Photolearningism

GETTING GOING AGAIN After a few weeks of attending to family maters and (to be perfectly honest) my own mental health, I took to the cold this morning, thanks my wife's encouragement. To make the best of a small amount of time, I traveled about two blocks down the road to a pond I'd been before. It was actually the first place I'd ever visited to photograph, from well over a year ago.  DEJA VU It was just as cold as the first visit, with a breathtaking morning. I was still wearing the same hoodie with the same winter coat (with the same paperclip in the zipper to keep it going). I promise that the hoodie has been washed a couple of times since then. Maybe more. To shake things up, I didn't climb a tree this time. I felt like I had mastered that tactic from the last visit and should explore other options (such as not climbing trees that overhang precariously of a frozen pond). FEELING THE GROWTH I shot 21 pictures in the span of 10 minutes, waiting for the sun to ...

The Missing Blog Post To recap for the last two weeks, my previous adventure covered a different direction on the Dutchess Rail Trail, at the Lake Walton Road access point. I meant to dig into what the trail was once upon a time, to confirm if it really was a "rail" road or if the name is simply a "pet" name of sorts. There are hints that something predated the trail as we know it, being that there are low hanging, retired power or com lines a long the stretch of it. I hoped to find out more and make a post much sooner than this week, and... well, life took me out of reach of making that post last Saturday. As a cop-out, please accept the following mysterious image as evidence of my desire for hunting the histories of the trail. My apologies for letting you down last week! In case you missed the photos from this adventure, please see the related Flickr album -  https://www.flickr.com/photos/129003675@N04/sets/72157648621526894/ Once a Farm Moving forward...

I missed my usual adventuring this past Saturday, as I had to be at work all day (8am to 9pm) on a time-sensitive, critical piece of our 18 month project. Sunday I felt out of my head, like none of my faculties could handle anything more interesting than feeding myself (Plus, my eyes kept forcing themselves closed, prompting me to sleep here and there). So today, my job is closed down for Presidents' Day and I took the opportunity to take just a few photos and keep active. My apologies for anyone who came expecting a post on Saturday! General safety counsel suggested minimizing exposure to the elements to fifteen minutes at a clip today, given the extreme cold temperatures with wind chill (-10 F for our area). Understanding this limitation and further noting that most things I normally like to explore are buried under three feet of total snow accumulation, I opted for another stroll around home. There was a lot of interesting contrast of stark objects with a clear, blu...

I went adventuring this morning with the intention of exploring some local attractions. One, was the Brinckerhoff house, belonging to Colonel John Brinckerhoff (1703 - 1785, Soldier in the Revolutionary War - Ref -  http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2231878-the-patricians-colonel-john-brinckerhoff-1703---1785---revolutionary ). The link includes a modern picture of the home, which is still in good order and actually a residence (Hence, why I have no picture). I was fascinated to learn that George Washington was a frequent guest and close friend of John Brinckerhoff. Knowing that these men well trod upon the same ground which I traversed really connects me to them in a meaningful way. There's more history to uncover connected to this, which I believe stretches over into my present investigations. I'll be doing some other digging in the future. Not to be deterred by the inability to photograph today's initial pursuit, I took to a backup location off Lake Walton Roa...

Today, I decided to return to the Hopewell Rec Center to begin the journey anew with a brand new camera (Nikon CoolPix L330)! I'll confess that it's not everything I'm after, but it's worlds better than shooting with my iPhone. It doesn't have quite the manual control I need, which I knew this going into the purchase, but it was the best upgrade I could afford with a gift card and savings. This is not to say that I'm unhappy with the camera, it's just something new to aspire to with future savings! I've enjoyed the quality of Nikon products as of late (I purchased a Nikon CoolPix S9500 for general family use) and have become a full convert from Canon (For clarity, I'm not being paid anything by Nikon to mention them). All that aside, it was a bright and beautiful 15 deg F morning. Being that I haven't had a good daytime opportunity to test shooting with my new camera, I wanted to return to familiar ground and begin to learn how to operate this ...

I was all stoked to visit Mesier Park this morning, given my discoveries last night, as added to an earlier post ( Hunting for the Wappinger Mill ). I had learned some very intriguing history about the origin of Mesier Park, including that the land (Actually 750 acres) was originally owned in 1741 by two Dutchmen (Nicholas and Adolphus Brewer - Ref -  http://www.wappingershistoricalsociety.org/mesier.shtml ). Adolphus died after being struck by lighting, and was the first to be buried in the Zion Episcopal Church graveyard. The church still stands and I'm looking into visiting Adolphus Brewer's burial site as a future adventure.  This is where the story gets fascinating. I'll quote from the Wappingers Historical Society site: " In 1776, a well-to-do loyalist tea merchant from New York City, Peter Mesier, arrived in Fishkill. He bought the 750 acres of land and the homestead from Nicholas Brewer and opened a small store in the homestead. Mesier angered his cust...

Taking a small departure from my usual routine, I went on this week's photography adventure on a Friday, being that I had the day off. I've been searching out historic sites within the Wappinger area and landed today in the Village of Wappinger, trying to locate the cotton-textile mill, originally constructed in 1819. After a little research, it seems that the original construction was destroyed by fire and quickly rebuilt in 1856 (Ref -  http://www.livingplaces.com/NY/Dutchess_County/Wappingers_Falls_Village/Wappingers_Falls_Historic_District.html ). I parked in a comfy two-hour parking slot and went adventuring, starting at Wappingers Creek Bridge (Originally constructed in 1852, but re-constructed and widened in 1884 - Ref -  http://bridgehunter.com/ny/dutchess/1006380/ ), which supplied a fantastic view of the gorge below, but didn't give me any clear hints as the exact whereabouts of the mill. I walked down Market Street for a bit, which proved fruitless, as ever...

Yesterday, I took to an abandoned circuit of railroad tracks that pass through Wappingers \ Hopewell Junction. I only ventured about a mile into the tracks before becoming immersed. At parts, I found old gas cans, un-potted plants, and parts of discarded railroad ties. While hiking around and studying the layout of objects, I couldn't help but begin to see stories in my head of when the tracks were built. In doing some quick research, it appears that these tracks originally belonged to the Erie Lackawanna Railroad,  constructed between 1832 to1851 (Almost a 20 year project! - Ref -   http://www.american-rails.com/erie-lackawanna.html ), and was designed to run from Piermont, New York to Dunkirk, New York. According to the available notes, over a hundred years into operation, it seems that most of the routes belonging to Erie Lackawanna Railroad were abandoned in the 1970's (Ref -  http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/1970s/agnes/ ). Hurricane Agnes (1972) w...