who was tasked with removing and repairing the bridge after the cement truck damaged the bridge in 1968.
He not only confirmed the story, but went on to tell me, that the truck had started over the bridge, got about halfway, when the rear of the truck fell through the decking. He also questimated that there were about  8 yards of cement in the truck, at +/- 4400 pounds/yard, or 17.6 tons on a maybe 10 ton limit bridge!
Mr. Chamberlain went on to tell me, that the top of the cement truck was still above the deck level, and that he and his crew had to dig into the creek bed to lower the truck enough for them to get it out.
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I noticed this barn on Yellow Springs Road as I drove into Valley Forge National Park, and I almost stopped, but decided to investigate it later.
After driving around the park, up to the Arch and back down to Knox-Valley Forge Covered Bridge, I decided to head home.
As I drove back out on Yellow Springs Road, I had to stop and get some images because the clouds were just adding to much energy not to be captured!
I parked on the road side, grabbed my gear, and headed back to the barn, and was able to quickly capture these two images:
I am very happy to say, I did little post processing on these images, namely because, I did NOT have to!
I was also lucky enough to have the sun pop out at just the right time for these images. If you could see the frames just seconds before…
These images were captured as a series of HDR images, but I was able to single out the best “key” image with the clouds in mind using Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro. (One of my favorite new features!)
It still just amazes me.
Growing up in the area, I had been by and through this covered bridge countless times.
In my teenage years, it was a ritual to meet at the National Memorial Arch in the middle of Valley Forge National Park after the Prom, hang out, and maybe watch the sun rise. (At least that was the stated goal…)
With that in mind, why was this bridge so late in my project?
Don’t know, but I FINALLY got to it!
But when I first got there, my shot looked like it was in jeopardy because there was a repair crew looking over the bridge.
So I drove through the bridge from the Yellow Springs Road side, and turned left on Rt. 252.
I was headed toward the Arch. I had stopped by with Madison on July 30th, but was not happy with what I had gotten that day.
What was also adding to the day, was the weather!
There was a front coming through the area, with a great range of dark and light clouds.
I drove around, stopped a couple of places, took some pictures, and finally headed back to the bridge.
When I got there, I was happy to see the Repair Crew had gone, and there no cautionary signs, so I drove back through the bridge on Yellow Springs, and park in the little lot on the right.
I gathered my gear, and started to walk back to the bridge, crossed the road, and hopped over the guard rails to setup for my first shot.
From here, I moved down the embankment toward the creek, and what I really found striking, was all the flatted tall grass leading to the creek. Tropical Storm Nicole had moved through less then a week before.
It was a little unnerving to see clumps of grass in the tree limbs at eye level…
I got to the creek, and tried to find a good water shot, and captured this:
I then headed down the creek, and setup for this shot:
Pivoting to my left, I headed back up the embankment, and setup for this shot:
This shoot, actually took about ten minutes to capture because of all the traffic coming from three different directions, and with the sun popping in and out… It was allot if fun!
I walked through the bridge, and setup and captured this.
Again, this image took some time, and in both cases, I was helping to direct traffic.
From here, I jumped over the guard rail on the left, and captured this:
If you look carefully, you can begin to see the flatted tall grass on the left, but it does not approach what is just 10-15 feet further left!
Again, I climbed back up the embankment, crossed over the road, over another guard rail, and down the right side for an up creek view:
From here I headed back to the car.
Another Chester County Covered Bridge captured!
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Wow it has RAINED!
Just when you thought it was ending, another wave of rain would hit!
It was doing this well into the late night and early morning for Friday, October 1st.
This article from CBS news, “Storm Drenches East Coast, Kills 6 People“, sums up the storm.
When we finally got up to start the new day, we were greeted with a phone message announcing that the Downingtown area Schools were to have a (2) hour Opening Delay, and the local television news reports were showing segments on Road Closures and Flooding Damage in the surrounding areas.
Needless to say, traffic was BAD!
By 11am, I had Madison on the bus and off to school, and Logan dropped off at Day Care.
I was on my own!
Now to my Daily “Online Check-In” to catch-up…
On the “Chester County, PA” Flickr group, I noticed Brian Cox’s photo that he had taken at Hibernia Park, which gave me the idea.
So I fired up Goggle Earth and Maps, and plotted my course into my GPS, and off I went…
I had NOT been to Hibernia Park since the “Animal Planet Expo” event back on August 18th, 2007!
I got there and tried to find a Trail Map, but was thwarted because there did not seem to be folks in the Offices, even though there were cars around. (When I got home, I was able to find a PDF Trail map)
Oh well… on with my adventure!
After watching some other cars drive by, I drove down a dirt road toward the “Old Dam” area, parked, and gathered my gear…
Shooting Vest, Lens, extra Memory cards, Tripod, etc…
I was off!
What struck me the moment I turned off the car, was the loud sound of water rushing!
Just by the loud sound, you could tell there had been some rain lately!
I looked around the “Old Dam” ruins, and saw some water, but nothing really worth photographing, and started down the “Forge Trail”, toward that sound.
As I got to the first opening on the trail, this is what I saw:
Notice the the line of leaves on the right side of the image, to get an idea of how far up on land, the flood line is!
Walking a little further down the trail, and turning around, I got this the view, looking back up the creek:
Again, notice how far up the leaves are on the left side!
And from this picture, you can CLEARLY see how high the water is from all the rain!
I raised the ISO to 1600, and was able to capture these images, trying to illustrate the movement of the water as it barreled down the creek.
You have to LOVE the ability to change ISO in mid “film”!
One funny moment during this shoot.
I was setting up my tripod to take a picture, and felt something hit my foot.
When I looked down, I saw several scared fresh water cray fish jumping around, and then they were off into the creek!
“Someone” was not happy I was there!
This actually happen twice!
On my trip down and then back up!
I continued my walk down creek, past the little pond in the “Lower Damn” area, following Lions Head Drive.
About midway between “Cottage #3” and “Cottage #2”, there is a little hill, that has a barbecue stand and a picnic table, and from the top of the hill, I was able to get this view point, and take this image:
I then moved to in front of the tree to capture, these:
My last capture before “Cottage #2”, was this tranquil little image:
Looking at my watch, I started back to the “Old Dam” parking lot, and was able to take a few moments to capture these images:
and finally…
As you can see, there was allot of “action” on the river!
When I got to the Parking lot, there was another gentleman just getting ready to begin his adventure in photographing the creek!
I got home with about 15 minutes to spare before Madison got off the bus.
Yeah!
As she did her home work, I was able to begin processing the 318 images that I took.
Again, you have to LOVE the Digital Age!
Update – 4 Oct 10 – Since originally taking these images, I have managed to publish two (2) different galleries of digital pictures related to this adventure, and I invite you to take a take a look!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me!
Thanks for taking the time to read my Blog entry!
Come back soon to see what other adventures I have under taking!
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