Photo Trek: Stokes County, NC
Photo Trek: 01-03-2010, Mountain View Church Rd, Stokes County, NC
The Passage of Time
After my recent tumble at Hanging Rock I was a little concerned about my camera and whether or not it is still in full functioning order. I know that my 10-22mm lens is no more and will have to be replaced either with a new lens or a full frame camera. However, I needed to go out and try the camera again to make sure that everything is as it should be. While hiking up to the summit of Hanging Rock I met a gentleman that showed me a picture that he had taken of a pair of barns at the base of Pilot Mountain along NC 66. The picture looked enticing and of a subject that I would like to photograph. I had not been out on that section of the highway before so I thought that I would give it a shot despite the temperatures being lower than they were yesterday.
I loaded my bruised gear up in the truck and started out toward my destination. The sunrise was actually quite pretty, but I didn't have time to partake with my camera since I needed to be at the intended location shortly after sunrise. I continued on down NC 66 and eventually found the setting that I had seen on the LCD display of his digital camera. It was quite pretty, but there were a number of power lines behind the barns that provided a visual blockade to the image. I studied it for a few minutes and decided that I would continue on down the road to find something else that was situated better.
As I drove, I started taking side streets with no worries of getting lost thanks to my Garmin GPS. I happened upon a lone barn set a decent distance off of the road without any visual distractions nearby. As an added bonus I could see the moon was setting behind it...Now this is what I was looking for. I quickly got out of the truck and donned my convertible gloves and began to build the camera. I used my 24-70mm f/2.8L which would give me just the right focal length to capture the barn and the moon in the correct perspectives. I was very worried about capturing the moon because the sky was getting brighter and the moon still needed to drop just a hair in the sky before it was where I wanted it. To combat the exposure issues, I used my trusty polarizer filter as well as a 2-Stop hard edge ND Grad filter. The polarizer helped to intensify the blue, but the positioning was not nearly the best for a deep blue. The ND Grad was placed at an angle to follow the slight diagonal of the skyline. This combination proved to work quite well, and gave me a perfect exposure spread on the histogram.
As I started shooting I heard that familiar sound of dogs barking and getting close. I stood there and watched as three medium sized dogs charged towards me. Going back to things that I have learned as a police officer I just stood calmly where I was and made no moves in their direction. They slowed when they got to about 25 feet from me and barked. They saw I was no threat and they monitored me from a distance. I felt secure at this point and searched for my perfect composition.
After about 5 minutes, my battery was going dead, and I could no longer feel my fingers (it was 20 degrees). I had wanted to switch up lenses and try some other one out, but I wasn't much on getting frostbite on my fingers. I pulled the mittens down over my fingers and tried to get them warm. I almost popped open another hand warmer packet, but they take about 20 minutes to fully heat up...I planned on being gone by then so I just worked through the aching numbness in my fingers to break down my rig.
I finally got back in the truck and turned the heat on in an attempt to warm my now throbbing hands. As the feeling returned, so did a sharp burning pain in most of my fingers. I knew this was just the blood flow being reintroduced into my digits, but it was no fun at all. It passed in about 10 minutes and everything returned to normal.
When I got home I anxiously downloaded the days images (all five of them). It appears that the 40D is unharmed from the fall yesterday as everything went normally from capture to download. All of the functions worked including the remote shutter release which also took a hit yesterday. I set to work processing the best of the bunch, and it just happened to be one that benefited from the monochrome treatment. The one image became two New Additions.
Posted by Greg A. Kiser at 1/3/2010 11:04 AM 
Categories: Rustic,Trek
Tags: Black and White Photography NC North Carolina
Categories: Rustic,Trek
Tags: Black and White Photography NC North Carolina
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