After finishing my errands this morning, I took a stroll (with camera in hand) around downtown Peterborough in a light rain.
The light was dull and flat, it was not a day for black and white photos, but the rain did make the colors really pop!
Meetinghouse Hill was the original center of Antrim. The original meetinghouse was built near the summit in 1785. The associated cemetery is still well maintained an offers nice views of Mount Mondanock after some recent logging activity on the southwestern flank.
The meetinghouse building was moved to the foot of the hill (maybe a half mile trip) in 1832 and was purchased by the Antrim Grange in 1894. It still used as the Grange Hall and they are in the midst of a campaign to restore the building. Across Meetinghouse Hill Road from the Grange is the Uplands, an old farmhouse and barn. The Uplands is the home of our friends Victor and Lynne who run a bed and breakfast there.
Last Friday, I spent some time on Meetinghouse Hill making photographs.
About a week ago (Tues., 14 Feb, to be exact), I headed to Keene to run some errands.*
I parked in the Gilbo Street lot.
As I returned to my truck, I noticed the nearby snow-covered skate park. Upon wandering over to investigate, I noticed the tracks of a single individual going into the park and over to a pile of stuff on the ground. The pile of stuff turned out to be a memorial for a Pabst-drinking skateboarder.
After photographing the memorial under snow, I pointed my lens at some of the nearby structures.
* I know… I’ve been a bit slow in processing these!
This morning I had some VCP business in Brattleboro; after I finished I headed west on another meander.
This one took me through Marlboro, Newfane, Townshend, Saxons River and into Bellows Fall; all in Vermont. After crossing the river back to NH, I headed more-or-less straight home, stopping only in Acworth as I wanted to try photographing the church there with my camera obscura.
I gave in to the temptation — the light was great as I passed through Newfane — and photographed some “foreign” building tops, but not as part of my project!
The weather was warm (around 40 deg. F) but all over the place… rain at times, short breaks in the clouds and nice light, but mostly gray overcast. Twas an interesting drive anyway.
On Friday morning I had coffee and talked photography with my friend Jeff.
I headed out early enough so that I had time to stop and make some photographs on the drive to Peterborough.
My architecture project is coming along nicely.
I started photographing the “tops” of civic buildings back in mid-November. The combination of “winter light” and white clapboard makes for some nice photographs.
This afternoon, I drove up to South Sutton and Bradford to make a few more photographs (see photos below). I think I am almost done.
In between, I have been all over southwestern New Hampshire photographing meeting houses, churches, schools, etc. I have visited a number of towns twice (and a few three times) in hopes of getting the right combination of light and sky.
I made an initial selection of almost 200 photographs from those I processed. Over the past couple of days, I have culled these down to fifty (each of a different building) including the first and third photos in the set shown here.
I am going to “sit on” this selection for a couple of days and then get to work on sequencing the photos. This is the hardest part for me.
Initially, I am planning to present all of the photos in a press-printed book. Once that is done, I will think about a subset to print large (16″x20″) for display in the traditional way.
P.S. I upgraded WordPress to the most current version (released today) and this seems to have fixed my problems with the gallery software. I have full control of titles and sorting again. I am a happy boy!
I can’t believe that it has been almost a month since my last post.
I have been busy working on my “belfries and spires” project. However, I am not quite ready to “go public” with this project.
I have been out regularly, photographing and re-photographing (hoping for perfect light and skies) the meetinghouses, churches and town halls all over the area. I have somewhere between two and three dozen “selects”… each one a different building. I am hoping for at least forty eight photos total for the project.
The snow (about seven inches a few days ago) has not slowed me down but the cold temperatures (high of 17 deg. F or so today, with a low of -4 predicted for tonight) certainly have. Operating a camera at those temperatures is hard on the hands even with gloves on.
As I have traveled about, I have noticed that many of buildings have holiday wreaths adorning the doors. Duly noted, I have made a few photographs!
Sorry about the lack of useful titles… I recently update both the WordPress software and the gallery software. Now seems to be a glitch in my ability to edit things within the gallery. Hopefully this gets resolved quickly.
Last Thursday morning, I meandered back home from Peterborough stopping to photograph buildings (or, more accurately, parts thereof) in Peterborough, Harrisville, Nelson, Hancock and Antrim.
Warning photographer talk follows:
When one points a camera up, say to photograph a tall building, the optics cause the problem of converging verticals… vertical lines, that are parallel in reality, look like they are converging and the building looks like it might fall over backwards.
This problems can be overcome in three different ways. There are special cameras and lenses with “tilt shift” mechanisms that allow one to compensate for this effect. Digital photos may be corrected (to an extent) in the computer using the proper software. Lastly, there is the solution I used for many of the photographs in this post. Tip the camera so that there are no vertical lines. No verticals, no convergence… Simple as that!
Yesterday afternoon I headed back to Washington (NH) to make the photo I had envisioned the day before.
Being Saturday, I knew that the vehicles that were there the day before were not likely to be present. However the light was not quite as nice. There were a few scattered high clouds about but none to the west where they could diffuse the sun light. I prevailed none-the-less.
After I finished at the common (at a couple of minutes past four), I headed over to East Washington; there is both a church and a Grange hall to photograph there. I was too late for the Grange, it was in the shade already. The church which is up a hill from the Grange was still in good light. The light on the church lasted ten or fifteen minutes.
I caught the last of the sunlight on a few low clouds at Gregg Lake on the way home.
Yesterday afternoon looked good for photography… there were high clouds which softened the light and this time of year the sun gets low enough for nice directional light by mid-afternoon. I spent a couple of hours (roughly 2 – 4 PM) making a circuit of favorite places to photograph.
My first stop was an old barn which I recently learned is scheduled to be demolished at some point in the not too distant future. Thus I am feeling a sense of urgency in making photos of this barns last ‘gasp’ as it were.
This sense of urgency was heightened later in my drive when I passed an old house in East Washington that I have photographed in the past; it is now in the process of being dismantled.
My second stop was Hillsborough Center. I have photographed the church there a number of times. Yesterday, I looked for other subjects there.
My last stop was the Washington (NH) commons.
I have photographed here many times and was hoping to make some photographs using my camera obscura. However, this was not in the cards for yesterday. There was a police vehicle parked next to the school house (which now serves as the police station) and there were other vehicles near the town hall. Plan B was to make photographs “looking up”… i.e. of various roof lines.
I recently discovered that the subject of Paul Strand‘s famous photograph usually titled “Town Hall, NH” is, in fact, the Washington, NH town hall. The exterior of building is unchanged since Strand took his photo in 1946. However, the flag pole has been replaced (and moved).
By four, the light was pretty much gone (even on the hilltop site of the common) so I packed up and headed home.
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