Yankee Junkyard

This week was really exciting because I decided to pull the trigger and buy a new camera! I had decided on the Nikon D90 awhile ago, but had put off the purchase until I had enough saved up and last weekend I figured it was time to upgrade from the D50. Anyways, these are some of the first pictures from that new camera. It will definitely take me some time to figure out all the nuances (especially in controlling the highlights) but so far I am very happy with it. The controls are almost identical to the D50, but the live view and large screen on the back make things really easy to see what I'm shooting. With the extra mega pixel count and larger dynamic range I can literally see the difference when I get the pictures up on the computer screen. It will take me awhile to get really comfortable with it but I'm so excited to use it some more.

These pictures were taken just down the street from from my home at the Stillwater Farm in Sterling, MA. The farm was basically abandoned in the 70s and bought by the MDC (now the DCR) in the 1990s. It is a special place for me and my family because my brother did his Eagle Scout project there (which was the first Eagle Project done at the farm) and I did one of the last Eagle Projects there in 2005-2006. It is now an educational site that brings in school groups to educate them about watershed conservation. Along the tree line there is what I would describe as a "Yankee Junkyard". Pretty much any trash or old worn out farm equipment was thrown out in the woods so that if parts were needed or if something could be salvaged later they had it literally right in their backyard. I feel this was fairly common in early New England and still is common as proved by my two next door neighbors' woods (see 58 Chevy).

All of these pictures are shot from the back woods. The top shot is of the barn which is still undergoing badly needed repairs. I have been inside numerous times and am planning on getting back in to take some photos because it has a lot of interesting places to explore. I shot this from the hip just as the wind began to blow a whole bunch of leaves off the trees. The second photo is the Yankee Junkyard from afar. The trees are all on weird angles because of the wind that blows down the hill. This is one of the areas I cleared brush for my project so I am happy to see that it is still relatively easy to walk through. The last photo is of a wheel from an old manure spreader. I was intrigued by how all these pieces of equipment age. The wooden parts, or what's left of them, have been preserved remarkably well and it is interesting to see how the metal rusts and the rubber decomposes into dust. I will probably revisit this place when the lighting isn't quite as crazy, but I am very happy with how these first photos came out.

In other news, I had another exciting discovery this week when I learned about approximately 100 acres of junkyard in the woods of West Greenwich, RI. The pictures I've seen so far show exactly what I'm looking to photograph which are old muscle cars that have sadly been abandoned in the woods to rust. Hopefully there will be more to come on this soon!