Photographs by Frank

5 April 2011

April Snow

Filed under: Early Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Frank @ 8:37 PM

Ah… early April… spring snow… that wet heavy glop that fortunately doesn’t stay around long.

The morning of 1 April  about 3 inches of new snow fell in our neck of the NH woods.

A few days later, on Monday, snow showers that lasted most of the morning began while we were having breakfast.

Much of the woods are still covered in the remnants of the winters accumulation so in some ways there was not much change in the view.

However, upon closer examination, one notices that many recently bare surfaces such as stones, trees and many man-made surfaces had a new coat of fresh snow. This is usually the first stuff to melt so if you want to catch it photographically you need to work fast.

Here is the weekend’s (plus Monday) crop:

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31 March 2011

Looking Down (on) the Road

Filed under: Early Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Frank @ 8:37 PM

One of the camera clubs I belong to does a “monthly challenge”, where a topic is announced and folks shoot images during the month to “match” the topic. The current challenge is “looking down”. I don’t often participate in these challenges, preferring instead to go my own way.

However, a couple of weekends ago, I headed out for a stroll down “our” road in NH and decided that there is a  lot of interesting subject matter on a dirt road during mud in NH.

Mud… that is the season in northern New England that comes between winter and “black fly”. Mud occurs about the same  time that the maple sap is running.  And of course, by the time “black fly” is over summer arrives… we have no spring to speak of in northern New England!

So, here are the “keepers” from my stroll. Most are along the lines of “looking down” with a few others thrown in at the end. The first image (which is actually the last one I took during the outing) is the one I submitted… just for fun!

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21 March 2011

Spring Break

Filed under: Early Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , , — Frank @ 12:01 PM

Early March… Spring Break time for those of us, students and faculty alike, in higher education.

Many head south, not me… I spent most of the week in NH. However, I started the week photographically with a Sunday afternoon trip to Sachuest NWR to look for harlequin ducks. None were to be found.

Most of the rest of the week in NH was not particularly good for photography… the light was very flat gray and dreary for three days. Things began  to look up photographically-speaking on Thursday and Friday when the fog set in! Nothing like fog to set a mood, so I headed out each afternoon.

Here are a dozen from the week:

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Comments appreciated, as always.

 

5 March 2011

Snowy February

Filed under: The "New" Yard & Environs,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 10:11 AM

Well, I realize that it has been more than a month since I added an entry here. The winter is generally a slow time for me photographically, but I do continue to shoot, so there is really no excuse!

February continued the snowy winter we have been having both in NH and in Mass… we got around a foot of snow (in NH; in Mass. it was mostly rain) on the last weekend of the month.

Still, Joan and I have been getting out at least once a weekend, between shoveling events,  for a snowshoe hike around the NH house. Most of the time, I remember to take the camera!

So here are a half a dozen photos from the last couple of weeks:

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Comments appreciated as always.

23 January 2011

The Beaver Swamp in Winter

Filed under: The "New" Yard & Environs,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 9:58 AM

Last weekend, Joan and I took a jaunt through the beaver swamp behind the house in NH. There was about a foot of powdery snow that was a few days old, so we strapped on the snowshoes and headed out. The temperature was in the mid-teens (Fahrenheit) but we were warm and toasty from the exercise and the sun.

There is a high ridge on the west side of the swamp so deep shade develops down in the lowlands at least an hour (maybe more) before sunset.  Towards the end of our hike, the light was just right  for really bringing out the texture of the snow. I had been watching all of the bits of old vegetation that protruded from the snow in anticipation of “good light” and so was ready with the camera. The light lasted less than a half hour and I had to keep moving to the east as the shadow of the ridge worked its way across the swamp.

Here are the “keepers” from the afternoon:

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14 January 2011

Around the (new) house – New Hampshire Winter

Filed under: The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:27 PM

Joan and I recently acquired a new house in New Hampshire where we plan to live upon retirement in a few years.The house, a classic New England Cape, is, according to some, way out of town!

It is the second-to-last house on the maintained section of an old dirt road. It sits on a bit more than six acres of land with stone walls on two sides and a nice beaver swamp at the back of the property. The back of the lot abuts property owned by NH Audubon which is part of a large (probably a couple thousand acres) tract of “wilderness”. Pretty much paradise by this nature photographers reckoning!

In the future,  I am sure that there will be many photos of the wildlife that the shallow, still, water of a small beaver swamp attracts. Come spring, I am planning to build a semi-permanent blind in which I expect to spend many early mornings and evenings.

But for now, I am content to photograph animal tracks in the snow, stone walls in the snow, random rocks in the snow… well, you get the idea… a New Hampshire winter… aah!

Here are the photographic results from the first couple of weeks since we (sort of) moved in:

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Thanks for looking.

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