Rodney Campbell's Blog

There was only one thing they were hoping for from this tip – Fog with a dash of Frozen frost. That is the three others photographers I spent the weekend with at Glen Davis. They had been here before a number of years ago and were blessed with the most amazing morning conditions.

Our previous morning this time around was a fairly plain sunrise. No frost or fog around – very disappointing for them. This was our second and last morning here for this trip so everyone had gone to bed in the hopes of a good morning.

Frozen Lines

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 92 mm, 1/13 sec at f/5.3, ISO 100

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images below.

As the image from my drone shows the morning was perfect – lots of fog and the ground, the grasses, the spider webs, everything was frozen and covered in a tiny layer of frost.

FC330 + 3.6 mm @ 3.61 mm, 1/30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 239

It was a cold (obviously) but still morning (at least for the first hour or so).

Frozen Gesture

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 125 mm, 1/13 sec at f/9, ISO 100

I went exploring the ruins of this amazing site the the Glen Davis Works. This included some judicious exploration of the abandoned buildings and tunnels right up the hill above the site.

Growing Out

NIKON D750 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/8 to 1/2000 sec at f/8, ISO 100

One aspect of this was to explore what was beyond some of the tunnels and channels I found. I actually original saw the item in the image above from way above it on the hill. It looked like two very large square funnels side by side. This looked like some sort of huge hopper made of concrete – presumably mined shale was somehow fed into these.

What I’ve done for this shot was to go below the hopper and look upwards with the fisheye lens up through the hole at the bottom. The view from below shows the hole entrance and then the inside of the concrete hopper before reaching the open space to the sky. This particular one had a small tree growing up through the middle of the hole. Thankfully it had a bare trunk and only right up at the top of the tree were there branches and leaves. I thought it made for an interesting and somewhat unusual subject and composition.

Sliding

NIKON D750 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/60 to 1 sec at f/9, ISO 100

This tunnel like area was within the ruins up on the side of the hill. It’s actually pretty close to the hoppers in the previous shot. This one’s pretty simple with a shot setup to look straight down the barrel of the tunnel. I’m not exactly sure what that crazy ugly stuff on the ceiling is. I think it’s something insect made… I shudder to think…

Back to those fantastic firetubes in the retort building. This time I’ve kept the fisheye lens for an even wider view from directly below the four sets of chimney tubes.

Vortex

NIKON D750 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 100