Photographs by Frank

The beginning of the new semester and the weather have conspired to limit the making of new photographs.  However, I have not been completely in active photographically.

A few weeks ago, I had photographs and a short essay published in the Bridgewater Review (a twice yearly publication that highlights faculty work). The folks at the review seem to be a bit behind in updating their website, so here is a tear sheet in pdf format.

Yesterday, I opened an exhibit of roughly thirty photographs at the Tuttle Library in Antrim. There are a mix of color and black and white of all sizes — 5″ x 7″ to 20″ x 24″. Most are of NH subjects with a bit of the rest of New England thrown in. The exhibit will hand until the 24th of February.

Coming up in March, will be the first showing of my Life Cycle of Dragonflies and Damselflies exhibit. The photographs will be up from the 19th of March to 13th of April in the third floor exhibit space in the Maxwell Library at Bridgewater State. An artist’s talk will take place from 12:30 to 1:30 on the 21st of March (here is the announcement).

I have another showing of this exhibit arranged for the gallery at the Northeast Regional Office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Hadley, MA but don’t hold your breath as it is scheduled for November and December 2014!

“ Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” – Ansel Adams (1)

The end of another year… I suppose that it is natural to reflect back on the past year. In reflecting on my photography Adams’ quote came to mind.

This got me thinking about editing one’s work and the adage “You are known by the what you show  not the what you shoot” (2) also came to mind.

While searching (unsuccessfully) for the source of this adage, I came upon a quote from a travel photographer which is also apropos:

“It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures
were the ones that were hardest to get.” – Timothy Allen (3)

Thus inspired, I decided to see if I could choose just twelve photos to represent my work for the year. It was not as hard as I thought it might be.

I make no claims to their “significance” and I am certainly no Ansel Adams.

Here they are…

(1)  Although widely attributed to Adams, I can not find specific source for this quote; maybe it is apocryphal.

(2) At least I think this is an adage and not a quote attributable to a specific individual.

(3) See: http://blog.travellerspoint.com/90/

P.S. for the statisticians in the crowd… I made photos on 82 days in 2011 and exposed about 12,000 “frames” total (ain’t digital wonderful… who could have afforded that with film!).  I processed about 1000 of those frames… roughly 8%.  This last number is actually pretty meaningless. I do a lot of “exploratory” shooting just because digital is cheap and I can… I am not intending that every shot I take is a “keeper”.

We had rain and freezing rain overnight and this morning.  By early afternoon the rain had stopped, the temperature was in the upper thirties and there was a bit of fog about.  I went for a walk down “down back” of our property and spent an enjoyable couple of hours studying (and photographing) beaver swamps and a small stream that connects them.

As I arrived at the swamp, I perturbed a bird of prey who made much noise for about ten minutes before deciding that I was not going to leave and heading off. Awhile later, I also watched a woodpecker up high in a distant snag for about five minutes. Both were too far away to photograph and I left my binoculars in the house so I can not be more specific about the identifications. As I photographed, I was serenaded by a number of small birds that were high in the conifers overhead.  All in all a great way to end another year!