Marion Fish Hatchery

This picture is of the aerators at the Marion Fish Hatchery in, you guessed it, Marion Va. I can remember going to the hatchery on field trips back when I was in grade school. In all honesty I was surprised it was still in operation.

I saw them from the road as I drove by as was immediately struck by the color and shape ... they are so cool looking! It was closed when I got there but the nice lady that works there saw me taking a picture from outside the fence and let me come inside and walk around to take all the pictures I wanted ... she was a really nice lady. She had two 'plow dogs' that kept me company while I walked around.

It was so bright that a slow shutter speed was out of the question. And the center three were in partial shade making it that much worse. So what I ended up with was this over-cooked, faux-HDR version. It's ok, but I definitely want to go back some day when the conditions are better for picture taking.

Marion Train Station

I saw a recent picture of the train station in Marion Va. What caught my eye was that the construction dumpsters were gone! The last time I was by there the place was being refitted for some retail shops and there were several dumpsters and lots of trucks all around the place. Definitely not ready for pictures.

Once I got there and walked around I realized that it might never be ready. The retail-ization of the property has cluttered the property so much that any picture will be 'busy'. So I snapped a bracket from the best angle available and ran them through HDR Efex Pro and then straight to Photoshop for some serious clutter removal. After a good amount of work I decided to convert it to black and white, crop it rather tight and add the vignette for an 'old timey' look. It turned out rather well.

Dorothy

This picture is of Dorothy, the shay at the Little River Railroad museum in Townsend TN. The weather couldn't have been worse for picture-taking: 95 degrees and hazy - which led to the odd-looking crop to get rid of as much of the flat gray sky as possible.

Another More Tractor

Oh yeah, there's plenty more tractors.

This beauty has been sitting along the road at the Sell's farm for several weeks. She needs a few parts to get her back on her wheels ... okay, she needs lots of parts, but she worth saving, right?

I don't know much about the lineage of this one, there's no markings of any kind, so it's just a yellow tractor.

Fordson Part Deux

Another shot of the Fordson tractor.

Fordson

Here's another tractor that sits along the road that I travel to work 3 days out of 5. I could have sworn there was another piece of the sign that had a "4" on it ... as in "4 Sale". Regardless it's dang cool.

I've not heard of a Fordson brand tractor, so I did what any rational guy would do .. I googled it ... and I found this: "Fordson was a brand name used on a range of mass produced, general-purpose tractors manufactured by Henry Ford & Son, Inc, from 1917 until 1920 when it was merged into the Ford Motor Co.". Well there ya go.

Fireworks

I snapped this picture last night of the thunderstorm over Johnson City that is one-upping the neighbor's fireworks ... pretty cool huh?