Photographs by Frank

27 March 2022

Weathersfield Center, Vermont

Filed under: Landscapes — Frank @ 11:01 PM

This afternoon, I went to the “Open Portfolio” event* at the Vermont Center for Photography.

As is often my habit when headed to Brattleboro, I meandered in that direction rather than taking the direct route.

Today, my meander took me through, among other places, Weathersfield Center, Vermont; a place that I had not visited before. The sum total of Weathersfield Center (other than a few houses) is an unusual (in that it is made of brick) and stately meeting house with a marble** (of course…this is Vermont after all!) Civil War memorial out front.

It was a cold and dreary day with intermittent snow showers as I drove…Perfect conditions for making photographs with my camera obscura.

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* At these bimonthly events, folks gather to share photographs and garner feedback about them.

** Geology note… the Connecticut River (the border between Vermont and New Hampshire) valley is the boundary of two tectonic plates. The Vermont side was in geologically recent times a seabed and thus Vermont is know for its marble, a metamorphic rock formed from the sedimentary rock, sandstone. On the New Hampshire side, the rocks are much older and New Hampshire is known for its granite, an igneous rock.

23 March 2022

Cabin Fever / Temple, NH

Filed under: Landscapes,March — Frank @ 9:30 PM

March… cabin fever season. One can get grumpy.

In order to stave off cabin fever/grumpiness I headed out to make some photographs.

I ended up in the small town of Temple, NH (about 20 miles SSE of Antrim) and made a few photographs in and around the town common with my camera obscura.

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20 March 2022

A Tale of Two Days (in March)

Filed under: Early Spring,Landscapes,Monadnock Region,Winter — Frank @ 3:00 PM

March is an ‘interesting’ month here in New Hampshire… is it the last hurrah of winter or the onset of spring? The answer to that question depends on the day.

Since my last post (about two weeks ago) the ground has been completely covered again with snow (two or three inches) on two separate occasions. The snow is mostly gone again. Only pockets of the winter’s accumulation remain in the coolest, shadiest spots. The standing water (beaver ponds, forest pools and the lake) is still mostly frozen but there are bits of open water beginning to show.

Last Thursday was a late winter day; the temperature was in the low forties and it was overcast; there were brief periods of light rain. Mid-afternoon brought an interesting “ground” fog. I put “ground” in quotes because the heaviest fog was actually over the still mostly frozen lake. There were thick rivers of fog about 20 feet high in multiple spots.

Friday was the complete opposite of Thursday; an early spring day. The temperature was in the low sixties and it was partly sunny. I took advantage of the nice weather and went for a walk up Hattie Brown Road. I made it as far as the old farmstead before deciding that it was time to head home for lunch.

There is not much left of the Hattie Brown farm… just a cellar hole and much metallic debris scattered about.

The pockets of snow that remain this time of year are littered with the winter’s detritus… beech leaves, hemlock cones and various small sticks and twigs.

Beech leaves are how we will know that spring has truly arrived. Last year’s leaves are still tenaciously hanging on to branches in the under story. They will drop only as this year’s leaves begin to bud out. Then, we can declare that spring is here to stay.

The first four photos below were made on Thursday; the remainder are from my walk on Friday.

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7 March 2022

Last Embrace of Winter (Maybe?… Hopefully?…)

Filed under: Early Spring,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Frank @ 4:00 PM

On Saturday afternoon, I took a walk up the unmaintained section of our road. Given the weather forecast, I figured that it might be the last time this season for wintry photos.

The forecast from Saturday turned out to be pretty accurate. The high yesterday (Sunday) was almost sixty degrees and barely dropped into the 40s overnight. There was a lot of bare ground showing this morning. Today’s rain (which started about noon) is making quick work of the remaining snow.

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27 February 2022

Hovenweep National Monument – A Folio

Filed under: Alternative Processes,Landscapes,Pt/Pd Prints,Road Trips — Frank @ 9:00 PM

Back in October 2018, during our road trip to the Southwest, Joan and I made a stop at Hovenweep National Monument. This site, located near the Utah/Colorado border in southern Utah, preserves several ancestral Puebloan villages that were inhabited by groups related to those who lived at the better-known sites in what is now known as Mesa Verde National Park.

Hovenweep is a quiet, peaceful place compared to much-visited Mesa Verde.

Back in January I selected ten of the exposures I made at the Square Tower site in Hoveweep and prepared digital negatives from these files with the intent to make platinum/palladium prints.

As is my habit these days, I initially made small (4×5 inch) negatives/prints to work out the adjustments (mainly dodging and burning) necessary to make a good print. Once I have a small print that looks good to my eye, I then print a larger negative (usually for an image that is 7.5 inches on the long side) and print that on 8×10 inch paper.

Last week, I spent roughly twelve hours (in two sessions) making the ten final prints that are shown below.

My original intent was to place the ‘bare’ prints in a folder with an appropriate title page and colophon. However, making prints that are precisely placed on the paper and that do not have any extraneous marks on the sheet has proved to be difficult. Thus, I am having second thoughts about that presentation and may end up mounting and matting all of the prints to 11×14 inches and placing them in a traditional print box.

As is often the case, the scans do not do full justice to the original prints.

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13 January 2022

Greetings From Brattleboro, VT

Filed under: architecture,Landscapes,Misc.,Winter — Frank @ 11:30 PM

This afternoon, I made a visit to the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro to see the members exhibition. I have two prints in the show.

After I finished taking in the exhibit, I took a walk around downtown with camera in hand.

There were few people around even though it was quite mild. The temperature was right around freezing. I’m not much of a “people photographer anyway. However, I found plenty of other things to photograph.

This is probably not the impression of Brattleboro that the Chamber of Commerce would like one to have… but here it is!

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Once I warmed up my visual sensibility, as I often do, I saw interesting details everywhere.

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The alley way that runs behind the buildings on the east (river) side of Main Street is, most definitely, not what most visitors see of Brattleboro. It is interesting none-the-less.

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11 October 2021

Great Lakeshores (2021 Road Trip)

Filed under: Landscapes,Road Trips — Frank @ 9:30 PM

After our trek on “the 200s”, we spent the next five nights in Michigan exploring the Lake Superior and Lake Huron shores. We spent two nights near the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore area, two nights further east on Whitefish Bay (both Lake Superior) and one night in Harrisville, MI on Lake Huron.

While at the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, we did a 10 mile hike visiting both Chapel Rock/Beach and Mosquito Beach along the way. The four mile stretch between these two beaches is reached only on foot or by boat. The scenery was spectacular although the weather (heavy overcast and some fog) was not ideal for photography. This was true for most of our visit to Pictured Rocks.

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Of course, where there is shore there are lighthouses. I photographed a few! Perhaps the most interesting of these was the lifesaving station at Vermillion. It is a little off the beaten path! I was looking at the map of the Whitefish Bay area and noticed a point marked Vermillion on the Lake Superior shore. It was at the end of a dirt road about seven or eight miles from the main road. Intrigued and knowing nothing more, we headed for Vermillion and were glad we did. At the end of the road was a nature preserve and a well preserved lifesaving station, but no lighthouse. It was well worth the trip.

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While we were camped in Harrisville, MI we decided that it was time to head home. The distance from Harrisville, MI to Antrim, NH is roughly 800 miles. We made this distance in two days. We stopped for the night in a motel near Rochester, NY and made it home late afternoon on Friday (8 October)… exactly one month and 6,772 miles after we set out.

The Bitteroot Valley (2021 Road Trip)

Filed under: Landscapes,Road Trips — Frank @ 6:03 PM

After our raft trip we spent four nights visiting Joan’s brother and his wife in Hamilton, MT.

During our visit we made one long (about 8 mile) hike to Coquina Lake in the wilderness area of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Additionally, we did two drives (with a little walking) on Forest Service roads; one drive in the Bitterroot Mountains, (on the west side of valley) and one in the Sapphire Mountains (on the east side).

The autumn colors were in full swing in the Rockies so many (but not all) of my photos from these trips are in color.

Color Work

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Black and White Work

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9 October 2021

River of No Return/Frank Church Wilderness Raft Trip

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,Road Trips — Tags: — Frank @ 10:34 PM

Joan and I returned from a month long road trip yesterday (Friday) afternoon. We left two days after Labor Day and made more-or-less a beeline for Salmon, Idaho.

We made overnight stops in western New York, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Wyoming and central Montana. The last day of the outbound leg, we made a brief stop at Joan’s brothers house in western Montana to drop off our camper before proceeding to meet the folks we would be rafting with in Salmon.

The river we ran is the main stem of the Salmon River. This stretch of the river is also sometimes called the River of No Return* and runs through the Frank Church Wilderness which is the largest wilderness area in the lower forty eight states. We were on the river for six days/five nights. The boats were oared rubber rafts and inflatable kayaks.

Our truck was shuttled to the takeout and after we got off the river, we headed back to Hamilton, MT where we had left the camper. We spent a few days visiting Joan’s brother and sister-in-law before beginning our meander back east. (More on rest of of the trip in subsequent posts.)

Of course, I made a few photographs along the way!

The first batch shown below are photos I made while we were in camp… usually before breakfast or in the late afternoon/early evening before dinner. They were made with my main (dSLR) camera.

The second batch of photos are those made during the day (either at lunch stops or while on the river) using a small fixed (wide angle) lens camera.

As the regulars know, my landscape work in mostly black and white and thus the large majority of these photos are of that ilk.

However, I have snuck a few (three, to be exact) color photos in at the end of the first batch. Not even I would try to photograph a rainbow in black and white!!! As for the last photo (made early on our last morning on the river), the sky was just to luscious in color to convert.

So without further ado…

Batch 1 —

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Batch 2 —

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* This name is not as bad as it sounds. Early settlers (ranchers and miners, in the main) would build boats in Salmon (and up river) and then float the river to their camps. Upon arrival the boats would be dismantled and the (valuable) lumber used for other projects. Thus, is was boats that did not return not people.

12 July 2021

Barns, Flags, Vanes, Etc.

Filed under: architecture,Landscapes,Summer — Frank @ 8:30 PM

I had business in Newport (NH) today. I headed north via Hillsborough, Windsor, Washington, and Goshen. My return route took me through Unity, Lempster, Marlow and Stoddard.

Although the light was drab and it rained lightly on and off the entire trip, I made photographs on both legs of the trip.

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