The Accident: December 2007

Later this year a notorious accident I had on bicycle will be 10 years old. The hit was so hard I can still feel it today.

December 4th, 2007 started like almost any typical Tuesday, except I left home early that morning, because I had some extra duty as yearbook photographer to perform. For those of you who don't know at the time I was a junior at Midland Valley High School at the time. I didn't own a vehicle or hold a driver's license. Therefore, in order for me to get where I needed to be on time, I was my own transportation. My morning and afternoon commute normally consisted of a 2.7 mile trek that would almost always place me on Anthony Drive, Duncan Road, and Mustang Drive. I very rarely deviated from this route.

I remember waking up before 5AM. I had hit the shower hand cleaned up ate breakfast before 6AM. I was on the road by about 5:50. The morning was a cold one with temps in the upper 20s to lower 30s. I had a coat on with a hood. The weakness of this was the hood was on so tight that my neck could not swivel like usual, it created a bit of a blind spot. Riding in the cold was nothing new to me and riding like this was also nothing new. I eventually swapped to a ski mask following this accident. I also had a camper's back pack that had about 15 pounds of text books, good for about half my full text book load. If it hadn't have been for lockers and I had my full 30 pound load I would have been hurting even worse. The book bag was fastened to me by a harness with two cross straps. One around my waist, and one around my chest to prevent load shift. Strapped under these cross straps was my camera satchel. My Fujifilm Finepix S5200 survived this and many accidents in my padded camera satchel and I still own it today, just don't use it a lot.

After stopping at a convenience store on SC. hwy 421 commonly referred to by locals as the depot, I cruised down Anthony Drive to head for the school. After crossing the railroad tracks near Railroad Street Anthony Drive drops off down hill. It's not the steepest grade in the valley but on a bicycle you can pick up some speed. I was capable of good speed on a bicycle even then. My flat ground speed with no load was around 38mph. I had blazed fully loaded past the school resource officer who clocked me at 20, which was impressive for the fact my book bag was loaded. So, to give you an idea of what y impact speed would have been around 38-40mph. I was aggressively pedaling as I started to descend the hill, and even with a 15lbs load, I could easily make that speed on a down hill grade with my 21 speed mongoose mountain bike. 

The route includes a bridge that crosses Horse Creek. I was running wide open as I approached the bridge at this point an unknown vehicle approached my blind side. I was aware of was behind me and moved over to give him room to pass. The incident happened so fast. As he passed somebody in the vehicle threw what I think was a half filled 1 liter Mountain Dew bottle out the window. The bottle hit me in the back of the head, knocking my coat hood over my face. Instantly after impact I was frantically trying to brake, but not even probably a hundredth of a second after impact, my bike hit the front of the guard rail. The guard rails are designed to collapse when hit by a 2 ton vehicle, however a 20 pound mountain bike with a 150 pound rider slamming it at the speed I was going was sure to make me hurt. 

After hitting the guard rail, I was thrown from my bike airborne, for a brief second I remember seeing the tail lights of the perp's vehicle but couldn't make out anything else. I landed on the side of the guard rail opposite to the road. My bike landed not too far from me. I ended up in the mud. Because I was on the opposite of the guard rail nobody passing by could see me injured or knew of my presence. I layed on the ground for 10-15 minutes, pretty much shouting nothing but cusswords. The accident was about 6:30AM Eastern daylight time. I had just suffered the singled hardest hit I had ever taken.

I had been injured much worse than this in other accidents, but one thing that was key, was during this accident I was much more limber, due to the fact that I didn't see the hit with the guard rail coming. So, I didn't tense up like when I sprained my ankle in 2012 or contusioned my elbows in 2014. Had I saw it coming and panicked I likely would have been seriously injured if not killed. The amount of Gs I took in the incident were probably pretty impressive. The bottle strike was not what injured me, it was the collision with the guard rail. 

Eventually rage would take over and I would pull myself up. I knew I had pulled several abdominal, arm and neck muscles. I knew the rational decision would be to turn around and go home. But after getting hit this hard, knocks the sense out of people, and I still wanted to go after this guy regardless of the odds of actually finding him. I had had an accident that was totally uncalled for and totally unnecessary. Don't get me wrong I never was somebody to get in fights, but this time was one time I was really wanting to find whoever did this and hurt him, good thing I didn't because I was in no shape to be fighting anybody. I highly doubted it was anybody who went to school with me, but I limped up there anyway to see if anybody knew anything and instantly regretted it on arrival. I had aggravated my pulled muscle injuries, and pretty much walked into the school looking like a drunk. My friends were trying to find out who was responsible for the incident but nobody ever found out. It all happened too fast for me to even get a description of the vehicle making filing a police report pretty much impossible. I had a suspect who didn't go to school with me, and had a run in with him before but never had proof he was the perp.

I lasted until 4th period English class before my mom picked me up. I spent the remainder of the day in bed and missed the next day of school. I would be off the bicycle for only 4 days. Though knowing what I know now I actually had no business riding bicycle for a month. I didn't know until a few years later I had suffered a grade 1 concussion. I was suffering from intermittent headaches for weeks following. It was nothing that made me nonfunctional, but having another accident would have definitely not been good for me. Worth noting is my head never took any direct hit other than the bottle strike, and the bottle strike was not hard enough to cause the concussion. The concussion was a result of impact force with the guard rail.

I wouldn't let this accident scare me from riding. People suggested I retire, but I knew I couldn't allow this one incident to terrorize me into giving up something I like.

The Thunderstorm Outing

For three months prior to September 4, 2014 I had been researching and experimenting on how to catch lightning. Pretty much crashing and burning in disappointment. I had recently been hired as a Sales Associate at Dollar General, my first job since my mom's death earlier that year. The past year had been one of the worst of my life, and I needed something to help re-kindle me. That would turn out to be probably the most epic image I would ever take in my life. I may never top it. I had taken a lot of mental and emotional shots, some that made me question if I even wanted to be a photographer anymore. Some people resort to drugs or other addictive substances during bad periods of life, I never did. My escape was dangerous, but it was nothing like any addiction. I had always been known for some crazy antics through high school. I had to bring my crazy back! I just needed new motivation, even if the motivation would be something as dangerous as fooling around with thunderstorms. I needed a sign from god that I still had what I worked for all these years despite all the rage and disbelief I had experienced at the time. I had actually been pretty good at putting on a smile when antagonized, but setbacks had me losing that.

This blog is simply to dissect the work and danger that goes into this type of photography. There is no doubt that lightning is dangerous, and unpredictable, but to freeze it in the most epic fashion takes both nerve and skill. I suffered a lot of growing pains in the three month quest.

My quest to catch lightning started in June, just before I begin working at Dollar General. I didn't have any settings in mind, I would learn from experimentation. I knew the odds of my success in this method were low, but in the past I always learned from experience. I was pretty much doing 30 second time exposures consecutively, and toggling F/stops, shutter speeds, and ISOs. I was learning what would blow out lightning shots and what wouldn't. I wanted to catch it striking over a locomotive, and that night it was possible. My goal was not to simply catch lightning in the sky, but to catch it with a co-subject.

This was the first ever lightning I caught. Nothing amazing to see. My newness definitely showed, but the encouragement was this was first contact for me. I had managed to catch the lightning, but it is now time for better composure.

Over the next few months when not working or hanging out with friends I was well vested in figuring out how to catch this at it's best. I did more research, found that I need an f/stop between 10 and 16 and leave the ISO at 100. Shutter speed would remain at 30 seconds. Any higher would allow blown out skies and the bolts would just be a flash of bright light, and lower and catching the bolts would likely not happen. Those were the limits of my Nikon D3200. Another tough lesson was not letting my lens fog up.

I also acquired some new technology. A shutter remote to reduce shaking, and found out my android and laptop could help me track lightning accurately. This was important because now I could tell where the bulk of the lightning was striking, and try to line up with a subject where the lightning could be viewed clearly.

When I had nights off I glanced at radar maps and lightning trackers almost every 15 minutes. I had sufficient gas in my truck always ready to deploy if I felt necessary. I wanted this shot so bad that I had given up a few chances to hang with friends. I knew in the back of my mind that if I can nail this it would be epic. I had suffered about 5 disappointing outings before it finally happened.

So, September 4, 2014 came, everything was perfect. I didn't have to work until 3PM that day . I was watching my radars that night and saw a storm cell poping up over Barnwell County. It was 12AM. As it drifted closer to Jackson I decided to deploy for Aiken to the Aiken Railway's small yard. There three locomotives, and a station sat.

I remember climbing into the truck that night and feeling some chills. I kept hearing voices saying tonight is the night, you're gonna do this. I remember blasting "Welcome to the Jungle" by GNR on my radio, that had always been motivation music for me. I came to play tonight. I had my umbrella, new tripod, my remote, D3200, maglite flashlight, android, and laptop all ready. Part one of my operation focused on the Southeast end of the rail yard where LTEX 1543 and AIKR 4202 were positioned on a side track on Williamsburg street. I had arrived around 1AM I think. Lightning was striking but it only took 15 minutes for it to fizzle out. I felt defeated, and went back to town via park avenue. I used the wifi from the Aiken Brew Pub to check on the map and see what happened. All the sudden lightning struck from the North West. The creeps came back, and I heard voices saying this was it I had a job to do. I saw the storm strengthening. There was a lightning bolt from it every minute. This is what I had waited for. I drove back down to the yard and this time I focused on AIKR 4201, positioned facing the West Northwest with the short hood looking right at me. The storm was approaching Graniteville, and from my apps, no lightning was hitting in Aiken yet so odds were I would be safe. (DON'T ALWAYS COUNT ON THAT THOUGH JUST BECAUSE I DID).

I had spent about 45 minutes standing in the storm with an umbrella over my head toggling settings. Missed a few and blew out a few until I cranked it down to F/10. Suddenly, a loud crash, I finally got what I want but this one was close. It was 3:14AM when I got the shot.

I did not fidget, and allowed the shutter to close before snatching up my camera. When I saw what I caught, I was doing a touchdown dance, and almost spiked my camera until common sense set in. Then another close crash of lighting and I knew I had to get out of there immediately, because the storm was over me and I was in fact in danger now. In fact the lightning in the photo was really too close for comfort, looks about a mile away from my position. I needed to get out fast and I wasted no time.

This operation couldn't have went more perfectly as the lightning bolt was caught in all it's glory, and it was so bright you can see the rain drops suspended. The self-fulfilling prophecy I had been feeling had come true. After removal of a water-bead that had got on the lens and a little sharpening this was the final result.

I wasted no time sharing it on Facebook and submitting to railpictures at 4AM before finally turning in around 5. I woke up around 10AM to see my messages blown up everywhere praising the photo. Checked my E-mail and found out that the image had went so viral that the President of the Railroad, Stephen Hawkins, had e-mailed me to congratulate me that morning on getting the shot. It obviously made the Western Carolina Railway's Calendar. All this transpired in the 5 hours I napped. It would go to earn People Choice Awards on Railpictures.net and a lot of other praises.

Nolan Ryan and the Tommy John Surgery Era

Well I figured I'd use my sports writing to publish an opinion related to baseball.

Don't assume by the title that I am blaming Nolan Ryan for the rise in Tommy John surgery. Nolan Ryan retired in 1993. He is one of the best pitchers ever. He is by definition one of the hardest workers ever. I've read that he pitched year-round while many others were not. His numbers don't lie that it benefited him. However, I believe that what was good for Ryan is not good for everybody.

Take a look at this list on MLB.com. http://mlbreports.com/tj-surgery/ 

The first Tommy John surgery was performed on it's namesake Tommy John in 1974. It was revolutionary as this injury normally ended a pitcher's career. But notice throughout the 70's there was only one other Tommy John surgery performed. The next one after 1977 would be in 1985 on David Wells, then steady after that it went from a rate of 1-2 every year up 10 in 1996. This tended to balloon to around 20 in 1999, about 30 in 2002, and from the looks of it in 2012 the numbers get even worse. According to many sources, 1/3rd of active major league pitchers have undergone the surgery sometime in their life. After 1997 you never again see a number of surgeries less than 10 in the Majors. Keep in mind this is not counting the number of high school, college, and minor league pitchers having the surgery. The years from 1985 up when the sunset on Nolan Ryan's career, seemed to bring about this mentality for young and upcoming pitchers that they have to have an overpowering fastball, and be like Nolan Ryan. So, year-round pitching becomes a trend. Keep in mind that pitching is not a natural motion and puts wear on the arm and shoulder. The UCL in the elbow is  flexible, but has proven to be fragile when overused.

I've been watching my hometown Braves for years. during the era of the trio, Maddux and Glavine were not known as overpowering pitchers. Smoltz who got inducted into the hall of fame today was. Smoltz is the first pitcher to go into the hall of fame after having the surgery. I personally find it a travesty that Tommy John himself didn't when you look at his numbers. Smoltz of course would transition to closer and play 7 more years in his career between starting and closing. I really agree with Smoltz said today about year-round pitching. He mentioned that there are many players having the surgery by the age of 14. Another fair reminder is careers usually do not survive a 2nd surgery. I've found often that players who have the surgery at a young age will later re-injure themselves and need it again. The Braves has two promising pitchers coming up a few seasons ago in Brandon Beechy and Kris Medlen. Within just a span of less than 4 years, both of them went from dominating the league to their 2nd Tommy John surgery, and my team is in rebuilding mode. These two were suppose to anchor the rotation for years to come. They dominated hitters during their healthy years. Many stars on other teams ended up having the surgery after their first year pitching. Strasburg, Harvey, and Wheeler are just some examples of guys who maybe one injury away from a 2nd and usually career ending T.J. surgery.

I've also noticed that there is more emphasis on an overpowering fastball in scouting to. For example it is hard to get drafted out of college unless you have a 95mph fastball. Glavine and Maddux were control pitchers with low 90's fastballs, and they still performed better than many power pitchers. I've heard so many people say that they want to pitch year-round to add some heat to their fastball, but really you are not really much more dominate by adding 3 more mph to your 92mph fastball. I am at the belief that that extra heat is not worth ruining a pitching arm.

Somewhere mistakes have been made, as Smoltz pointed out we may never see another 300 game winner again if this continues. The sad thing is, it is preventable. This did not happen much before meaning it is not suppose to happen.

Just because this technique made Nolan Ryan a champion does not mean it will make your children champions. Most likely it will tear up their arms.

Graniteville Mill close-up

Since I fell behind on my blogging the following happened almost a year ago. You'll remember that in 2009 I posted a blog about Graniteville mill and talked about how I wish I could get a tour. Well in 2010 when I signed up for Aiken Tech's digital photography class I got my wish my instructor had somehow permission for us to go inside the mill. In the end we even got some stuff printed and displayed which a lot of my photography is sitting on display in the Hickman Hall office. So what you are about to see is sights that many people never get to see.

The mill has been inactive since 2006 however signs of decay are noticed on entry. Though not near as decayed as Clearwater finishing and a little more cleaned up as the shutdown of this mill was much more orderly. Still you can see several signs of how time stands still and that's what us urban explorers love.
Yes the Ivy is not only growing over the window but through it as well.A few steps in and I'm already finding discarded materials like this Winch operating manual.

So we enter the warehouse which I was expecting to be a total wreck instead it's kind of sort of a wreck.
I'm guessing this was a supervisor's office still left pretty well in tact.

Not sure exactly what these were used for but whenever I walked over the boards it always felt like I was going to fall through the floor. Our guide assured us we wouldn't and of course nobody did it was just a feeling.

Inside these lockers is what I believe is an old cotton gin, I could be wrong. From the outside it reminds me of a locker. The lower floor does have power to.

I went into the opened door and this is the machinery inside. Looks like cotton would slide down a shoot into this locker onto this cylinder.

Just because I had the urge to here's a little bit of my photoshope effects put to work.

Paint starting to chip off in flakes.

Old personal belongings left behind possibly by workers.

Stair to this door must have been portable.

Lots of phones and computer equipment just left here in the office. The roof has been leaking. Another sign of decay as I'm still on the ground level yet this leak has apparently made it through both floors.

When I talk about things that make time stand still this is what I mean. As you can see sheets of paper with names of shift managers and papers dated from late July 2006 about the time the mill closed. In this photos are also job postings, safety policies and emergency plans.

Another piece of machinery I can't tell what it is.

Another office I think.

On the 2nd floor nature had set in a bit. Some cracks in the building allowed pigeons to fly in and nest. I also saw where predators had been in there as well according to our guide a hawk had been in there. So along with the live birds it wasn't uncommon to find a body of a dead pigeon on the floor every now and then.

Looks like some kind of supervisor's window where they would stay in the small room and watch the workers to make sure nobody got out of line.

Not sure what the number system is about here.
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Before I go to my time exposures here's a little more traditional stuff.

While my classmates were running around bouncing flashlight beams throughout the warehouse I was bent on doing more traditional exposure using natural lighting. I did a lot of long exposure while in Hickman Hall and got some awesome results. The black and white out really pans out on a cloudy day like that day. The problem was many of my long exposure shots had flashlight beams caught in them from my classmates in the background so also black and white helped me eliminate the unnatural lighting. It's frustrating when you're shooting 30+ second long exposure tripod shots and there is always something moving through the frame that is undesired. My main objective was to let the light through the vents do it's own work. To start there are still a few old pieces of machinery still up there. While I don't know what this thing did. I tried like eight different times to get a 30 second time exposure and every time one of my classmates ether went flying through the background creating a light ghost effect or they were shinning a light under it. Here you can see the lighting is not completely natural ether. One of my classmates was shinning a light under this machine while I was taking my time exposure. Often times I found myself having to work ahead of everybody else and I had to get it done before anybody else entered the room but this is easier said then done when you're doing time exposures.

Close-up of the control panel.

I love that creepy lighting, the woman in the office really likes this one to.

More of that lighting.

So we departed Hickman Hall

Next it was through the fence and into the oldest part of the mill. This area is not a place for the screamish of course nobody in my class was screamish. The conditions in there were horrid though. We didn't go in the worst parts of course. The worst parts of this section of the mill are already leaking, molding, or falling in. So we wouldn't go in there not because we were scared but because we're not stupid. Those places are so rundown that to set foot in those structures would be totally stupid. Above is my close up of the steam valves.

This is one of those buildings we wouldn't be setting foot in. Word is it has a turbine located underneath it from way back then the creek's flow used power the mill.

High voltage

There is Sulfuric Acid here to.

We had to cross this bridge which has all kinds of crap growing on it and some of the foot boards are rotted so in some places we were walking the plank.

First thing I notice is this small green shack. What it's function was I don't know but it had a few interesting things.

These two fire extinguishers are still in place. I believe the paper attached to them may be their inspection paper.

Old Modine Gas heating unit.

A friendly reminder of another hazard asbestos.


Another structure we would not be entering.

Inside the thing posted above.
Trees growing up the old stairs.

It seems that around 1944 this is where delivery trucks used to come in. I figure by it's condition the practice must have ended before the mill closed in 2006. Judging by the decay over here this section of the mill looks like it might have started decaying while the mill was still open. Probably was the first section of the mill to close down.


A few more old gadgets.

That was all for that trip but two week later we were back at the mill doing some exterior shots.
I started my exterior assault by going over the small brick wall. Only thing was the hole was deeper than it looked. As you can see from this photo the growth was pretty much up to my eyes. Walking in there was really hard to because the surface was slippery and muddy to make things worst it had also just rained that day. I believe there used to be a building where I was standing because tons of broken bricks were scattered everywhere. Because the walls were higher than I thought getting out of the pit was difficult. I eventually found a hole in the bottom of one section of the wall and was able to crawl out of there.


I was the only one in my class who would walk on the old railroad trestle and get the back view of the mill. The trestle and mill spur are obviously inactive. As a railfan I'd never climb on an active railroad line. The Bridge is in good condition with a few wood planks rotting and trees growing through it of course. But it is strong enough to support the weight of several people walking on it.


A few various rusted and burnt out items.
I was told this was an old electrical shack.
Steven's steam plant's huge water tank.

Steven's steam plant, ground zero of for the train wreck site.

Well that concludes this blog hope you enjoyed. Not every day I get this privileged to check out something this amazing. I was very lucky to see the inside of this place before they tear it down. When they will I don't know. I'm sure it probably won't get near as ugly as Clearwater finishing.

Signed
Joseph W. Johns