Thursday, April 9, 2015

A Railroad Revisited

A group of us returned to East Broad Top on Saturday. I'd been clouted heavily with the flu during the week and was still feeling a little under the weather so was really pleased when Melony offered to drive. Scott joined us at my house and we had a fun and chatty ride up.
The staff were there to greet us again but didn't bother with their usual spiel as they knew we'd been before, and I'm guessing most of us were looking past them at the doors to the tool shed, anxious to be let loose. I was especially keen to use my camera since last time I'd had to borrow Barb's due to having no battery in my own. The photos had turned out pretty well but I'd not been able to take any low light images so I was looking forward to taking plenty of those today.
I found myself focusing mainly on lighting and texture as I worked my way around the rooms. We were also allowed in the blacksmiths shop which we hadn't had access to previously. Above is a lump of coal catching the late morning sun. 5 minutes later and the sun had passed it, leaving it as just a black lump in the shadows.
Crackled paint on the side of one of the locomotives.
This was looking through the screen of one window and focusing on a light bulb shining in another window across a courtyard.
My favorite shot of the tool shop, a lone bulb casting a yellow light across the dark room while the sun brightly lights up the buildings outside.
For lunch we returned to the bed and breakfast across the street and were fed homemade sloppy joes with a chicken, corn and pasta soup, both of which were delicious. Then with full bellies we went back to the rail yard to shoot the exterior.
Richard pointed out this sign and explained a klaxon is the trumpet style horn you see on the cab roofs of trucks. For a wonderful selection of klaxons to listen to, click here.
Robert took this shot of Andrew and I walking along the tracks chatting.
After we had finished shooting the rail yard, we went and found some other rail cars that were languishing on tracks in a wooded area.
Richard also found this awesome Beth Steel box, which of course he kept, to maybe turn into a shelf.
On the way home, we stopped to photograph some old cars we'd seen on the journey up. We couldn't believe the keys were in the trunk lock of one of them, and the owner came out, having a hard time understanding why we were having such fun looking over what she regarded as junk.
I was glad to finally get home. The day had worn me out, I hadn't realized the flu had weakened me so much. I could barely muster up the energy to feed and fuss the cats but once their bowls were filled I headed straight to bed, sleeping 10 hours straight.

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