Conshohocken Ruins

For my entry into this week's Photo Hunt, I went to the First Baptist Church at 4th Ave. & Harry St. in Conshohocken, PA. This 103-year-old structure was almost completely destroyed by a fire on May 10th, 2005. Only recently has the clean-up/rebuilding process begun. This is the mainly in-tact bell tower, with the remains of the front wall.

Memorial Day

Two images to commemorate Memorial Day:

The top image is from Centralia (probably one of the last ones from that day that I'll post in for a while). This flag is located at a Veteran's memorial right off the main road in town.
The bottom image is from Riverview Cemetery in Trenton - which could be described as that city's version of Laurel Hill in Philadelphia. It's a 19th century cemetery overlooking the Delaware River on the southeast side of town. This monument to a fallen serviceman seemed an appropriate companion to Old Glory for today.

Centralia, continued...

Back to some Centralia pics - this time showing the darker side of this unfortunate town.
Top: This is the top of the landfill on the South end of town, with many a steaming crack and vent. It was near this vantage point that I took the shot of the Orthodox Church with blue domes.
That's fellow photoblogger John you see stooping by Vent #12 - possibly lining up this shot.
Bottom: an old utility pole along the abandoned portion of Rt. 61. Being downslope of the road bed, I got a good view of the crossarm and insulators.
[note of explanation - I do electrical infrastructure design for a living, so things like utility poles, transmission towers and the like readily catch my eye.]
For more pix from Centralia, see my Flickr page.

A do-over

So far, the pictures I've posted have been raw. In my rush to get stuff posted, I've just been throwing the un-processed pics up. Only my "Siete De Mayo" was cropped slightly. Otherwise, what you see is what I shot.
Having them up for all the world to see has made me take a harder look at the pictures to see if they could be improved at all. Or maybe that's just Jorj's voice in the back of my head ;)
So, I took a stab at this one, cropping the shot dramatically to try to get a more interesting composition.
What do ya think?
6/3/06 - I'm enterring this photo in this weeks Photo Scavenger hunt, as it meets the criteria for the bouns points, and it's actually a decent photo.
One thing I didn't mention when I first posted the original, was the luck involved in getting this shot. These little bluebirds were flitting all around. I still had the telephoto on from shooting the Orthodox Church with blue domes., and I needed it to shoot this little guy - the moment I would get close he'd fly away. I was lucky enough to get this one (hell, lucky enough just to hold the camera still enough!) before he took off again for good!
For more pix from Centralia, see my Flickr page.

Centralia Signs of Life in Blue - Part II

Top: an Orthodox church on the north side of town. This shot was taken from on top of the landfill on the south side with a 1.7 telephoto lens and using a tripod. Bottom: among the tons of graffiti on the abandoned part of Rt. 61 was this little blue smiley face.
For more pix from Centralia, see my Flickr page.

Centralia Signs of Life in Blue - Part I

Although Centralia may have a reputation as a dying town, there were signs of life. Oddly enough, many of these signs had a common thread - the color blue. These first two pictures show some natural blue.
I'll post some man-made blue next.
For more pix from Centralia, see my Flickr page.

Empty Lager Bottles

This is another shot from the Centralia trip, specifically from the Yuengling Brewery Tour. It's also my entry in this weeks Photo Hunt for "an all green photograph" (hope I didn't beat you to the punch with this one, Jorj!). This one also would've worked for the "Reflection" Photo Hunt a few weeks ago, as you can see me snapping the shot in the lower half of the bottles.

Fumes

Another image from Centralia - this is the main crack in the abandonded section of State Highway 61. I can still smell it.
For more pix from Centralia, see my Flickr page.

"TAKES," plus Two

This is my first entry into the Brookston Photo Scavenger Hunt. This is taken from the "TRENTON MAKES - THE WORLD TAKES" bridge that spans the Delaware River between Trenton, NJ and Morrisville, PA. There are two bridges in the background: the Route 1 bridge first, with the AMTRAK/SEPTA railroad bridge behind it. The Delaware (with a fishing boat navigating the shallows) is just visible in the lower half of the frame.

More Centralia pics to follow

Images from Centralia

Time to start posting some Centralia photos!
I was lucky enough to accompany the Philadelphia Photobloggers on their excursion to the former mining town a couple of weekends ago. It was a great day, which also included a tour of the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville (photos from that coming soon as well).
This was taken along the abandoned portion of State Hwy. 61. Just a pretty branch that caught my eye.

I told you to expect more of this "zoom/selective focus" stuff.
For more pix from Centralia, see my Flickr page.

Siete De Mayo

Even though it's already 2 days past Cinco de Mayo, I'll post this Mexican-themed pic. This cool decoration is on the back of a great Mexican restaurant named Juanito's in Red Bank, New Jersey.

A Little Birdhouse in your Soul

Gonna start with this one. I call it "Birdhouse in Your Soul" because it reminds me of the song of that name by They Might Be Giants. Although, the lyrics actually seem to be about lighthouses or nightlights, but whatever...
This is one of my first shots with the new camera (the H1 - more about this later). It arrived on a rainy Saturday, so I had to grab a couple of shots from the shelter of our front porch or from inside the house!
This particular birdhouse is in one of our neighbor's trees. The new camera allows me to really zoom and selectively focus for the first time, so look for a lot of that in the near future! ;)

At long last, my Photo 'blog is up and running! Well, "running" may be the wrong word - gonna use this as a test post and then start with the pictures. "Finding my way" indeed!