Photographs by Frank

19 October 2016

Autumn Foliage – 2016 (Redux)

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:00 AM

This year’s foliage season has been quite spectacular.

Last Thursday, we headed to camp to take the sailboat out of the water. While Joan scrubbed the summer’s accumulation off the bottom of the hull, I headed out in the kayak to photograph the lake shore. The first three photos are the result.

On Saturday, I headed out for a short drive. On the outbound leg, I headed up towards Hillsborough Center and then on to East Washington. I headed back towards home via Washington and Route 31. The Pierce Homestead is near the junction of Routes 31 and 9 in Hillsborough.

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On Saturday, I photographed down by the bridge on Gregg Lake three times. The skies were cloudless, bright blue when I passed by in the morning. In the early afternoon there were scattered clouds and by late afternoon the skies were mostly cloudy. The early afternoon skies made for the most interesting photos; the last thee above and the four below.

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11 October 2016

Autumnal Abstracts, 2016 Edition

Filed under: Autumn,Monadnock Region — Tags: — Frank @ 1:30 PM

Yesterday afternoon, I took a walk up the “wild” section of Brimstone Corner to work on the 2016 edition of my Autumnal Abstract series.

This is my third year of making Autumnal Abstracts; here are the 2014 and 2015 versions.

All of these photo are made using a slow shutter speed* and deliberate movement of the camera. A moderate telephoto lens (a zoom set to 80 mm this year) was used. The maxim “less is more” seems to hold here. Thus, the narrow field of view of a telephoto seems to work better than a wider lens.

The resulting exposures are unpredictable and irreproducible; this is what makes it fun!

Processing in the computer is limited to the usual adjustments (black and white point setting, contrast adjustment and cropping). The “abstractness” comes from the camera not the computer.

This year I seem to favor the very abstract with swaths of bold color.

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However, there were a few less abstract frames that caught my eye as well.

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* Typically the shutter speed is in the range of one to four seconds. A neutral density filter is used to achieve these shutter speeds.

 

9 October 2016

Foliage Season – 2016

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

The autumn foliage is about peak here in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.

Friday dawned crisp and clear. I spent a bit of time making some folilage photographs on my way back from running errands in Peterborough.

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Saturday dawned cloudy and a bit warmer. Joan and I spent the morning and early afternoon doing the Wool Arts Tour.  In the late afternoon, while Joan visited the Monadnock Quilters Guild show, I spent an hour taking a walk at the Edward McDowell Lake in Peterborough. The rain held off until I was almost back to the car,

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Wool Arts Tour – 2016

Filed under: Autumn,Monadnock Region — Frank @ 5:00 PM

One local Columbus Day weekend tradition is the Wool Arts Tour; this is their 33rd year.

Yesterday, Joan and I spent a few hours visiting the various sites. I found much to keep me interested interested while Joan explored and talked wool.

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23 September 2016

Pack Monadnock Hawk Watch

Filed under: Birds,Early Fall,Monadnock Region,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 11:00 AM

Yesterday, I finally made it up to the Pack Monadnock Hawk Watch… on day 22. And what a day it was, perfect weather and lots of hawks.

I arrived just before noon, the the show started shortly there after and continued until around three. I left about 4:30.

The total was about 2,800 birds, about 2,700 of which were broad-wings. Katrina’s official report can be found here.

The 10,000 birds for the season mark was reached and the traditional group photo around the tally board was made (with Katrina’s camera, but I am sure that it will appear at some point.)

While the bird watching was great, the conditions for photography were not ideal. The raptors were kettling pretty far away; only a few appeared close to the summit. The resident turkey vultures made fairly close approaches at times and I was able to make a few mediocre photos.

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21 September 2016

Two from Today

Filed under: Birds,Early Fall,Monadnock Region,Odontates,Wildlife — Tags: , , — Frank @ 9:30 PM

Today was a glorious day weather-wise.  The temperature was in the high 70s F, the humidity was low and the skies mostly clear.

While we ate lunch on the deck, we were entertained by the birds at the feeder and by a couple of male autumn meadowhawks perching on the dead flowers nearby. After watching the odes for some time, I finally gave in and got the camera.

Later in the afternoon, Joan headed out for a kayak ride. She called from the beach parking lot to say that there were “brown headed ducks” down by the bridge but that she did not have her binoculars with her so that she did not get a good look at them. I stashed Big Bertha in the passenger seat, threw the tripod in the bed of the truck and headed down the road the mile to the bridge.

Those “brown-headed”ducks turned out to be a family of mallards. I watched and photographed them for about an hour.

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19 September 2016

Freestyle Skateboarders – 2016

Filed under: Autumn,Monadnock Region — Tags: — Frank @ 7:00 PM

This past Saturday was the 2016 edition of Antrim’s Home and Harvest festival.

Among the events that are part of this annual event is  freestyle skateboarding at the skate park that is part of the town’s Memorial Park. I have had fun photographing the skaters in years past (here is last years post) and thus made it a priority for this year.

At one point, I spent too long knelling on the ground and was not sure that my knee was going to let me stand up again… very embarrassing when all of these young athletic guys are flying through the air and mostly landing on their feet!

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11 September 2016

More Barn Board and another Window

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , , — Frank @ 11:00 PM

I headed out in late this afternoon in search of more barn board to photograph. The mission was a success! Pretty soon, I’ll have enough material to edit a finished project from.

I also found another window to photograph.

I have been looking back though my archives and may also have enough material for a series of photographs of windows… tentatively titled “Outside, Looking In”.

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7 September 2016

Barn Board, et al.

Filed under: Monadnock Region — Tags: — Frank @ 4:00 PM

Yesterday, while “out and about”, I found another barn with interesting siding. Of course, I stopped and made a few photographs!

The last photo in this series is of a scene I pass by quite often. Yesterday, I finally stopped and made the photo that has been rattling around in my brain for some time.

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5 September 2016

“Down Back” Again

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,wildflowers,Wildlife — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Yesterday afternoon, I headed “down back” to our beaver-made wetland afternoon just to see what was up. Despite the perfect weather (temperature in the mid-70s F, mostly sunny, a a very light wind), “things” were very quiet. There was no bird activity and very little ode activity. The most numerous animals were grasshoppers in the wet meadow and frogs in the beaver pond.

I observed less that a dozen darners hunting over the meadow and about dozen autumn meadowhawks (all male) in the shrubby margin between wetland and upland. I saw no damselflies at all.

I spent some time photographing the asters (which are not quite peak) and other plants. At one point I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that the shrubbery along the edge of the meadow moving in an anomalous fashion. I looked up just in time to see a bear pass though a gap in the shrubs that was no wider than he/she was long.

As I headed back towards home I noticed, from a distance, a strange looking stick protruding above the grass in the meadow and changed my path to investigate. As I neared it, I realized that the stick was topped with a twelve-spotted skimmer! I approached cautiously and made my “insurance shot” from a discrete distance. I then took a small sideways step hoping for a better angle and this fellow took off. I watched him land about fifteen feet up in a nearby tree; clearly out of range for a good photograph. Sometimes the “insurance shot” is all you get!

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