Elkton Theater - Elkton, Virginia 

The Lost Communities of Virginia

In many ways, Elkton is typical of small towns throughout Virginia. Although it is no longer a business and commercial center, Elkton retains a sense of community; it is a place people call home. But many small towns are dying and many have disappeared with hardly a trace.

"The Lost Communities of Virginia project began with curiosity as Kirsten Sparenborg followed a green highway sign pointing to Eggleston and found a rural Giles County community, an elderly storekeeper, and the no longer obvious story of a once thriving springs and railroad community."*

From this start, the Community Design and Assistance Center at Virginia Tech surveyed more than 2600 communities, photographed 548 of them, and selected 30 representative towns to be included in the recently published book, The Lost Communities of Virginia. Black and white photographs document the present condition of the towns, accompanied by a brief history and interviews with the remaining residents.

An impressive amount of research went into this book, and the photography is excellent. The Lost Communities of Virginia is an ongoing project, and I hope to see more of this work in the future. For now, the book is elegy, memory and inspiration.

Lost Communities of Virginia by Terri Fisher and Kirsten Sparenborg - Albemarle Books - 2011

*The quotation is from the dust jacket

Dry Goods and Hardware - Elkton, Virginia 

Farm buildings - Elkton, Virginia 

One of the things I find interesting about small towns in the country is the way the rural landscape frames the town. Elkton is surrounded by farmland. Step out of the front door of a house on main street and you are on the sidewalk; step out the back door and you are practically in a barnyard.

Standing with my back to the town, I photographed these buildings just two blocks north of Elkton's main street.

Along the tracks - Elkton, Virginia 

On an overcast Friday toward the end of April, I drove west into the mountains, crossed the Skyline Drive and descended the western slopes of the Blue Ridge into the town of Elkton. I drive through Elkton frequently, but seldom stop. On this spring day, I had my camera and the whole afternoon to explore the town.

Elkton is located on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The town was known as Conrad's Store until the Shenandoah Valley Railroad arrived in 1881, built a passenger depot and named it Elkton after nearby Elk Run. The town took the name of the depot, and was incorporated as Elkton in 1908.

The Norfolk Southern Railroad still runs through Elkton, but the passenger station is gone. The group of buildings along the tracks in the photo above suggest that the railroad played a large role in the history of Elkton.

Resident squirrel

Coin Laundry - Elkton, Virginia

Lilies - Nikon P7000


When photography is not the primary purpose of an outing, I enjoy having an unobtrusive camera with me to document my travels without having to fiddle too much with camera settings. So far, the P7000 has performed very well in "point and shoot" mode and it is nice to have the capability to easily take manual control of the camera when the opportunity for a picture that goes beyond the "I was there" snapshot presents itself.

The Nikon P7000 is a little larger than I would have liked; much too big to fit in a shirt or pants pocket. A small belt pouch will probably work, but is less than ideal. The larger size does have advantages though. The essential functions of the camera can all be set with buttons and dials on the camera body without delving into layers of menu choices, and the camera is  large enough to be easy to hold and to manipulate the nicely arranged manual controls.

I do have two complaints. Occasionally, the camera has difficulty focusing. All auto-focus cameras struggle to some degree in low light conditions, but sometimes the P7000, even in good light, just can't seem to find the focus. This is a known issues which was supposed to be fixed in the latest firmware version. After updating the firmware, the problem seemed to occur less frequently, but it still happens now and again. The good news is that the focus is quick and accurate 99 percent of the time. But that 1 percent can be a little frustrating.

Another issue that was supposed to be addressed in the firmware update is that in RAW mode the camera locks up for about 5 seconds while the file is written to the card. It is better but still slow after the firmware update. A faster card will probably help, but I am not bothered too much by this since I rarely do any "action" photography where shot to shot time is important. Still it is a bit of a nuisance. In jpg mode, the camera is very quick.

Overall, I am pleased with the camera and look forward to using it on my river trips this summer.