Trip Report – Blackwater Falls State Park + surrounding area - Part 1

On June 20^th I went down to WV for a day trip in the Monongahela National Forrest. The area was about 40ish minutes southeast of Morgantown. I had been meaning to shoot some waterfalls but I needed to wait for an overcast day so it wasn’t too bright. I needed slow shutter speeds to smooth the running water. That day was perfect because earlier in the week Pittsburgh got hit with the worst storm I had seen in my 4 years there. The storm clouds were still lingering, so I was able to achieve shutter speeds of a few seconds.

First, this place was amazing. I could easily spend a week there. I am tempted to go rent a room in their lodge for a weekend because there are so many trails to hike on and explore. Additionally, there are several creeks feeding the Blackwater River that have undiscovered waterfalls along them.

This park is a nature preserve, so I technically wasn’t supposed to leave the trail for most of my shots. I actually was questioned by a park ranger when he saw me emerge from the woods with my gear via a decommissioned trail. I think the shots are worth it. As a side note, I didn’t get in trouble because I explained that I was being cautious in regards to snakes (a WV specialty and something I was warned about beforehand) and didn’t get in the water anywhere. I could tell they had a problem with teenagers.

The prettiest falls were the Elakala Falls pictured above and in the first picture. I had to veer off a trail for a few hundred yards and over slippery rocks to set up this shot at water’s edge. Because of all the rainfall in the few days before I visited, there was a lot of sediment in the water. The falls were also huge in comparison to the other pictures I saw in the park office. You can see the clay-colored sediment in most of my pictures.

In conclusion I will say that Blackwater Falls are definitely worth visiting. I was upset that I only had a day there, but the campground and facilities looked really nice. I would definitely encourage a multi-day trip there for some car camping and hiking. I estimate that I did about 7-10 miles to see these falls. I will include my trail selection in part 2 of this report. I shot a roll of Ilford HP5 black and white film in my parent’s 27 year-old manual SLR camera alongside my digital camera to compare the results of 2006 technology and 1930’s film tech. As soon as I develop that, I will post part two.

Retrospective mini-trip report: Pittsburgh at night

Sometimes I don't have the time to get out of the city. Fortunetly there are many places within the city that I want to explore further. Pittsburgh's strip district is one of those places. I have been there during the crowded morning and day hours, but I have never explored at night. One night I waited until the clubs closed and drove around. Yes, I was very bored. It had just rained and I was hoping to get a lot of puddles for reflections. I didn't, but got a few nice city pictures and got to practice composition.

Recent Deaths and Music

Earlier this week, Kodak's ultra-famous color slide film died. Kodachrome was the first commercially available color film and many, many famous pictures were captured on Kodachrome. I prefer Fuji color films (Velvia, Astia, and Reala), but respect the Kodachromes and always kinda wished I had shot a roll or two. Maybe I will eBay a roll some time.

In other news, M. Jackson died a few hours ago. Sources say they knew something was up because his Twitter account hadn't been updated for about 4 hours.

On a lighter note:

The Weatherthans (my favorite band) released a 5 song EP this week of live, acoustic music from their first and latest albums. Of particular interest is the live version of Anchorless. This is an older song that they haven't played at any of the shows I've been to.

Also, I got my ticket in the mail for Weezer and Blink-182 in Cleveland on Sept. 2nd. This concert won't live up to my expectations, but it will still be awesome to finally see Weezer live.



(Weakerthans pictures from Cleveland show in 2008)

First Post

Hi everyone. Thanks for visiting my blog. The title of my blog is the theme of one of my favorite issues of National Geographic (December 1988). The issue pointed out a cultural shift away from environmental apathy. Today, "green" marketing is a huge sensation. The psychologist in me wants to identify what aspect of the human mind these advertisers are preying on AND what aspects of the mind make people so vulnerable to embrace environmental causes. Why is a product labeled "green" more likely to be bought than another? Why are eco-friendly vehicles and lifestyles becoming so popular.

Disclaimer: A sociologist or group psychologist would have a whole lot more to say than I do. Anyway, I feel that people have finally begun to realize that we are a finite piece of the puzzle that is the world and universe around us. Seems obvious, but for the longest time people thought humans were the center of the universe and literally everything else revolved around us. Before these people though, there were those who were very humbled by the forces of nature we skirt around in an attempt to survive. Somewhere along the line (when we became technologically stable), this respect became spiritual and our world/earth became temporary and therefore disposable. So, for the longest time, we have been sullying our home because we all have a paradise of some kind waiting for us. Now, people are realizing what some scientists have known and speculated about for years: Humans are degrading the earth and robbing it dry of the resources that our future generations will need. This is happening at an alarming rate. Additionally, we are destroying ecosystems and de-speciating the planet faster than ever before. Human have become the sort of thing that killed all the dinosaurs (which is not cool, I would like to still have some of them around today (imagine if we had to fight pterodactyl on the way to work). Anyway, it has never been more clear that our kid's home is not going to be the home that we knew as kids.

Back to my first topic though. Why is this awareness of our dying planet (earth actually has a very specific time-of-death too: when the sun burns us up in a few billion years as it enlarges) making people embrace environmentally conscious lifestyles? Probably several reasons, the most important of which is that these realizations remind us of our own death. We all value stability in our lives. The parallel between our eroding planet and our aging bodies is strong. The media attention that environmental issues gets is a great reminder that we, just like our planet, are losing the vitality that was so enjoyed in the past. That particular sentence reminds me of the work of Jacques Cousteau, who dedicated his entire life to developing ways of documenting life in the ocean because he noticed one day that he could no longer find the vibrant fish he once knew in the Mediterranean Ocean. I ramble.

In the near future I will talk more about reminders of death and their effect on human behavior. This is one of my primary areas of research interest and something I pretend to know a lot about. In addition to this I will be using this blog to document the earth as I see it through my pictures (Disclaimer 2: I am a photographer-in-progress, so you will have to bear with me) as well as post trip reports for my many backpacking, rock climbing, and wilderness adventures.