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
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
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!
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.
Fungi DOF by Brian Cox
So I fired up Goggle Earth and Maps, and plotted my course into my GPS, and off I went…
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:
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 038
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:
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 060
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!
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 059
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.
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 207Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 146
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!
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 041
This actually happen twice!
On my trip down and then back up!
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 283
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:
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 067
I then moved to in front of the tree to capture, these:
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 086Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 163
My last capture before “Cottage #2”, was this tranquil little image:
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 225
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:
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 291
and finally…
Hibernia Park (10/1/2010) – 315
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!
