Our backyard is in need of some maintenance. We are lucky to have so many nice shade trees in the summer, that turn to beautiful golden trees in the fall. Now we have to get a much of these off our lawn before it kills our grass! Luckily, we have two helpers that are visiting us for the week, and we need all the help we can get.
Yes, they may not be much helping moving the debris to the pickup point at the front of the house, but they do give you some nice company while working. And they don’t mess up any leaf piles too much!
I am confident they were also keeping any reptilian creatures in the woods away from us! Hope you are enjoying the not too cold autumn weather. There are still photos that I am working on, so I will be busy the next week completing those. We have finished the editing and sorting of our largest ballroom dance events, and you can see all those photos at the proofing website.
Thankfully the recent partial shutdown of the federal government is over. There were so many affected by this both inside and outside Washington. When focusing on what services were affected most outside of the capital city, many media outlets pointed to National Parks. The rangers and other staff that supports the functions in these areas were forced to keep the gates closed. With everything reopened, there were lines of cars this weekend waiting to enter the parks again! We took advantage of the beautiful weather to see if any of the fall colors had started to come to the trees in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia.
Starting from the gate in Front Royal, VA, we drove through the very northern part of Skyline Drive. The rangers at the station had a long line of cars to go through, but they were very happy to see all the visitors. Although we did not go more than 10 miles from this gate, there is plenty for you to see along the way. There are numerous overlooks into the valleys below with the meandering Shenandoah River carvings its way through the mountains. It’s highly reflective waters are easy to spot from high.
At one of the overlooks, there were para gliders that seem to hang over the road! They took a glide over the people stopping at overlooks, and waved to everyone as they slowly moved overhead. More than a few kids were asking mom and dad for a chance to join them.
Although the fall colors were not at their peak, there were already many golden leaves on the trees. Some of the overhang in areas were bathing the forest floor in beautiful light. As the sun was setting, their colors were accentuated, and I wished that we could have stayed until sunset. Peak this season should be beautiful for anyone making the trek through the mountains this year.
A few posts ago, I asked if anyone could tell how this photo was taken. It is the first boundary stone that was placed at Jones Point in Alexandria, VA. It marked the origin of the capital city of the United States, Washington, DC. For sure it is a challenge to get access to it. Being that it has been protected behind a seawall underneath the ground in front of the Jones Point Lighthouse.
On the other side of the seawall is a very marshy area that leads to the Potomac River. I tried to walk the little ways to the window opening of the wall. Howver, the ground did not hold my weight very well. Perhaps the tide had just rolled out, and the timing was not right to walk. In any case, the overgrown brush was not trampled or stepped on. So, no one has ventured out to see the stone that way in some time.
I was determined to get a photo of the stone, but the bright sun and the thick glass above the stone meant that shooting from directly above would not make it possible. Too many reflections from the glass made it impossible to see. So my wife had an idea – hang the camera from over the fence to take the photo. PERFECT!
Glass covering the South DC Boundary stone
Camera Technique
Thinking about how to go about this – a tripod or monopod mounted to the camera would give me a stable way to hold the camera, but I did not think it would be that flexible. So I just checked that the straps were extra tight on the camera before DANGLING IT OFF THE SIDE OF THE FENCE.
Dangling camera by strap over the fence
Dangling camera by strap over the fence
For the camera, I zoomed the wide lens all the way out to get as much of the space in the frame as I could. Then I connected the Nikon MC-30 Remote Trigger Release so that I could fire the shutter when the camera was in position, and stable since it did rotate back and forth on the trip down. From the photo, the frame would be made upside down in the camera, but that is of course, a very easy fix in software. Mission accomplished!
I would not normally recommend dangling a camera from a strap. Nor would I recommend taking photos without looking through the viewfinder or the Live View from the sensor, but sometimes extremes are necessary to get a unique image. I’m sure next time I visit, everything will be cleared away, and you can just walk up and stick your camera in the window! Let me know if you have any stories of ways you got your camera into hard to reach places.
