Summer Journal: Entry #3

Driving a few hours away, no A/C in the car, almost running out of gas in the middle of the mountains without service sure screams summer. This was a fun find, I’m enthralled with the images I’ll be posting following this. The place is a lot more dilpidated than the images might show. There area is covered in holes opening up into the basement with quite the drop. We only went as far as the second floor but there was also roof access that was also very heavily falling apart.

A tower located down a path from the Mill

Building in ruin next to the tower.

View looking up from the center of the tower.

Interior of the building next to the tower.

The interior ceiling of the building next to the tower.

Pathway leading to the ruined Mill

Interior of the ruined Mill, an opening in the floor above sheds light down.

Interior of the ruined Mill. Water collected on the ground shows reflections of ceiling.

Ruined stairwell on the far corner of the ruined Mill leading to the second floor.

Exterior of the second building of the Mill. Walls have collpased exposing the interior of the upper level.

Exterior of the second building of the Mill. The upper level has partially collapsed and trees have grown all about.

Interior of the second building of the Mill. Holes are along the left side that expose the basement. Openings to the left along the wall lead to the center of the building.

Summer Journal: Entry #2

I’ve wanted to visit Cherry Springs State Park for the past few years now. If you don’t know about Cherry Springs, it’s a dark park near the PA Grand Canyon. It’s an excellent spot for astrophotography, especially the Milky Way Galaxy during a new moon which is when we went this past weekend. I was 45 minutes away from it last year when I photographed Keith and Mary getting married at the PA Grand Canyon and the sky looked incredible being so close in the same area.

I use a Sony a7III and for these shots and this timelapse I used my Tamron 17-28mm at 17mm f/2.8 with an ISO of 6400 and an exposure time of 15 seconds for each shot. I took these in seperate spots at the field and this was my first time photographing the Milky Way galaxy. It’s surreal being able to see it with the naked eye. I’m going to aim for a different approach next time with more thought to the foreground and overall landscape presentation, but I’m still blown away by what I was able to get on my first try!

The timelapse consists of 187 seperate 15 second exposures with a 5 second interval between shots and is using 24 frames per second for a 7 second clip. I should have let the camera record 60 more to make this a 10 second time lapse, but this was my first time and I’m just excited with what I was able to capture. I recorded for a little under an hour, and had moved further back from my previous spot to get more of the Milky Way in frame.

The Milky Way galaxy overtop Cherry Springs State Park

The Milky Way galaxy overtop Cherry Springs State Park with a further crop