Photo Composite 4/5 - Advanced Digital Final Here's an HDR of a waterfall on the way to Thurmond, finally finished with this for class. One more to go with the absolute due date being Sunday. The text on the trees is a quote by Heraclitus, "You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." Let me know how you like it and whether or not you can spot that little clown. — in Thurmond, WV.
Midterms this week and business in Charleston in the early A.M.Gutstein gallery exhibition in Savannah Thursday-Sunday, travel/accommodation arrangements underway.
That being said, uploads will be slow until Monday/Tuesday. I plan to make the most out of River Street and Tybee and see if I can't get a better look at a gator on that wildlife preserve just across the border.
Below are the two photographs that made it into this Silver & Ink exhibition.
Frozen Plum Orchard Lake, above
Coal Refuse Facility beside Marsh Fork Elementary, recently relocated, on Coal River Road, WV
Take care!
Besides school, work, business, and this blog, I've begun an assistantship and have been learning tons and tons of new information on night photography. See photos below for further illustration.
Here's a ghost selfie practice:
***P.S.- Also have begun reading my cousin Marcus Evans' book Robert and so far I haven't been able to put it down when I have the free time to read. Check it out--half the proceeds from the book goes to Lymphoma research.
You can learn more about Spleniclymphoma and Marcus' battle against it here: http://spleniclymphoma.com
All for now!
I returned to West Virginia in time to work all weekend, post a few photos of the day, touch up and disperse family and friend portraits from my trip to my hometown, and get caught up with school by completing two weeks worth of homework to SCAD. What I'm working on right now is Advanced Digital Imaging, whereby I'm learning more in-depth about photography software and techniques involved--such as heavy Photoshopping--and also I'm learning much more about Business for Photographers. I'll post a little more on that later but for now I'm studying much on portrait retouching and body sculpting. Once again, more on Kaymoor buildings later. I haven't had a chance to touch them up as much.
To get away from that for the time being, I'll talk about the trip, which was great overall. I was able to make some great contacts at the career fair, and it was even more awesome to actually get a chance to talk with professionals and other colleagues in person from SCAD and from companies SCAD was marketing to us. There was an unexpected death in the family but besides that, I was able to touch base with lots of family, friends, former colleagues, mentors, and professors, some of whom I hadn't seen for about two years, and most of whom I hadn't seen for about eight months. My godchildren are growing, they're two and four, my niece who's two is now walking, and my nephews will be starting preschool soon. I'll provide photographs below so you can gain a little more insight into my life and the loves of my life, as blogs go, and then I'll write a bit about the technical aspects of a few of them. I don't provide locations or names of these children, though, for safety sake.
These are all my little buddies. Without their assistance, I would not be as good as portraits as I am to date. I admit, I'm still learning, but I do owe them credit. I love getting photographs like this of the children as soon as I get there following the initial excitement that I have come to visit after its been so long.
The third image, involving my best friend's daughter, deals with low key portraiture--it was taken under low lighting conditions. The indoor lights were off completely, and while there was darkness to her right side, there was a sliver of light coming in from the left. In order to really bring out the darkness around her, I increased the contrast in the image and made sure that the lights were not brought down with it so that detail in her face would not be lost. Her beautiful blue eyes and golden hair really makes her features stand out against the dark background. It draws attention into her face.
The first image was of one of my nephews who had just made me help him clean out the fireplace and dump the bucket of cinders out into the field behind the house. You can still see the ashes on his face and arm, and I told him that he looked like a little coal miner. After playing a bit, he decided to go in and get himself some water, and while drinking decided he'd strike a pose, as you can see.
The photograph beneath that one is of my other nephew, who had been playing at the swings alone rather than asking me or his mother to help him get on them. Usually he's a bit more camera-shy than my other nephew, so I've learned that it's easier to let him do his own thing while I practice getting environmental portraits of him from afar. Shots like this of him seem to do quite well, as you can see. In one, it seems that he is modeling his CARS shoes, and in another, it seems he is just modeling as a child model would do. You can see that he is too short for the swings, but this doesn't seem to bother him.
The second little girl is playing Pop Goes the Monkey with my brother. Again, this is an environmental shot meant to provide a story while capturing a special, happy moment in time. It does look like she's smiling three times; her face reminds me of a super excited anime face. She's my niece, and she's just begun walking. It's easy to get photographs of her, she never seems to worry about being in front of a camera, and she generally does her own thing regardless while being cheerful and goofy, especially just before nap-time. In the first image of her, she's staring at me in nearly direct sunlight, so the blue of her irises were really standing out even though she may be squinting a bit. In the original, the black part of her bodysuit was lighter than it should have been, so to bring out contrast, I either brought down the shadows or blacks in the image. I had to bring down the highlights of the image in order to provide more detail in her face in this image. I then tinkered with a vignette until the desired effect was reached which still brought more attention to my little niece.
The final image is of Mancub, my awesome little Godson. He's packed with energy at all times, and he's always going. I don't know how he did it in this scenario, but he managed to get on a swing by himself rather than me picking him up to do it. I shot this photograph from across the park with a zoom lens in order to get the best detail of his face with little distortion to his facial features. The sun was blasting in a bit from behind him, which allowed me to capture that sort of crowning effect, and his face is calm and happy as always while it is fairly obvious upon close inspection to see that he has been playing non-stop for the past thirty minutes to an hour. I composed the shot with his little body a little off to the right while he was looking back at me toward the left, then focused at his eyes and captured the image right in time as he was looking toward me. That's my little Man-cub. Can't wait to see them all again. That's it!
View of Gorge Bridge from New River in West Virginia I was lost at the bottom of the Kaymoor Mining Trail the other day by straying from the path. I was at the bottom of the mountain, and would have to backtrack by climbing two steep slopes and rediscovering the old Kaymoor coal mine ruins toward the 844 steps that I would have to ascend in order to get to the rest of the trail which led to my car. Considering this, I decided I could spare an hour lost on the river before work. Taken 3/21/2014
Hi! Have been busy planning and preparing for a road trip coming up. Today I took this photo on the way to Charleston. It was a beautiful day and the featured scene here shows how nice the clouds were. This photo above was taken at 4:06pm, and because it's closer to Charleston, the elevation's lower than in Beckley, and it gets warmer quicker, allowing the noticeable effects of Spring to arrive sooner. Maybe once I get back from the trip, Beckley will look like this.... As always, feel free to recommend places to photograph. Happy Spring!!!
Expanding on the stairs of Kaymoor, if you are not yet a master of stairs or haven't evolved mountain calves, then the Kaymoor Mining Steps in Fayetteville/Lansing, West Virginia, will help you get there. After talking about the trail with people who live around here, I learned that some people choose to go up and down it a few times weekly for exercise. Going down isn't so terrible, but walking back up is a challenge. I recommend keeping hydrated during your hike down and up, and to brace yourself so you can enjoy the historically significant experience. Below, I will provide a few pictures to give you a better sense of the number of steps to descend and ascend so that you know what to expect in the case that you want to go for it.
From the top:
This is the very top which introduces you to the history of Kaymoor Miner's Trail. From here you go down a path leading through rocks, down beside a waterfall, and through more of a dirt trail, as shown below.
Be careful when it's cold out because the ice on the rocks is slippery. If you slip on an icy rock, you might fall off a cliff and die.
From there, continue down the narrow path...
Finally you'll arrive at this point and turn around to see the beginning of the steps, as shown below.
Here's the top of Kaymoor Bottom, shown below:
From there, once you've reached the bottom of that straight series of steps, you'll come to these windy steps.
You can see the rails where the rail cars used to haul townspeople (Kaymoor Number One miners and their families) up and down the mountain. That is also the next windy passage before this long straightaway below.
You see at the end there that the passage stops. From there, you'll go around another quick windy turn, down and around to the final descending series of steps. Here is a view from the top of that final descent:
As you can see, it drops down farther into the abyss. I'll show a photograph of the final descent which highlights form a bit better with shadows along the left side of the steps.
There you have it. It just keeps going on and on until you get here, your destination of Kaymoor ruins.
That's it for the descent. Can you imagine falling down any of those straight series of steps? Luckily the steps are so close together that you might roll more than tumble if you fall just right. More on the abandoned buildings later.
As always, offer travel suggestions in the comments below. I like to photograph landscapes, city-scapes, nature and wildlife photography, old abandoned buildings and other areas involving human-altered scenarios.
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Kaymoor is an abandoned town in West Virginia that once housed coal miners and their families who worked at Kaymoor "Number One Mine", which operated from 1899-1962. This is an historic/cultural preservation reserve. During the 1900s, thousands of migrants from England, Ireland, Wales, Italy, Eastern Europe and the Southern United States immigrated to work in the mines here at what was once a bustling town. Below Kaymoor Top are the 800 steps leading to ruins of what was once a bustling coal operation with numbers of coke ovens used to make coke from coal. Coke is a fuel produced by baking coal in an oven under a regulated flow of air. Impurities burn away, leavining only high-carbon coke, which burns hotter than coal. Coke was used extensively to fuel iron furnaces. The Kaymoor mines were originally opened to supply coal to product coke to fuel the furnaces of the Low Moor Iron Company of Virginia.
Friday I said I'd post more Florida images, but then had a decent trip to Kaymoor Miner's Trail, so have been posting on that instead. Apparently there is an old abandoned miner's town at the very bottom, next to the river. I find the above photo interesting that the lines in it zigzag about the image and mainly down the center, with nearly all overlapping. The staircase leading down the mountain is the beginning of the main Kaymoor Top stair head. By showing the steps and the upcoming elevation changes from my current standpoint at the time (1503.3 ft altitude) versus the altitude of Kaymoor Bottom (709.3 ft altitude), you can get a sense of how steep a walk this is, and that you need to brace yourself as you walk it down.
The photo above is at Kaymoor Bottom, and these buildings are the remains of Kaymoor's coal processing plant and power station. You'll find various coke ovens and other industrial remains wildly disbursed throughout the area. The town had died by the 1950s and the remains of old coke ovens and other signs of humanity were burnt in a fire that occurred in 1960.
This staircase is known as the boardwalk. In the past, there was also a haulage cart available that would transport passengers down more efficiently on rails. It was an electricity-powered haulage cart descended from cables which spanned nearly half a mile up and down the mountain.
This image, and the image below shows the initial trail heading up to the steps. Both were taken on the way back up to the entrance.
All for now. As always, feel free to suggest places for me to visit, study, and document in the future. Happy St. Patrick's Day! [contact-form][contact-field label='Name' type='name' required='1'/][contact-field label='Email' type='email' required='1'/][contact-field label='Website' type='url'/][contact-field label='Comment' type='textarea' required='1'/][/contact-form]
Today's the last day of winter quarter at Savannah College of Art and Design and the next quarter doesn't begin until the 24th, so I look forward to more Photo Excursions and additional photo experimentations during the break. For now, I'll show you more of the exposures I got from this past photo excursion and my experience with photographing the sun.
I'd not really done as much golden hour photos as many photographers had in the past, so I will highlight the nice golden colors you get from that here:
You'll notice that as the sun gets lower in the sky, the more diffuse shadows become in certain areas, but also there is this dramatic glow that becomes more red as the sun goes down. This image isn't one to sell, but it highlights an important lesson in terms of understanding how color changes over time in terms of natural lighting. That plant is a Sumac, by the way. It's a plant found in the Eastern United States. Apparently it is used as a spice in order to deliver a tart flavor to foods but be careful to avoid picking any poisonous Sumac, because that also exists although it's not as common. The leaves are similar. Anyway, toward nightfallthe sky began to look morered as it lowered below horizon, like so:
This is nightfall, dark blue skies, and a nice jeep. Have a great Friday!
Yesterday I and a few buddies took a jeep out to explore some treacherous terrain around the Cool Ridge to Coal City region of West Virginia, starting out around John Lane Road in Cool Ridge.
The four of us started out about 4:30 pm and drove on well until after nightfall, so I got the chance to practice with a bit of starry sky photos. I will say, I did not expect to feel so tired from riding in a vehicle, but all the driving through creeks crossing the road and over so many rocks and up and down steep hills was apparently enough to make my muscles ache. At any rate, here's the starry sky.
I'm not sure exactly where we were here. The GPS didn't work for whatever reason--I'm pretty sure I'd absentmindedly unscrewed it while sitting in the backseat, and I think we were in some part of Cool Ridge.
For the photographers out there.... The ISO was at 12800 so you see a decent bit of luminance noise there, also shot at 0.5 seconds at f/2.8 aperture, so that adds up for a more blurred depth of field but the slower shutter speed did allow the light to blast in better. I would like to try this in the future with and without a three-legged tripod to reduce camera shake (causing the blurry outcome) with lower ISO, (to reduce luminance noise), slower shutter speed, and tighter aperture for greater depth of field... and also without a tripod at a similar ISO to reduce camera shake, slower shutter speed for greater light reading, and tighter aperture (higher f/#) for greater depth of field...although I'm not sure if the greater depth of field will be necessary at dark because the only things that will really come through are the two-tones of shadows against night sky color, and the stars peeking out between the sticks.
Alrighty then, that's enough for today. Tomorrow I plan to write on photographing the sun at golden hour because I got some interesting shots that way as well.
Where are some of your favorite places to visit in West Virginia? Feel free to let me know by writing suggestions in the contact form below.
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On April 5, 2010, 29 out of 31 coal miners were killed in an explosion that occurred roughly 1,000 feet underground at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine at Montcoal, West Virginia.
This incident marked the worst in the United States since 1970 incident in Kentucky in which 38 Finley Coal Company miners were killed. An investigation found the Mine Safety and Health Administration along with Massey Energy directly responsible for the explosion. Massey Energy is the sixth largest coal company in the nation. Click here for a pdf report to the governor concerning a failure of basic safety practices.
The Upper Big Branch Memorial is located in Whitesville, West Virginia, and was created to honor those in the mines and those who came to the aid of the miners at short notice. The memorial is 48-ft long with 29 life-sized silhouettes representing the miners.
On the back of the stone, all the names of the miners can be seen in addition to a summary of coal industry and its impact on West Virginia and our nation.
Two web memorials have been created in addition to the physical memorial site: Upper Big Branch Miners Memorial
More images of the site can be seen below.
The phrase beneath the miners reads, "Come to me all ye who labor, and I will give you rest."
Just next to the miners memorial is another stone in honor of Big Coal River soldiers who have served in the American armed forces.