Patapsco Valley State Park - August, 2023

Back in August last year, I hiked a stretch of Patapsco Valley State Park with some friends - this trip was a local hiking version of “I know a spot,” because much of the hike took us off trail, through shoulder-high snake and tick paradise, and up and down steep mountains covered in thorn bushes I still have a few marks from.  But it was rewarding, worth it, and I now have some locations in mind for more creative ideas I’d like to coordinate.

Patapsco Valley State Park, nestled in the abandoned town of Daniels (formerly known as Elysville), Maryland, is a sprawling natural haven offering a blend of picturesque landscapes and historical intrigue.  Within its bounds, the park houses remnants of a bygone era, including two abandoned churches that stand as silent witnesses to the passage of time.  These forsaken structures, draped in vines and surrounded by the park's lush foliage, evoke a sense of mystery.

The small industrial town born in 1810 around a textile mill, however, its prosperity was short-lived.  The mill closed in the late 1960s, prompting the evacuation of nearly 90 families.  Tropical storm Agnes in 1972 further sealed its fate, flooding the town and leading to its complete abandonment.  Today, Daniels is a ghost town marked by crumbling stone ruins, decaying wood, and graffiti-covered remnants of its past, including the Saint Stanislaus Kostka Church, Pentecostal Holiness Church, and remnants of the old dam and bridge.  The town serves as a poignant reminder of a bygone era swallowed by nature.

After beginning the hike by immediately wading across the Patapsco River, we made our way into Daniels, and began seeing remnants of the ghost town.  Well traveled, and easily found, our first stop was at the graffiti and street art covered Pentecostal Holiness Church, which was destroyed, like much of the town, by Tropical Storm Agnes and the deluge of runoff water in 1972.  Only some of the walls remain as canvases for artists and taggers, and the bell tower stands tall, but decaying, among the trees.  Hidden in the back is a mural of a very posh woman with a bottle of champagne, which has sadly begun being defaced by other graffiti taggers.  Inside is a paper airplane; it’s not immediately clear if by the same artist, however the styles seem quite different so my guess is they’re by separate people.

Next was some off-trailing, which took us up a steep mountain, along a long fallen tree to avoid some of the deep grass likely inhabited by unseen predators, and finally to the first of several abandoned cars.  Many of the cars, which were washed downstream and deep into the woods by flooding, are nowhere near any trails, which either follow the Town of Daniels’ original roads or branch off in spots for utility and fire road access.  Making our way back to the main trail downhill, on a safer and more direct route, we headed toward the next abandoned church.  Along the way, we spotted the offshoot leading toward it, but decided to proceed to the end of the trail to explore the main trail before getting to the main attraction.

The St. Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church, dating back to the early 1800s, burned down in 1926, and were subsequently abandoned along with its adjacent cemetery that is home to local families and individuals, with some gravestones dating back to the Civil War era, and others obviously marking WWI losses.  The stone church walls remain largely upright and intact, and are mostly devoid of graffiti, and I truly hope it stays that way - graffiti and street art can be beautiful, but it needs the right place and to be self-aware of its surroundings: boring plain abandoned walls that are basically giant canvases with lots of foot traffic nearby?  Cool!  Beautiful antique stonemasonry covered in ivy and moss in a valley bathed in warm sunlight with barely any visitors?  Uncool; stick to the ugly bare industrial, and leave the antique beauty to be enjoyed as it decays naturally.  St. Stanislaus Kostka Church reminded me of The Forest Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

As the sun began entering the golden hour, we made our way out of the dense woods and back onto the main trail heading back to the trailhead to go get some much needed dinner.

Seven Bends State Park: September, 2021

As Winter is coming to a close, and warmer weather is just around the corner, this week enjoy some photos from the (sadly and surprisingly) only hike I went on last year. In late September a few friends of mine checked out a newer park and trail in Shenandoah, with the side-quest of searching for some of the abandoned buildings and vehicles left in the area. Seven Bends Park in the Shenandoah Valley’s small town of Woodstock opened in late 2019, built on the site of a former kids summer camp, which is why there are abandoned outhouses, athletic courts, and even a rusted 60s era school bus if you look through the dense overgrowth.

We set out on a mission to hike from one end of the park to a bridge toward the opposite side where the rusted bus was said to be located near. In total we hiked 9 miles in 3.5hrs, stopping at several of the emergency escape bridges this park features; bordering the Shenandoah River, the lower sections of this park can become flooded and inaccessible, so for safety, there are emergency escape bridges over the river at certain spots so an outdoorsman won’t become isolated in the wilderness during a flash flood or storm surge. It should be noted that all of these bridges lead off public land and exit out onto private properties; either people’s cabins, or farmland - regardless, if you exit the park via one of these bridges, you’re trespassing if not doing so in an emergency situation.

That said, we did venture out on a few of these bridges to see if we could spot the bus from a different angle, because we just weren’t seeing the bus where my urban exploration friend who suggested this park just to find this bus thought it was supposed to be. After devoting quite a bit of time pouncing through overgrowth to see some of the abandoned structures, talking with a beekeeper tending hives at the on-site apiary, and unsuccessfully looking for the mythical bus, we started our trek back from the opposite end of the park to be back at the car by sunset. Upon reaching the car, we found a young peahen roaming around, and to my surprise it wasn’t aggressive - it was cautiously curious, and gradually zigzagged closer as my urban explorer friend and I quietly took pictures of its developing feathers; peahens don’t have the large plumage peacocks are known for, but still bear a coat of iridescent feathers in dazzling blue, purple, and green.

We got in the car as the sun had dropped below the mountains, and head out. Just past the park gate, I looked out and commented without thinking, “oh look, someone is standing on that footbridge.” A quiet pause, and and we all looked at each other. “Wait. There’s a bridge?” None of us had seen it in daylight on the drive in, but I’d spotted another one at dusk on the way out, not even ¼mi outside the main gate. “Okay, stop stop stop stop stop.” We parked on a little pulloff on one of the mountain’s dirt chicanes where we’d seen a car parked on our arrival and even commented it was in an odd spot. When we got out, there was a small trailhead with stairs leading down to another escape bridge. “Damnit dude, did you get your bridges mixed up?” One of our friends who joined us who always talks about wanting to go hiking, but always complains about it once we’re actually on a trail, was processing *all the emotions* at this point, realizing we’re both about to hike at least some more, in the dark no less, but also that the 9 miles we’d put in were probably “pointless.”

If you ask me, no hiking is pointless, so I was just entertained by the whole situation. Sure enough, hopping off the trail for a few hundred feet and scaling the mountain’s overgrowth above the Shenandoah River, there was the bus. It had to have somehow slid off the switchback above, because there was no way to drive any vehicle here, or off this steep spot it had landed in. Like our previous off-trail excursions the entire day, only my explorer friend and I checked out the bus and even made our way inside; our other two friends watched us from the bridge as the sky quickly lost all light. I didn’t pack a proper flashlight this trip, so I broke out my iPhone to add some needed light and mood - this is a spot we’d both like to return to; we both have portrait ideas, and I want to bring my Speedlites and gels to light the bus for some spooky vibes. The interior was completely stripped except for some gauges and fuses, coated in rust and wasp nests.

Seven Bends Park has several other trails that we didn’t explore, so it’s still on our list to return to.

Ilana and Chris: Engaged

For as long as I’ve practiced photography, I’ve had an off-and-on relationship with film. As a child, digital cameras didn’t exist yet for the consumer market, so my first camera was a cheap Kodak C400 point-and-shoot that used the short-lived Kodak Advantix APS film format: a now-discontinued film format that was meant to modernize and simplify film photography for the entry-level consumer. The APS format, aside from its 1.6x crop factor limiting its resolution compared to 135 film, was quite progressive in its ability to store exposure and print metadata magnetically on the film, similar to cinematography formats, but was discontinued not long after its introduction as digital cameras became more prevalent.

In college I learned to develop, process, and print film with traditional darkroom practices, which I found relaxing, but only for fun, as I’d been shooting digitally for years at that point. Since then, I only shoot film for fun, embracing its imperfection as beauty, and its pastel color palette influencing my digital retouching style to some extent. Flash forward to today, and while I’d always been fascinated by the Polaroid format, I’d never even shot a single Polaroid until I treated myself to a Polaroid instant camera for my birthday in 2020. I’ve found it to be an even more enjoyable film format than traditional 35mm film, because who doesn’t love instant gratification in the Instagram age - Instagram’s icon is even based off the design of a Polaroid camera.

The Polaroid format is just fun; not only do you have results “instantly” (it takes about 10min for the image to develop), but there’s a delight in being able to give people prints on-the-spot; oftentimes, in the Instagram age, even though a digital image may be more “perfect,” it’s the imperfect, moment captured physically that we remember the most.

At the start of one of my long-distance runs, I found a rare spot in the US: A Daihatsu Rocky with the 5 speed manual in Marine Blue, a color that was only offered in 1992. Mostly sold in other countries, Daihatsu only sold vehicles in the US from 1987 to 1992, only selling 3 models: The Charade, Rocky, and their possibly most known vehicle in the US among enthusiasts, the Hijet cabover microvan / kei truck. The Rocky was powered by the same 94HP I4 engine that powered the Charade, and was offered with a 5 speed manual or 4 speed automatic transmission providing power to all four wheels. In 1992 ten color options were offered, and the choice of a removable soft top, or hard top with removable panels was offered. Being the car and photo geek I am, I took a Polaroid of it and left it as a gift to the owner; anyone who owns this has to be an interesting car geek.

This is how I met Chris and Ilana… and I was right: they’re even bigger car geeks than I am! A few months after I took this photo, they found me and as it turned out were recently engaged and looking for a photographer to capture their engagement and wedding. We met to go over details, but ended up talking for hours about cars we’ve owned, driven, and wrenched on. Cars aren’t just a hobby for Chris; he rebuilds classic cars to their original condition with frame-off restorations by day, and builds vehicles in his own collection with Ilana for racing, cruising, and showing on their off time. Chris and Ilana even have a spunky pupper named Maverick!

This Fall, we’d planned to shoot an engagement session including their beloved Daihatsu Rocky, even discussing going off-roading in it to get pictures with it in its natural habitat. Unfortunately, being the uncommon bird it is in North America, its natural habitat has instead been more in the shop, as parts are hard to come by for an older and barely sold truck in the US - its estimated that only three are still in existence on the East Coast, with Chris and Ilana’s being the only one that still runs and drives. The day of our shoot, the Rocky’s leaky radiator gave out, sadly sidelining it out of the photoshoot, but we still made the best of the day hiking around the Virginia shoreline at sunset.