Hello friends. As some of you may know my name is Devin Taggart. I have just started my internship here at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. I applied at the beginning of the summer hoping that I would have the opportunity to travel down here and work in the Web and Social Media Management division of the park. After a couple of months of waiting and a phone interview, I was fortunate enough to land a full time Internship at this amazing National Historical Park. I was even given the privilege of living directly in the town in a historical building, Marmion Row.
It has a great view of the town and its just a short walk to work in the morning. The Marmion tenant housing inside is also very nice. Hard wood floors and full kitchen. I believe they also have the original fireplace still intact. I personally have never lived in such an old building before. Its like living inside of a textbook really. When I was reading books about the history of Harpers Ferry, there would be pictures of the town back before the civil war and I could actually point out the building that I am living in now. That absolutely amazes me. Here I’ll show you:
Now this Photo was taken in 1859! Pretty cool Right? I think it is pretty neat that you can look at photos taken 157 years ago and see the same window you look out every morning.
When I first arrived here it was about 9:30 p.m. so it was very dark. I have been to Harpers Ferry prior to this Internship, but I was probably twelve or thirteen years old so about ten years ago. I did not remember much of the town so it was definitely a surprise to wake up the next morning and see Harpers Ferry in full daylight. When I arrived at night I was very eager to explore and do something because I had just been in the car for over three hours. So I grabbed my camera gear and tried to find something to photograph. Lucky for me I lived right by the church in town and there was a clear sky that night. I really wanted to get the stars in the background so I went for a long exposure. The problem was the church was lit up by spot light and it was overwhelming. To my luck though, the church lights shut off after I was there for around ten minutes that helped tremendously. I personally love this photo because when you take an ordinary picture at night, the camera does not see what you see. With the longer exposure this picture allows the stars to become bright enough in the lens. The picture here is exactly the way that I saw it on that night:
This is one of my favorite photographs I have taken. Im not a religious man either but I do not feel like you need to be to appreciate this photograph either. The church, even without the spotlights hitting it lights up great and stands out. Then you have the stars that stand out in the background. I just really enjoy looking at it and I am happy it turned out as well as it did. When I uploaded this picture to my computer and saw it full screen I was like,” Wait a second, I took this?!”
Later in the week a had the awesome opportunity to go on a hike during work to take some pictures and catch some video. I could pick whichever hike I wanted. So, me being a videographer and photographer I wanted to get the best view of the town that I could. I knew where I had to go for that; the cliff off of Maryland Heights Hiking trail. This is what the cliff looks like from town:
When I got all my gear together and started to make my way to the bridge I just stopped for a minute, looked at that cliff, pointed and said,” I’m coming for you.” I got a couple of weird looks but I felt like that cliff was like the boss character in a video game and I needed to say something to “intimidate” it. I knew it was not going to be easy. Even if I was not carrying all of my gear on my back it would not have been easy, but I wanted to get that picture so bad that I did not care.
The Maryland Heights Trail starts off as a nice flat trail that follow the Potomac for about a half mile. Very nice walking path. Here are some pictures of the Potomac river from the path:
There are a couple pathways straight down to the river where you can get into the water from. We’ll come back to that later. After that half mile you cross the road and this is where the ascend starts. Once you start you do not stop going up till just before you get to the cliff lookout. The first quarter of a mile is intense. Im wearing my collard volunteer shirt and the temperature is pushing 90 degrees. Im thankful that there was shade though. After that first quarter of a mile there is a nice small cutout where you can look over the Potomac river. Then the trail cuts back towards the cliff lookout. After walking for another couple of minutes I come to the part of the trail called Green-Blazed. To my enjoyment, I look up and see a deer just chomping away on some high grass. I tried to be as quiet and as slow as I could and this is the shot that I ended up getting:
Even though I have seen plenty of deer in my time, I did get pretty excited. After taking some photos of the deer I continued up the trail. After going for another quarter mile I hit what I like to call the quadricep killer, Power Magazine. A series of dirt steps that just burn you out. Needless to say I found a log to sit on and cool down after. Not too much further I hit a part of the trail called Red-Blazed. I can only imagine its called this because from my own experience after I got up it my arms and face were a visible shade of red and thats not an easy thing to do to me considering I am dark skinned. So after Red-Blazed the trail begins to even out and then slopes down to a zig-zag trail that leads you to the cliff look out. I cannot start to begin to describe that feeling I got when the trees part and you start to see the town of Harpers Ferry from the cliff. Its complete euphoria. All the sudden you completely forget about that strenuous trek up the hill and start thinking about how amazing the view is. After I got up there I set up all my equipment and started taking some photos:
Pretty amazing! As I was going to change the lens on my camera I looked up and saw a beautiful butterfly right in front of me:
I was very lucky to have been able to catch it in action. Thanks again butterfly! After shooting some more picture and catching some video I had some dinner in the form of a turkey and cheese sandwich and got to sit back and genuinely enjoy the view for a while. After about a half hour I sat there and thought why don’t I just stay up here for a while and catch the sunset since I am already here. And that is exactly what I did. Here are some of the pictures I captured at sunset:
Pretty amazing! I made my way back down promptly so I would not be stuck in the woods with no light and a dead phone. When I got back on the path along the Potomac I decide I would cool off in the river since it was still very hot and there was no breeze. Worth it! I made my way across the railroad bridge and back into town before it got dark to end my night. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the photos!
DT@harpersferry 