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.

For Joe…

Filed under: Misc.,Off Topic — Frank @ 10:00 PM

My friend and stalwart blog commenter, Joe Kennedy sent an email this morning announcing that today was “National Joe Day”… “Really” he wrote.

Of course, I did not believe him so I did what any modern fellow would do… I googled it!

Well, guess what? Today really is “National Joe Day“!!!!

In Joe’s honor, I made this photograph while I was in Brattleboro this afternoon. Being a true modern guy, I used my cell phone!

Happy (or is that Merry?) Joe Day, Joe!!!!

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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21 March 2022

Game Camera Fun

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 8:00 PM

At the very end of 2020, I bought a game camera just for fun. For those who might not know, a game camera is a waterproof, automatic camera designed to make photos of wildlife. When the camera detects movement, it makes four or five photographs. It does this day or night, using an infrared flash at night.

I experimented with the camera around the yard and then in March of 2021 (i.e. about a year ago) I strapped the camera at chest height to a tree “down back”. The lot that our house is situated on slopes back away from the house and ends in a beaver-made wet meadow about a quarter mile from the house. The tree I strapped the camera is located on the edge of the meadow and the camera was pointed out on the meadow.

Our property, which ends about half way across the wet meadow, abuts the roughly 2000 acre NH Audubon sanctuary at Willard Pond. This sanctuary is contiguous with another roughly 5000 acres of forested land, most of which is conserved. There are no public roads (only logging roads) in this area. In other words, there is a lot prime wildlife habitat behind our house. I was interested to see what we could capture with the game camera.

After setting up the camera, I promptly forgot about it, until today! I retrieved the camera this afternoon and was interested in seeing how long the batteries had lasted. The batteries are still just fine, but the memory card ran out of space after seven months (i.e. in November 2021). There were six thousand photos on the camera! Most of the photos were “false positives”… that is pictures of just the vegetation.

However, over the seven months the camera was active, there were forty frames that contained an animal. These documented twenty different “encounters”. Of these encounters, eight were deer, five were moose, four were bear and there was one encounter each of coyote, racoon and turkey.

None of the photos could be considered “art”, but here are seven of the most visually interesting. The monochrome images were made “in the dark” under infrared illumination.

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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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