Images that are on Flickr.com
Not sure how, but I managed to rack up 252 visits today on my Flickr Account!
Must be something to do with all the contests that I have been entering…
Post 1 / Award 5, etc…
Rather time consuming…
Gotta find a quicker way to view and award!
Driving south of Coatesville on Route 82, was definitely one of those days where you had the windows down and the stereo cranked up.
Initially I wanted to find Speakman #2 (Mary Ann Pyle CB), but when I got to the end of Highland Dairy Road, I encountered a local resident and asked about the bridge. He informed me that the bridge had been damaged in the recent storms back in June. He had not been there, but he had heard that the bridge had washed away.
I turned around and continued south on Route 82, which only took me deeper into the horse country of Chester County.
It was easy finding DuPont road which led to frog Hollow Road and I parked at the intersection.
This Burr bridge was built in 1881 by Menander & Ferdinand Wood, and is located in a very quiet and secluded area where one could only hear water running of the stream.
Unpacking my tripod and camera gear, I set out to do some interior shots of the bridge from the road.
There was some graffiti scrolled onto the dark walls of the interior which added some color.
I look for position where I could go full-sized shot of the bridge, but the weeds were very thick, and I decided to cross the bridge to the other side.
once on the other side, I found an easy path walking upstream, and was quickly able to find a dried area where I could set up to do my full-length shot.
It was a nice relief walking through the cool stream water because it was such a hot and humid day.
After taking my full-length shots, I started looking around at the beautiful scenery, and just swiveled the tripod head 180°, looking back up the stream, capturing the following image.
I spent a few more minutes letting my eyes take in the beauty, as I splashed cold water onto my head and neck helping to cool me off.
reluctantly I started back downstream and got to the edge of the bridge, where I set up to do my final detailed interior capture.
Here is another example, where I did not notice the lens flare on the cameras LCD screen, but did notice it when I was editing the images and Adobe Lightroom.
I crossed back over the bridge, put my gear into the car, selected my next bridge from the GPS, and headed off to Mercer Covered Bridge in Christiana.
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I stopped at the nearby Target to pickup some quick supplies, and then jumped in the car, and started up the GPS.
A day or two earlier, I had spent some time on Google Maps and my Reference sites, entering in GPS coordinates.
After everything was up and running, I looked up the nearest bridge, and Larkin’s was the first on the list.
As I headed North on Route 100 from the Route 113 intersection (Uwchlan Ave), without issue, but as I followed the GPS, I quickly found that the map on the GPS, was not up to date, and I first ended up doing a circle.
On the second try, I looked at the roads, and used the GPS as a guide, and finally made it to the bridge.
I pulled over as close to the bridge as possible, and grabbed my gear.
I free-handed this shot…
Larkin’s does not have car or truck access, and can only be crossed via foot or bicycle, which made it all the more easy to photograph.
So I broke out the tripod, and was easily able to capture this…
From here, I stepped back some, and got this long view…
I moved to the other side of the bridge, to where the cat o’ nine tails are growing, looked back and captured this…
Moving back to my car, I decided to go again go underneath the bridge…
in this image, notice the detail of the bird’s nest.
I finished up, and got to my car, packed up, and headed on.
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Built in 1860, Bartram Covered Bridge is located just off of Goshen Road about 2½ miles West of Route 252 in Newtown Square, Chester County PA.
It is not recommended to park on the side of Goshen Road itself, because many people drive to fast in this section of the road, but there is some road side parking available on Boot Road.
I had been driving past this bridge for years and never stopped to doing anything about it, until today.
The beautiful late “Indian Summer” weather, combined with the cold nights have cause a very vibrant and colorful Fall foliage surrounding the bridge.
The bridge crosses over Crum Creek, and there is a small area for kids to run around, or a blanket picnic, as well as a few benches and rocks to sit on.
When you approach the bridge from the park area, you will notice the free-standing main bridge information plaque. As you get closer to the bridge, the next sign that you will see attached to the bridge, is National Register of Historic Places plaque.
One can not walk into the middle of the bridge, because there are metal security bars covering both entrance ways from top to bottom, but as you look more closely through the bars, you can see some holiday string lights attached to the long side walls.
This picture was taken on the opposite side of Crum Creek from where you can park, and to reach it, you have to walk around the bridge, and into the woods, then down by the water.
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All images were taken with a Canon XTi on a Bogen (Model 3020) tripod with a Canon Remote Switch RS-60E3, using the native 16-bit Camera Raw (cr2) format. The ISO Speed was set to 100.
Images were then transferred to a Microsoft Windows XP (SP-3) based computer and converted into Adobe DNG format, with additional processing done with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
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These Inverted Icicles, also referred to as Ice Spikes, were amazing!
We have been watching them grow over the past several days, and when we heard the temperatures were going to be too warm for them to survive, I had to grab my camera to record what we saw.
As you can see, these Inverted Icicles/Ice Spikes, were grown on the under-side of a 100-gallon horse troth, that we use in the summer, as a deck pond.
The troth had been up-side down for well over a month, and ‘Mother Nature’ dropping leaves, water and what ever else into the various sections of the horse troth under-side.
During the past couple of days, the highs were in the twenties, and the area was struck with direct sun for 4-5 hours.
At night, the temperatures would easily drop into teens.
There is no roof or over-hang, and the tree branches are too far way to be this consistent.
From the Overview images, the tall ones are easily over 2 inches “tall”, but there is obvious variations in shape:
I can understand, to a degree, the vertical oriented icicle/spikes, but these?
I am very baffled in how the angled icicles/spikes are able to grow, and in such perfect form, especially, when one would suspect that they would droop over…
And what about the secondary “buds”?
Since I originally captured these images, I have been searching for an explanation to this phenomenon.
From my cited references below, icicles/spikes are generally “grown” in controlled conditions, using “Distilled Water”; a flash freeze process; in ice-cube trays, and seems to be easily repeatable.
On the other hand, and less well reported, are the Natural icicles/spikes that do occur, in bird baths or other small bowl-shaped objects. Some examples can be found on “Got Spikes on Your Ice Cubes?”.
When looking at the captures on this page, note the clarity and translucency of the ice, which would seemingly demonstrate the cold temperatures involved.
Refrigerator grown icicles/spikes, it seems, tend to be very thin and around 2 inches in length, and the images provided, easily show that these icicles/spikes are over that mark. [Note to self – Need to work out actual sizes]
As for the impurities issue, using Distilled Water versus Not, images on this page do not seem to show any impurities as the focus of structure formation.
If I were to guesstimate an ‘age’ for these ice shapes, 3-5 days, based on looking the air bubble paths.
If one looks carefully, there does appear to be a larger repeating bubble ‘chamber’ along the path of the escaping air.
I suggest that the ‘chamber’ is a result of an extreme cold state, corresponding to a chilling/warming cycle, and would normally seem to occur during the day time hours, or when exposed to warming temperatures.
It seems in a majority of cases, a plastic compound seems to be the main sub-straight.
I have to wonder if there is an influence of some sort of electrical discharge, in the colder, drier environments that effect that shape.
As for the shaping of the check-mark shapes, consider the idea, that the ‘buds’ are a back-follow condition of the primary side.
What are your thoughts?
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