10 Years ago the Valley was slammed by a Tornado

On this day 10 years ago beware of the ides of March gained new meaning. It started as any typical day. I had just wrapped up a bicycle trip to Graniteville. I pulled into my Bath SC home and my now deceased mom was thinking dinner. It was junior year of high school for me on the weekend. On weekdays I was known as the Midland Valley Yearbook Photographer. My weapon of choice was my Fujifilm Finepix S5200. I still have the camera to.

We set off on SC 421 South bound for Clearwater McDonald's when the sky turned dark and started raining. We didn't think anything of it, it was normal for spring, but then the sky suddenly turned black turning on the street lights and we knew this was bad. We pulled off 421 onto Belvedere Clearwater Road and it got real bad with high winds and heavy rains. My mom made the decision to pull off into the Clearwater First Baptist parking lot. Once there we had to ride out the storm. Mom was flipping out, but I was thinking more like if I am going to die here at least I'll get interesting footage. So I peaked my camera out the window of our Dodge Dakota and snapped a few photos of the storm in progress.

It was a light show of lightning and transformers blowing up. The above photo I snapped right after seeing this tree fall out the corner of my eye.

Turned across to the old Siminole Mill and caught these power poles leaning over.

That is a power pole broke in half with the upper half hanging from existing power lines, you're seeing this right.

The storm blowed over and we tried to leave via Belvedere-Clearwater South but were blocked by downed power lines, still one idiot came flying through there, luckily nothing came of it despite him running over the lines. We turned towards McDonald's and Bi-Lo, to find out that they were hit hard to.

Debris makes an obstacle course for this late 90's Chevrolet Lumina LTZ.

This shopping cart return looks more like a pretzel now!

We left the shopping center and arrived home to find our home had been spared except a few shingles, our neighbors at the corner however and a few up the street did not get so lucky.I did what any photographer would do and went to see what had happened. The photos are from the 15-17

First Wall street was blocked off by this giant downed Cedar tree. I was able to get around it on foot.

The owning on this house was downed pretty good, on a special note I believe this is the house that later caught fire many times in 2014.

The top two from loop drive still exist amazingly the bottom house still exist and is still a residence.

But as soon as I got to Cherry street there was a more dangerous situation, downed pines blocked me and I saw live power wires still sparking. I decided to leave this alone. 

My neighbor's Mazda was destroyed when this tree was dropped on it.

Harrison Caver Park also got hit pretty hard as well, my dad happened to also be driving saw the bricks from the dugouts blowing in the wind. 

 One tree downed but it was spared the worst

A residence on 421

 Tasty Freeze Ice Cream shop, once a popular hangout.

 Peeled the garage around from the car, suprisingly the car does not look harmed.

But when you see this photo the carnage looks even worse.

Another 421 residence damaged.

The town's water Tower was also damaged Roof taken off and thrown in a nearby yard.

This was the premises of the Midland Valley Fire Department, then known as Bath FD. In the above photo you can see a trail of destruction leading to the water tower. There was fears this structure would collaspe but it didn't and was saved and strengthened. 

Nobody died on that fateful day but it could have been much worse as the tornado was an EF2 capable of winds from 111-135mph. I did hear reports of injuries which wouldn't surprise me but never a round number. I know had I turned in from my bike ride a few minutes later I may not have lived to write this.

Using strobes or Speedlights to freeze moving trains, (Operational info)

Let me be frank I am not the best at this and don't claim to be, but that said there's a lot for you to learn from me. First of all here are my tools.

Required on my outings
2x Ailen Bee 1600 (rated at 640 watts)
1x Promaster 300c (300 watts)
2x Neewer C300 (300 Watts) (Rarely used but can be good cheap strobes)

*All my strobes are softboxed, or umbrellaed, explanation will be later on.

Puresine Ion inverter

*Battery powered speed-lights can be substituted for strobes.

*On my lights it's important to note that the watt ratings, this is really important as you know what you can run off your power source. It's a very fat chance there will be an electrical socket conveniently located near your shoot location, so an inverter is important, but make sure your inverter his not too limited. Ideally you want to have an inverter attached to every strobe, but if you can't you can run extension cords and run them off one inverter. This said my Pure Sine inverter has a 1000 watt limit and that usually limits me to using one Ailen Bee and my Promaster 300c. In a few weeks I should have my new inverter that plugs into my vehicle and inverts 12 volts into 4000 watts of power. That should run not only all my strobes but my laptop to. Also watt ratings are important in deciding which strobes to work where as some are just simply more powerful. Ideally it's best to have the same model for all your strobes, but I don't.

Sturdy Tripods, and weights to tie to them prevent wind gust from blowing them over.
Nikon D5300

*I have 3 DLSR cameras but my Nikon D5300 is my favorite for this operation because it has an ISO capacity of 12800 this allows me to softbox my strobes. It's a fat chance that any train crews stare directly into them and get blinded, but with the magic of high ISOs I am able to still get decent lighting with my strobes softboxed. When a train rolls passed me it's just like they rolling into a studio. In my last blog I mentioned the blinding myth and how the odds of it are slim.

Other options are slaves, remotes, and other things I may not mention or use. I have some slaves and remotes in repair so currently I don't use them, but it is ideal to have them. I usually use slave mode to activate all my lights with my camera's main flash.

Another piece of equipment that is not required but surly nice to have is a scanner, if you can listen in and get a good read, you might can set up and have minimal wait time for the train you're after.

Location, Location, Location

Important, when you're doing this to pick a good location. Setting up in the woods in the middle of nowhere probably is not a good idea. Nothing attractive and the chances of scaring the crews are high. You also want to set up on public land, or maybe privately owned land that you have permission to operate on. But a good rule of thumb is obviously avoid trespassing on the railroad. If you cannot tell where railroad property begins and ends a good rule of thumb is stay 15 yards away from the track. Usually if you end up in a situation I call a grey area, you're not going to have an issue, but getting too close or on the tracks will get you into trouble. It also helps if your first time doing this, is on a crew you know well. Maybe you know a railroad crew, that you hang out with. For me I knew NS E13's crew well and my first outings were all on 6th street in Augusta. It gives you a little first timmer leeway to make your first timmer mistakes. You will probably look far from O. Winston Link on your first outing, but it's just like your first kiss, you probably won't do it right but if you never do it you never improve.

General set up, really there is no general set up. First and foremost be ahead of the train so you can set-up in a timely manner and get test shots in. The test are crucial so you know if you got any malfunctions. One strobe not firing can ruin the entire shot so keep that in mind. So the test are important, and then you can set up your light layout accordingly. A rushed set-up very rarely yelds any good results. I think I'm batting just over .250 when I have to rush in there. 25% is not good odds.

Set up your lights according to how you desire the shot to come out. You got to develop a little psychic ability to foresee what you're perusing and what effect you want. Is there any interesting background you would like to light up? Also make sure you do not blow out the ground, which is a common mistake I make. Then you got to adjust your camera's settings to optimal settings to allow the right amount of light in without it being too dark or bright. There is no one size fits all here, you will have to figure out these settings pretty much no two nights shots have the same settings unless you're trying to dupe yourself or somebody.

Another important shop tip is, make sure you know what the dew point is. Do not let your camera's temperature drop the Dew point. This will cause your lens to immediately fog up as as the train approaches your set-up as the locomotive's lights reflect off your camera and 75% of the time your outing is ruined when this happens. Not only that but obeying the dew point rule adds more life to your camera as this dew can damage it.

Next it's show time power on all appliances, as the train is approaching focus in your lens good and swap it to Manuel focus, this is important because Autofocus on a moving train at night has a tendency to select the wrong subject and will sometimes roll out of focus. Fire a final test dump to notify the crew that they are about to get a flash of light, this way it does not surprise them of your presence as bad. Then be patient and try and get the shot at the perfect moment.

I like the results of this photo only thing I didn't like was how the pavement got blown out. But other than that everything else went as planned and next time I use this location at night I will angle my strobes a little higher.

Using Strobes and speedlights for moving trains

In 2014 I started a new era in my photography. I had seen others do it, and I was always on the sidelines thinking I would never have the budget to do this. Around October I acquired my first strobes and now am able to do something previously impossible for me. Freeze moving trains at night. Among railfans this practice comes up as con-traversal, but most who criticize it are not railroaders or photographers for that matter so I want to touch base on a few things and debunk some myths.

"Strobes blind crews."

False, the strobes and speed-lights are designed for photography purposes on human subjects. Usually softboxed, but if not under a softbox or umbrella, staring directly at them is really the only way they can blind you. I made a dumb mistake on a setup day back in my Lifetouch Church Directories days where I plugged in an un-boxed Paul Buff 800, my hands were at the back of the strobe so I accidentally hit the dumb button. Blasted myself in the face and had a little bit of a headache and the image of the flash bulb sired in my eye for about an hour, lost a little eye sight for a short period of time, but I had stared directly at it. Train crews will not be staring directly at your strobes. or close enough to get this result. It's not good for your eyes to have this many incidents, but you're probably an idiot if you have this many incidents where you've rendered yourself blind as a result. I operate with a Nikon D5300 at max ISO of 12800 so I can get away with using softboxes and umbrellas as my ISO compensates for the small loss of light.

"Strobes scare crews"

This is partly true, but only on a rare occasion and depends on the circumstance and who is on the crew. To minimize the chance of one of these rare incidents. I fire a test dump as the train is approaching the crew sees the light and is not surprised by my presence usually. I would also be careful about which location I chose. Setting up in a pine wooded area that is always isolated ether day or night will scare crews much more likely than inhabited areas.

"It's illegal"

Totally false! The only time it is illegal is if trespassing or harassment is involved. Of important note though there is always a chance a train crew can call you in even if you're not violating the law. These cases are rare. I do my best to make sure I am not trespassing anytime I perform this operation. Sometimes it's hard to tell where railroad property starts and to date none of my strobe operations have involved trespassing, I plan to keep it that way. Even still there have been incidents where a crew calls it in to the dispatcher and the operator was breaking no laws. I keep a scanner clipped to my waist so if a crew does call me in for a legal operation I will hear it and prepare an exit from the area. Most law enforcement are reasonable, but I prefer to avoid the confrontation completely as their response time will usually be over 20 mins and by then I can leave the area. The practice has been around for years but as technology gets smaller and cheaper more people can now do O. Winston Link style photography. The practice will only become more common in future years.

I also want to combat a elitist snobbish attitude where people say if you're not producing O. Winston Link quality don't do it at all. Stop it right there, everybody starts somewhere, if you think your first image with strobes is going to be flawless and epic no matter what the subject is you're delusional.   

On more unrelated thing that often comes up is yellow vest so the crews can see you better. Yeah, don't be that guy, that's technically crew impersonation may be perceived  as a threat and may scare crews worse than use of strobes as they were not informed of any crews out trackside and might cause panic for crews and the dispatcher. Not only that, but when I am doing any night photography operation don't matter if it's rail related or not, I usually DON'T WANT TO BE SEEN! I'm carrying thousands of dollars of equipment, and it's not so much a law enforcement reaction that bothers me as much as a more likely run-in with a thug. I am very anti-social on night treks especially solo ones and I often prefer not to communicate with anybody I may see or encounter. So wearing a bright vest is the last thing I want to do when you never know who might wanna rob me, beat me or whatever you can imagine. Less a person sees the less chance of any confrontation.

The above photo is one that "almost" got published in Trains magazine. This is the site of the 2005 Graniteville train wreck, on the 10 year anniversary in 2015 I staked out the location to catch Norfolk Southern train E13 passing the crash site. It was not my best work, but I'm OK with the result.