The Small Scale Mentoring activity at King’s Gap State Park

Early Saturday morning at 8:00 HCC members and lead photographers showed up at King’s Gap State Park for a mentoring program.  The program focused on camera functions, exposure and visualization.  Program and fieldtrip program members Randal Lathrop was the trip leader.  He, as well as Joe Farrell, Dennis Lindell and Chip Cain worked with members that photographed with Nikon cameras.  Woody and Annette Garthwaite helped members that used Canon cameras and Andrew Hoff worked with the other brands of cameras.  The half day program was attended by 17 members.  We are looking at repeating the program this spring.

Steamtown/Concrete City Trip Recap

On Saturday September 22 the HCC went to Steamtown National Historic Park in Scranton to photograph.  It was an early morning departure so we could arrive when the gates opened at 9:00 at Steamtown.  We were greeted in the first 30 minutes with the departure of the main steam locomotive leaving the locomotive shed under power and taking a full spin on the train turntable for photographs.  The rest of the morning went quickly as members spread out to photograph the trains under power, re-enactors, close-ups, railway cars, rusting railway cars and any other subject that struck the members creative nerves. After lunch we continued to shoot until 3:30.  Some members left for Concrete City at that time, while the bulk of the members left at 4:30. Concrete City was an interesting place; unfortunately by then the weather had conspired with a low deck of cloud cover and rain. Ten members went on this trip.

One item of note was the discovery of the Ashley “Huber Blue Coal” coal breaker plant close by.  We will be contacting the Ashley preservation society to get us in to photograph the demise of the plant.

We anticipate returning this spring to Nanticoke/Ashley area.  Plan on Saturday March 9^th or 16th on a fieldtrip at sunrise to Concrete City to catch the morning light, the coal breaker at mid-morning, a lunch break, then returning to the coal breaker in the afternoon and finishing in the late afternoon for sunset photography at Concrete City.

The Harrisburg Camera Club took a photography fieldtrip to the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg PA on Saturday September 10th.  We have never visited the museum before, but I’m sure we will return.  Nine HCC members went and they were Randal Lathrop, Bob Glasscock, Karen LeCuyer, George Rhyne, Charlie Hubbard, Nancy Japak, Andrew Hoff and new members, Cynthia and daughter Sarah Taft.

When we arrived we were given a 45 minute tour of the museum by museum director Dale Woodward.  We then split up to photograph the rolling stock under sometimes overcast then later sunny skies, then back to overcast skies.  The train stock was coupled to each other in tight rows due to the small size of the site, but that didn’t present a problem with the members that were spread across the site.  Some members also photographed the interior of an adjoining old warehouse and its shell.  There were large and small locomotives, passenger cars, both old and new and other rolling stock including old SEPTA commuter cars.  Much of the stock was old and in need of repair, which was great to photograph.  We photographed from 10:45 to Noon, took a lunch break at a family run sub shop in Hamburg. We returned at 1:00 and photographed until 4:00.  Many of the members did their HDR work their while others concentrated on details and machinery.  There were some elevation changes that made it easier to photograph the yard stock and those that signed the waiver could climb up on some of the cars.

We had a great time making images and hope to return in two years.