Trip Report

Martinsburg Train Station, West Virginia - April 2023 /  by Todd Henson

Martinsburg train station in West Virginia

Back on April 15th of 2023 my father and I went to a model railroad show held at the old Roundhouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia. While there I photographed the still active station and a couple passing trains. I’d hoped to show these photos closer to when I’d created them but time got away from me. Speaking of time, if I had more I’d likely have researched and written a little history of the station for you, but I’ll have to save that for another time. Until then, I hope you enjoy these photos.

After photographing the wider view of the tracks and the station I heard an incoming train so I set my camera to shutter priority mode and slowed the shutter speed way down to 1/15th of a second to see if I could capture some motion in the passing train. But I didn’t have a tripod, so I leaned the camera against the back of the car and held it as steady as I could as the train passed by.

A train moving away from us, showing the motion of the train.

As luck would have it, as one train moved away from us towards the station another approached from the direction of the station, so I raised the shutter speed just a touch to 1/25th of a second and made a few frames of the oncoming train.

The lights of an oncoming train seen against the motion of an outgoing train.

The train approaches

The motion of the oncoming train as it passes us by.

Finally, before the train had completely passed I decided if I could show the motion of the train I might also freeze that motion, so I raised the shutter speed to 1/6400th of a second and succeeded in freezing the motion of an oncoming train. Granted, it wasn’t moving all that fast.

A moving train frozen in time.

All in all, it was a great day!

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Roadtrip from the Blue Ridge to Mount Jackson in the Rain /  by Todd Henson

Towards the end of April my father and I went for a day trip in Virginia. We’d visited a hamfest in the morning, then drove along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park and found some white trillium flowers closer to noon. Just after photographing the trillium it began raining and it continued for some time as we drove out of Shenandoah National Park and along Route 211 west towards Luray. I was the passenger on this trip and had kept my camera out as we drove so I decided to create some “from the road” photographs to capture some of our trip and show what the roadside scenery looks like in a storm.

Route 211 From the Blue Ridge to the Massanutten

Route 211 between the Blue Ridge and Massanutten mountain ranges can be a beautiful scenic drive. These two photos were created past Luray as we approached the Massanutten. You can see the same house and barns in them both. As beautiful as this area is, I felt it was even more beautiful on this rainy day, and I even enjoy the spots of rain on the windshield, something I most often try to avoid by clicking the camera shutter just after the wipers clear the windshield.

Route 211 west towards Massanutten

Raindrops on the windshield while riding towards Massanutten on Route 211

Route 11 from New Market to Mount Jackson

From Route 211 we turned right and headed north on Route 11, leaving New Market and heading towards Mount Jackson. This is another beautiful stretch of road that parallels the Massanutten mountain range. I found several scenes I thought were worthy of photographing, with various buildings set off against both the Massanutten in the background and the clouds in the sky.

A farm house, clouds, and Massanutten

A church and the Massanutten range along Route 11

Farm land and the Massanutten range

Tips

So often on these trips I see what I believe would make wonderful compositions while in the car, but seeing them and capturing them while the car is moving are two entirely different things. Everything is in motion, the car, me within the car, the camera within my hand, and other cars on the road. I’ve shared some techniques in the past to help with photographing from a moving car, such as raising the ISO and shutter speed and turning on vibration reduction, and to add to those suggestions, keep your arms and body slightly flexible so they move with the movement of the car. This might help reduce the harder vibrations of the vehicle moving along the road, similar to how moving video cameras are sometimes mounted on stabilizers to smooth the motion.

Photographing from the road is a lot of fun and something I highly recommend if you’ve never tried it yourself. It gives you the chance to realize some photos you might not otherwise be able to create. Just be sure you’re a passenger if the vehicle is moving.

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A Walk in the Woods at Widewater /  by Todd Henson

On the last Saturday of May, 2023, my father and I decided to hike the trails of Widewater State Park in Virginia. This is a somewhat new park to us though we’ve now hiked it several times. It’s a fairly small park with a small number of trails, but what they have is enjoyable, fairly level, and always changing with the seasons. It offers a mix of forested trails, a small pond, some marshy areas, a wide portion of Aquia Creek, and a very wide part of the Potomac River.

This time we began at the main parking area and chose to hike Long Pond Trail towards the road. There were few clouds in the sky this morning and we got a bit of a late start, so the sun was really shining through the clearing as we approached Long Pond.

Long Pond Trail

When we reached the pond we turned right onto Holly Marsh Trail and hiked over the road to the other side of the park. Not too far into the woods I spotted movement amongst the ferns and when I slowly got down and looked closer I found an Eastern (or Northern) cricket frog, one of the smallest vertebrates in North America. To make it easier to see I framed it almost at the center of the photo. It has a nice light green stipe down its back.

An Eastern cricket frog among the ferns

We also found an Eastern grey squirrel foraging through the underbrush. It didn’t appear at all concerned about us and went about eating the small snack it had found in the leaves.

Snacking with a squirrel

When hiking in the woods I absolutely love looking up into the tree canopy. It’s beautiful the way the light shines through, backlighting the leaves. And I love the patterns of the branches and bark and leaves. In this case I chose a white oak to photograph.

White oak canopy

After looking up doesn’t it make sense to also look down? In this case I chose to focus on a small field of ferns.

Among the ferns

We were still hiking Holly Marsh Trail, which strangely enough parallels Holly Marsh. In the distance we could just begin to hear the sounds of boats on the Potomac River, almost 3 miles wide at this point.

Holly Marsh Trail

Pausing to allow a family to walk past us I noticed this small, young leaf growing directly out of the bark of a tree. I’m always fascinated when leaves grown on their own instead of from branches. I’m not certain, but this may be an example of an American sweet gum tree.

Perhaps a little sweet gum

Instead of hiking back the way we came we decided to walk along the road back to the other half of the park. Along the entrance to this section we saw a small clearing in the trees and within that clearing was a field of ferns and a single lichen-covered tree. The sun was fairly bright at this point so it did shine through and highlight some areas.

Small fern clearing

Along the side of the main road there are several sections of old rusted barbed wire that’s been there so long many trees have grown right around it. Along one stretch I watched as a pale damselfly landed on the wire. It proved very patient and allowed me to approach close enough for a photo.

Barbed wire damselfly

Last time we hiked this park we noticed some poison ivy growing on a tree right near a bench that faces Aquia Creek. As with last time I chose to photograph it, and in one of the photos I later found a harvestman resting on a leaf. It would appear harvestmen don’t have quite the same reaction to poison ivy as most of us might.

Harvestman on poison ivy

At this point we were very near the main parking lot and it was approaching noon, so after a short rest on the bench we took a last look out at Aquia Creek before leaving the park.

Approaching noon along Aquia Creek

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk along with us as we hiked Widewater State Park.

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