Gainesville, VA
The Peterson Companies had me cover an event at the Betco Block Factory in Gainesville, Virginia. This concrete factory was set to be demolished in a ceremony last June. Redevelopment is underway to make retail, hotel, and restaurant spaces there. It will join the Virginia Gateway center which has millions of square feet of retail space already.
Despite getting to the site very early before the building was going to come down I was nervous about covering the demolition. Given that it is much more difficult to use explosives, the building was brought down with excavators. Before then, beams under the building were torched so that the building would come down easier.
While that was going on, I set one of my cameras up remotely on a tripod. I positioned it a little closer to the building so I could stand much further away in a safe zone. Before leaving the camera on its own, I started the intervalometer on the camera. This allowed the camera to take a photo every few seconds automatically.
Camera Setup
In spite of the obvious danger to the camera, I left it much closer to the building with a wide-angle lens. The series of photos that it took automatically, I stitched together into a time lapse video. I’ll post it and the end of this entry. Even though the camera got very dusty, there was no physical damage to the body!
Thanks to Joanna from the Peterson Companies for having my cover this unique kind of event! We have worked together on a number of events at Fairfax Corner. Compared to other events where things are created, this was a nice turn about! Though I am happy that I did not have any damage to the camera at all!
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