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Blogging Chester County Downingtown HDR Nature Photo Journal Photography Streams

Norwood Road Creek with Logan

It started just like any other morning around the house.

The scramble of breakfast, then off to the bus stop and on to Day Care.

But today, there was going to be a twist.

When Logan and I got to Day Care, we were told that there were electrical issues, and the second floor was without power.

The refrigerators were down and the indoor temperature was already in the 80s, and if I left him, I might be getting a ‘pick-up’ call shortly.

110531 Norwood Road Creek hdr 01
110531 Norwood Road Creek - Follow-Up

So what to do…

After a phone call or two, it was going to be a “Boy’s Day”!

After grabbing donuts at Wawa, we headed home, and spent some time catching up on some cartoons.

As lunch time rolled around, we began to prepare for our walk, and eventually head out.

Finding parking along the road was a breeze, and from there we gathered our gear and head down to the creek, which called for some bush whacking.

Once we where down in the creek, Logan began to explore, and I was able to set up for my first shoot.

Almost…

I left my Neutral Density filters in my bag…

Thankfully, we were still close enough to the car that I could dart back and grab them!

Back at my tripod, I attached my 1.2ND, and started to frame my follow-up shot to my January picture.

In January, this was my last scene of the day, because I had started further downstream.

What made this shoot easier, was the temperature, which was totally opposite. Today, it is in the low 90s with high humidity!

After doing a series of HDR exposures, I called Logan and we started upstream. This was new territory for the both of us.

As we walked up the stream, one could look by the sides and see debris that had washed down through the months. It wasn’t that bad, but it was still sunny to see three beach balls sitting on the side of the stream.

110531 Norwood Road Creek 034 tm 01
Norwood Road Creek - Water Fall 034

I stopped a few times and set up for some small waterfall shots, which served two purposes.

The most obvious being to capture the scene, the second was to stand in the nice cool water!

We also noticed in the many pools of water filled with small little schools of fish swimming away from us as we continued walking upstream.

Logan made many attempts to crack catch them to little avail.

The creek split several times, and we continued to the left all the way up to the exposed manhole, which stood out from the creek bed a good 6 feet.

As we got closer, Logan very excitedly and insistently asked me to put him on top.

The grin on his face when he finally felt secure enough to stand, was ear to ear.

Looking at my watch, we had about a half hour before Madison got home.

I had Logan jumped from the top of the manhole cover into my arms, giggling on his flight down.

Heading downstream, we veered to the right and ventured into more new territory.

As we walked, I asked Logan if he thought Madison would also enjoy this little creek, and he nodded his head in approval.

We splash your way down the stream and finally found where we had started and headed up the little hill back to our car.

Once we were at home, we unpacked our things minutes before Madison walked in the door.

She was bombarded by Logan with “Sissy! Sissy! Guess where we went!”

 

Additional Images

As I was processing my images, the waterfall detail, struck me as a potential candidate for some additional post processing work of dropping out the color and turning it into pure black-and-white image:

110531 Norwood Road Creek 034 tm 01 bw 01a
Norwood Road Creek 034 bw 01a

Here is an additional overview shot of the same scene:

110531 Norwood Road Creek 028 tm 01
Norwood Road Creek 028 - Waterfall Overview

Thanks again for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed what you have seen!

– Andrew
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Categories
Chester County Downingtown Flickr Nature Pennsylvania Photo Journal Photography Photostream

First Snow Fall – Norwood Road Stream

Snow Thistle (023)
Snow Thistle (023)

The past two nights, we had our first snow falls of 2011.

It was nothing major, about 3″-4″, enough to give the ground a good covering, and then some.

I was not able to go out Friday, but after running Family errands all Saturday, I finally got some time at the end of the day!

Grabbing my gear, and knowing that I did not have much light left, I jumped in my car, and headed to the little stream area off of Norwood Road in Downingtown.

Having driven up and down this road thousands of times, I knew of a small little parking area, about mid-way down the road. After parking, I realized that it also seemed to be an entrance to an ancient access road.

Snow Stream hdr 08
Snow Stream hdr 08

Now I was ready to go! I through my camera bag and tripod over my shoulders, and headed slight back out the road, and into the woods.

Having never walked this area before, it was funny breaking new territory with the fresh snow, but finding trails was very difficult.

Eventually, I did find two sets of prints in the snow: boots and paws, and by the looks of the paw prints, that canine was having allot fun!

I had to cross the stream, back and forth several times, scouting and shooting with each adventure, and I was capturing everything in multi-exposure HDR.

It was getting colder by the minute, and I was not collapsing my tripod with each shoot, which on several occasions, also doubled as a nice balancing rod!

Snow Stream hdr 13
Snow Stream hdr 13

Slowly, I moved up stream, finding many wonderful shoots, and taking in the beauty of the moment.

After about an hour, the light was getting too low and so was the temperature.

I crawled back up to Norwood road, startling homeowner across the street, shoving their driveway, as I broke through the trees.

It took me a few more minutes to get back to the car, and another seemingly successful outing.

– Andrew
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Update

May 31, 2011 – With the Winter memories slowly fading away, I finally got a chance to revisit Norwood Road Creek with my son, Logan, for an afternoon walk in the cold water!