Deakins Barn

I pass by this barn most every day on my way to work. From the road there's a really neat looking shot of the barn through a 'tunnel' of overhanging trees. I've been threatening to stop and shoot a bracket for quite a while but for whatever reason I never did ... till yesterday.

I got stopped and my camera on the tripod and walked down to where I figured the best vantage point would be, but the view from there was a cluttered mess. There was a newly constructed house filling in the background for the entire left half of the frame. It would have been too much work to photoshop it out of the picture, so to get that out of the frame I had to get closer to the barn than I wanted, which took away the 'tunnel' of trees that were framing the barn ... oh bother.

But I soldiered on and clicked off one bracket. After letting photomatix have it's way with the brackets the result was still disappointing, to composition just wasn't special in any way, it was just a picture of an old barn. So I converted it to black & white and I liked it a bit better, but it's still just average. oh well ...

Hutton House

This civil-war era house was owned by Christine "miss teenie" Hutton. We used to sneak off and play in the house when we were kids. Check out the size of the limestone blocks that are used for the foundation. Very cool. The house was built by slaves, from bricks that were fired about 1/4 mile away.

The main floor joists are made from whole trees, split in half, with the bark still on. It's got jail cells in the basement, yep jail cells, with bars on the windows and locks on the doors. Back when we were younger and stupider we'd take turns locking each other up in those cells. Hey, it's better than playing jail with the old refrigerator behind granny's house, right?

I can remember the portico over the front door being very ornate, I'm not sure what happened to it, there are no remnants of it left. Inside the front door there was a marble staircase that curved up to the second floor. Even back then the floor was starting to give way because of the weight of the staircase, when I looked in yesterday the floor and the stairs had collapsed into the basement, very sad. The cistern was located around back, near the kitchen, in what today we'd call the back deck. It had a hand-powered water pump that would draw water up from the cistern.

The brick that have fallen away on the left side is damage from this year's wind storm. The stump from a huge pine tree that fell over during that storm can been in the right front. The house has seen lots of history and more than it's share of bad weather, and it has lasted in pretty good condition until this year, but I doubt that it will hang on much longer now that the roof has started giving way.

Rocky Fork in the Snow

Like most folk who've been cooped up during the snowfall I was in need of some exercise. I trekked back up to Rocky Fork in Unicoi Co. The roads were clear and dry all the way there ... until I turned onto Rocky Fork road itself. It was still snow covered, but the day-time temps were warm enough to make the snow slushy, so traction was there to be had in the big red diesel.

I was primarily there for the exercise so my plan was to trek the 1.3 miles to the last creek crossing, and take a few brackets of pictures on the way back to the truck. The top left picture is a 3-exposure hdr of a most excellent cascade about half-way up the trail.

The next picture is of some icicles that were 'growing' under a log which had fallen over another nice cascade. What drew me to this shot was the pale green and purple colors that the lightly filtered sunlight was making in the water underneath the log. The splashing water at the base of the fall was pretty substantial, so a long exposure was going to blow out. That made it a bit trickey getting the exposure right so that the colors would show up without blowing out the white water.

The last picture is another 3-exposure hdr of the Rocky Fork falls in the snow.

Deck Rail Shadow

The shadow of the deck rail on the snow this morning.

Dogwood Shadow (take 4)

I've been trying to get this picture of the shadow that the dogwood tree at the edge of the driveway makes on the snow to come out like it really looks, and so far it's still not exactly right.

The shadow is made by the sodium vapor street lights so there's a decidedly yellow cast to the light which I just haven't been able to get right.

Depending on the angle I look at the picture on my laptop monitor the color changes from pale yellow to almost orange ... stupid lcd monitor. This is one reason why good old low tech computer monitors were better.

Grafitti Train

I've been meaning to stop and snap a few pics of this group of four train cars parked long a siding in downtown johnson city. The colorful grafitti painted on the blue cars caught my eye as I drove past them back in the summer. Given my latest fascination for all things HDR, I figured these would make good candidates for some photomatix action.

When I got there it was snowing, and windy, and a bit cold. But worst was the line of empty coal cars blocking the view of the train cars from the road. I parked across the street from L&S Electronics and walked the rails to the get to the train cars. Lucky for me there was grafitti painted on both sides of the cars.

So I quickly set up the tripod and snapped these two sets of brackets before the cold got to me.

Sierra (of the gmc variety)

The snow piled up on top of the logos on the door of my truck looks a little like mountain peaks, eh? ... it's a gmc sierra, get it, sierra? mountains? snow peaks? ... uh, oh bother.

Another Solitary Tree in the Snow

I snapped this tree as I was driving near Parks Mill, south of Abingdon Va.

Chuckey Train Depot

I had today off in celebration of the new year so after the girls went to school I took off with John to the big town of chuckey Tn to snag a few pics of the Chuckey Train Depot.

The Chuckey train depot, built by Southern Railway in 1906, sits on the corner of Charles Johnson Road and Highway 351 in the unincorporated Greene County town. Founded in the early 1800s, Chuckey was originally known as Fullens Station, named after its founder James Fullen. According to several accounts of Chuckey history, the town grew and prospered due to the arrival of the railroad. The depot is now privately owned by a local family but it is situated on land owned by Norfolk Southern, which recently notified the depot’s owners of its plans to demolish the historic structure. The depot is no longer in use but was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1979 for its historic architectural significance.

The town of Jonesborough along with some local folk are mounting an effort to save the building. I hope they are successful.