Jacksonville

This summer (2010) I'm living in Jacksonville, Illinois. It's a small town in Central Illinois about 30 miles West of Springfield. It's an ..... interesting town. One weekend I decided to wander around town with my camera and take some photos. It was also the first time I took my new camera out, so I was playing around with settings and such. Here are just some of the photos I took: (click for full-size)

This is the Morgan County Courthouse. It's a pretty historic building and I've heard that Abe Lincoln argued cases in this building before becoming President.

50mm, 1/250 sec. f/8 ISO 100

After walking around town for a bit, I decided to wander along the railroad tracks for a few blocks. After coming across a bunch of abandoned railroad tracks, I found a group of (presumably) abandoned pieces of railroad-related equipment. This is the motor's end of the sheave/belt assembly on a very large auger. I'm not sure what exactly it was used for, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was used for mixing something. In retrospect, I should have taken this photo in portrait orientation, but oh well. I'll get it next time.

50mm, 1/125 sec. f/5.6 ISO 160

I believe that this is the adjusting mechanism for a large (30,000 lbs capacity) scale. It's similar to the ones you'll find on balances in labs, just on a much larger scale.

50mm, 1/200 sec. f/8, ISO 100

Lastly, here's a picture of the landscape outside of Jacksonville. This was taken just a few minutes outside of the center of town and is across the street from the Jacksonville Correctional Facility.

50mm, 1/250 sec. f/8, ISO 100