A Visit to Gettysburg

Back in November I took a one-credit undergraduate history class through the University of Maryland University College on the Battle of Gettysburg. Although I live only about an hour-and-a-half away from the battlefield and have visited it several times, I had never actually studied anything about the area. Our history classes in junior high and high school always seemed to get stuck on the Civil War, but somehow they never really seemed to teach us much about the war itself. I decided it was time to really learn something about such an important event.

The class itself was conducted over two weekends. On the first Saturday, we spent the day in the classroom learning about the basics of the battle. We talked about terrain and tactics, and the kinds of weapons that were used, and why the American Civil War is considered to be the first “modern” war. We also talked about the Union and Confederate armies, their strengths and weaknesses, and a bit about the personalities of the leaders. I learned more in that one day about the Civil War and Gettysburg than I had ever been taught in all the years of public school history that I’d had to take.

Our second class was a field trip to the battlefield. We drove ourselves there and met up at the new Visitor’s Center. During the day, we watched a movie, toured the museum, and then had lunch. Afterward, we went outside to walk the battlefield. The mid-November day was overcast and it even snowed a little. We were cold, but the walking and climbing (Gettysburg battlefield is not flat) kept us warm. I had worn a pedometer that day so I could see how much we walked, but somehow I managed to reset it. I’m fairly certain that we walked at least five miles. Later, we returned to the Visitor’s Center and had our final exam. We sat on benches by the window or at empty lunch tables and did our paperwork. It was the most unusual final exam that I’ve taken.

Gettysburg is well worth a visit, not only for the Civil War buffs, but for anyone who wants to learn a little more about our country’s history. I would recommend to anyone who wants to visit that they do a little background reading before getting to the battlefield park, because understanding the events that took place here gives meaning to the monuments. And there are a lot of monuments at Gettysburg; plan to spend a day or more touring the battlefield and Visitor’s Center. But don’t rush home — the town itself is also worth a visit and has numerous restaurants, boutiques, and Civil War related stores.

Photo: This mile marker is one of several at the Pennsylvania Memorial in Gettysburg National Military Park.

Wet Leaves

Just because the sun goes away and it starts to rain is no reason to put your camera away. Instead, take advantage of the soft, even lighting to record some of the finer details that would otherwise be difficult to capture under the high contrast lighting of bright sunny days.

From the vantage point of my porch, I was able to set up my tripod and camera and zoom in on these sweetgum leaves while remaining dry. Sweetgum trees have leaves that are roughly star-shaped, although you can see in this photo at the lower left some leaves have three lobes, while the others have five. Usually, the sweetgum trees run the gamut of fall colors from deep yellow to orange, and from red to burgundy. This year, the sweetgum in our front yard decked itself out in yellow until last weekend’s wind blew them all away. This smaller tree in the backyard tended towards orange-red, although I have no idea why one tree would be any more or less yellow or red than the other. Perhaps different amounts of sunlight is the determining factor.

The photo was taken with a Nikon D70 digital camera, using a 210 mm setting on the lens, an f-stop of 5.0, and an 81B Cokin warming filter. I later opened the image in Photoshop and lightened it, without doing any color correction or sharpening. The white blur in the background is a neighbor’s garage. If you want to achieve a similar effect in your photos, use a small f-stop such as 2.8 or 4.0 and be sure your foreground subject is in sharp focus because at smaller f-stops you will have little leeway in your focusing. A tripod is excellent, but if you don’t have one you can rest your camera on a box or a railing for some added stability. Hand-holding your camera for exposure times slower than a 250th of a second is likely to add some blur to your photo. No matter how still you stand, your heartbeat can still cause minor camera shake that can be quite noticeable when you enlarge your images.

So, get out in the rainy weather for some very interesting nature photographs. Experiment with using your camera’s flash to bring out some highlights in water drops, and try using small apertures to blur the background and give you a nice, even color. The effect is almost one of a watercolor painting. If you don’t have a porch roof to stand under, use a raincoat or even a plastic bag to keep your camera equipment dry. Enjoy the rainy weather!

Old Tractor

This photograph is available at Ukazoo Books in Towson, Maryland.

I’ve always been interested in tractors, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am a tractor buff. I think it’s more to do with the fact that I always had at least one Matchbox or other toy tractor when I was a child. I always liked playing with them, so the tractor represents something comfortable and familiar.

When this photograph was first exhibited at a craft shows, Ben and I were immediately bombarded with questions about it. What kind of tractor is it? What company made it? Is it a Massey-Ferguson?

The truth is that neither of us had any idea about the origin of the tractor. It was bright and shiny and red, and the headlights look somewhat like eyes. It was an interesting subject for a photograph, and that’s what we were looking at the day that this photograph was taken.

For the record, it has been identified by one of our exhibit attendees as a Massey-Ferguson tractor, and the logo is visible
I don’t know what year or model that it is. If you know anything about this tractor, please leave a comment.

Arizona Desertscape

In October 2003 we took a trip west, driving all the way from Maryland to Las Vegas, and then coming back through Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a lot of driving, but I think it was a lot more interesting to see all of the landscapes in between our starting point and our destination.

In Arizona we visited the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, and Sunset Crater Volcano National Park and its surrounding areas. Our time was limited, so we didn’t get too much farther than this. From the volcano, we drove north and viewed the ruins at Wupatki National Monument. Even if you aren’t much for archaeology, this site is worth a visit just to soak in the atmosphere.

It’s very quiet there: Maryland is so noisy I can’t stand it most of the time. But there in the desert it was so quiet you could almost hear your own heartbeat. I’ve never experienced that kind of hush in nature, because even the quiet areas of Maryland or other parts of the east coast are usually populated at least with some birds. Nothing here is that silent.

The desert there was fairly flat. You can see for many miles in every direction, and all you see is desert: rocks, rocks, rocks. To the northeast we could see the Painted Desert, but that will have to be for another trip west.

The desertscape is beautiful in a very severe way. It’s hard to describe, but it’s incredible: it makes you feel so small. The sky seems huge, too. The photo presented here is a picture of the desert floor around Wupatki, showing some of the structure of the rocks and a few hardy bushes. Look about two-thirds of the way to the right and one-third down from the top of the picture. Do you see the rock that looks like a skull setting on its side, looking towards the left? Kind of creepy, huh? The area was filled with stuff like this.