Common Ground

Common Ground is a visual commentary on life in Hampton Roads. Every 12 weeks a new Virginian-Pilot photographer starts a photo series around a topic of his or her choosing.  

Starting May 12: "Day Trips" - a series of essays and images introducing you to some surprising experiences and locations where you can visit and return within a day. Each week a different Virginian-Pilot staff photographer will take you to a destination about 2 hours away or less. Have any ideas for a day trip destination? Email us and let us know!

Category: Pilot Photography

■ 25 May 2012 | 8:25 AM

DAY TRIPS: Science Museum of Virginia - Richmond

"I feel a little strange," says Ainsley Hartman, 8, as she peeks up in an exhibit that mimics a "head on a platter" in the Science Museum of Virginia. “It feels a little creepy,” the child says and looks around at the fake fruit on the platter. Her mother, heather Hartman stands nearby holding a camera.

“Come on and pose for Nana,” encourages her mother. Ainsley smiles precociously and then sticks her tongue out playfully as if she's dead. Her mother laughs and then her sister, Clarissa steps up behind to do the same. Afterwards, she and her sister run to poke and prod the another exhibit. It's just what the museum director, Richard Conti wants. “We're a place where we invite you to interact.” Conti, who goes by the official title of Chief Wonder Officer also says, “We make science relative to people.”

It's perfect for little children like Hartman who says on at least two occasions after playing with different exhibits, “I love science!” Her mother smiles as she looks on. “It's been a lot of fun to explore and have all the technology at your fingertips.”

The museum is located in Richmond along Broad Street just outside of downtown, and is less than two hours away from Norfolk. For more information about prices and visiting hours please go to their website at www.smv.org.

- ROSS TAYLOR | The Virginian-Pilot

An outside picture of the Science Museum of Virginia on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. The museum is now in what used to be the old Broad Street train station.

Arabella Brower, 14, left and Anastasia Fasca, 14, study their next move in an oversized-checkers game at the Science Museum of Virginia on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. They are eighth-graders from Blessed Sacrament Huguenot Catholic School in Powhatan, Virginia and were on a field trip to the museum.

Clarissa Hartman, 10, visits the Science Museum of Virginia on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. Hartman was visiting with her sister, Ainsley, and her mother, Heather, from Raleigh.

Michael Andrews, a science conductor at the Science Museum of Virginia, holds an albino rat for children to pet on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. Andrews was teaching the children about how animals learn behavior.

Ainsley Hartman, 8, checks out an exhibit that reflects optical illusions in the Science Museum of Virginia on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. Hartman was visiting with her sister, Clarissa, and her mother, Heather, from Raleigh.

View Science Museum of Virginia, In Richmond in a larger map

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■ 18 May 2012 | 10:05 PM

DAY TRIPS: Wash Woods - False Cape State Park

By the tread of the tires, by the tread of my shoes, I make my way to visit the remnants of a community that was swept by the wind and washed by the ocean waters. I catch a tram, something called the Blue Goose Express, at the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center in Virginia Beach. The $8 ride carries me down the gravel road, past the sand dunes and alongside the waterfowl impoundments kept for the winter flocks of geese and swans. The road curves west along a little creek almost to the edge of Back Bay, then turns south into the thick maritime forest of False Cape State Park.

The tram carries me but so far, then it is a hike over the dunes and through the live oaks to find an old, weathered steeple. There is no longer a church and there are no people. The steeple and a few headstones are all that are left of Wash Woods, a fishing and farming community that once existed hard on the ocean. It is a peaceful place, heavily shaded by the waxy leaves of the live oaks. The headstones have sunk in the soft earth, leaving them tilted at odd angles. Seashells and silk flowers adorn markers. During summer’s tropical storms and winter’s nor’easters the ocean itself would come up and wash over the community. That is how it earned its name. Isolated, windswept and stung by salt, it could not have been an easy life.

The community survived up through the 1960’s, with rumors of squatters living there in the 70’s. Now it is a part of the State Park. I sit by the steeple and listen to the wind in the trees. When it is time to go I choose to walk out instead of riding the tram, trading sore leg muscles of tomorrow for miles of walking along the beach today. And I think about life in an isolated place, the perseverance needed to live so close to the elements. And I think about what I can learn from the people who once lived in Wash Woods.

- STEVE EARLEY | The Virginian-Pilot

FOR MORE ABOUT WASH WOODS and FALSE CAPE:

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/fal

View Wash Woods in False Cape State Park in a larger map

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■ 11 May 2012 | 9:44 PM

The Common Ground of Alternative Sports

Over the past few months, I've stepped into the lives of extraordinary people. Learned the amazing history of capoeira. Got over my fear of being stabbed in fencing.Witnessed a female Muay Thai fighter's fierce dedication to training. Photographed the freezing speed of ice racing, the subtle power of arm wrestling, and the competitive fun of Roller Derby. Worked to capture the momentum of 1800 pound bulls and the daredevil illusion of Aerial Arts. Ran through the real-life video game arena of paint ball. Mounted cameras on horses to race the clock in barrel racing. Videoed the weightless flight of kiteboarding. Watched dogs fly at Dock Dogs. And I joined a community in mourning during a paddle out.

Most of all, I've learned how many alternative sports are out there, each represented by devoted individuals who love their sport. Play on.

----L.Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot

Take a look back at the sports:

Professional Bull Riding

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■ 04 May 2012 | 12:17 AM

Dock Dogs

Dock Dogs don't stay on the dock long, but they do stay in the air. Man's best friend competes in a jumping-for-distance contest, launching off a 40-foot dock and into a pool. The goal is distance. Portable dock and pool are assembled in parking lots and fields, wherever canines are willing to take to the air after their favorite toys. Crowds watch, waiting for the splash that is the conclusion of a mathematical equation: Four-legged speed, plus canine strength, mixed with accurate human timing equals big air and long-distance jumps.

---L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot

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■ 27 April 2012 | 12:15 PM

Paddle Out

REMEMBRANCE | I started surfing as a teenager. It was a logical choice for a kid who grew up around the water, but what I found on the waves was an escape. In high school I wrote a paper titled “The Power of Surf,” one of the few assignments I’ve kept. Surfing has a way of sticking with you, of defining you. I wasn’t a kid who surfed. I was a surfer. Still am.

Sixteen-year-old James Normile was a surfer who died in a car accident April 17, and the extended family of surfing has come to Sandbridge Beach to say goodbye. There is sorrow at the beach – and remembrance. One of the ways surfers honor the loss of a life is with a paddle out. With board and flowers in hand, they enter the water as a group, paddle out beyond the break, and come together in a circle adrift outside the swells. Some members of the community stay on the beach, lining the water’s edge. Once everyone is in place, they release their flowers, a massive wreath across the ocean’s surface.

I’m older now, but there is still power in the surf.

L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot

Guest signed a surfboard inside the lobby at St John the Apostle Catholic Church before the funeral service for James Normile.

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■ 20 April 2012 | 9:26 PM

Kite Boarding

As the sun sets on the shallow Roanoke Sound, colorful kites take to the air in the aggressive wind. The same wind conditions that lured the Wright brothers here some 100 years ago brings kiteboarders to Jockey’s Ridge State Park in North Carolina. Kiteboarding is much like wakeboarding, but instead of using the power of a boat, boarders depend on wind energy. The sound, with its smaller waves, makes for fast gliding conditions in the shallow, sandy basin, while the ocean challenges riders with big waves and powerful currents. Kiteboarders enjoy flashes of speed interspersed with weightless moments of flight. The Wright brothers would have approved.

--L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot

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■ 13 April 2012 | 8:53 PM

Barrel Racing

Large trailers line the dirt arena at Bit by Bit Farm in Suffolk. Competitors unload saddles and bits, leg wraps and hats, chestnuts and grays, roans and bays. Horses neigh in the distance as riders make their way to and from the trailers. An old Journey song plays on the outdoor speakers, then the announcer begins calling names. Aztec Snowman up. Annie Lee on deck.

Horse power is not enough in this sport. You need precision. Teamwork.

Riders tense. They're on the muscle, ready to start. They charge down the dirt alley, drop to the horn and cue the horse for the first barrel turn. Set into the pocket and exit with power. Two more turns and a race for home. There's no judge, just a clock. Win or lose by split-second margins.

Barrel Racing.

L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot

Thanks to Bit By Bit Farm, Lisa Billings, Ashlee Owens and all the other competitors for a day of Barrel Racing

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■ 06 April 2012 | 12:38 AM

Paintball

Nothing Like hunting down Dad with a gas-propelled gelatin shell, full of water soluble dye. Wearing a mask that makes you sound like Darth Vader as you gasp for air. Running for cover from flying paint balls. It’s a real life video game where you feel the sting of wrong moves. Direct hits get your attention and leave a mark, even hurt, if the shooter is close.
On Saturday mornings at Motor World in Virginia Beach, players gear up inside a foot-worn, outdoor arena littered with oversized wooden spools and fenced with black netting. You have to stay aware, it could come from anywhere, that pop. Then the smell of paint. Military guys and gals, moms and dads, boys and girls, all take their shots.The threat of the sting makes the game intense, but it’s all good fun

--L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot

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■ 29 March 2012 | 11:11 PM

Aerial Silks

You are not going to fall.

Dede Ulses is sure of this as she dances on air, 30- to 40-feet off the ground, grasping the black aerial silk. She spins. She sways. She flexes. With strength, grace and skill, her routine mixes a daredevil illusion with athletic beauty. Think Cirque du Soleil.

“Anyone can do it,” says Ulses, owner of Transcendence Aerial and Dance, who teaches Aerial Arts in Hampton. It looks dangerous, but it’s not, she says, as long as you learn the right way of doing things. You learn from the ground up, she says, and that’s how she teaches her students who range in age from 6 to 53.

It’s a great way to get in shape or stay in shape, Ulses says.

And she reminds…

You are not going to fall.

Unless you let go.

-- L. Todd Spencer / The Virginian-Pilot

Transcendence Aerial and Dance, Gymnastics Inc. in Hampton, Virginia.

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■ 23 March 2012 | 2:36 PM

Professional Bull Riding

TRY MAKING A LIVING eight seconds at a time, riding 1,800 pounds of mad muscle, holding on with just one hand. It takes a different kind of person to successfully navigate the power and force an athletic bull can produce. Professional Bull Riding is a dangerous sport, riders get injured or die at a higher rate than athletes in any other sport.
At the recent Saturday night PBR event at Hampton Coliseum, I witnessed the gauntlet over and over in a dirt arena that smelled like bull. Sometimes you can see the mean. Other times, it was a quiet kind of nervous cunning in the bull. It’s always sheer momentum, moving nearly a ton of angry energy at lightning speed. Out of the chute, into the air or into a spin. Something’s got to give. It may be the bull or it may be the man.
Two great athletes leave the chute to complete, win or lose. Eight seconds is all it takes.

--L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot