Photographs by Frank

11 October 2021

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.

1 September 2021

(Trying Not To Be) Garry Winogrand

Filed under: Misc.,Summer — Frank @ 10:11 AM

Garry Winogrand was a street photographer who is known for the large amount of undeveloped and unprinted film he left behind when he died in 1984.

The first four exposures shown below were made in New Boston, NH back in June, on one of the hottest, stickiest days of the summer. I was driving back from the Boston, MA area and noticed some old cars sitting by the side of the road. They sat on my memory card until yesterday.

I initially drove past these cars being content to stay in the air conditioned comfort of my truck. It took me a half a mile to convince myself to turn around and go back to explore.

The last three photos are what passes for street photography in my neck of the woods. They were made a couple of days ago on an afternoon walk down our road.

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16 August 2021

A Few Hours of Odeing

Filed under: Uncategorized — Frank @ 11:30 AM

Yesterday afternoon, I took a walk down the road at the Harris Center property on Brimstone Corner Road. The temperature was in the mid-70s F and the skies were mostly sunny.

Just before 3 PM, I lathered up with “bug stuff” and headed out. Three hours later, the mosquitoes drove me home. I don’t know if the “bug stuff” had worn off or if it was the hour but the mosquitoes were viscous on the walk home.

This property has a number of diverse habitats frequented by odes… sunny wood roadsides, old log landings in various state of regrowth and a large beaver pond with its associated outlet stream. Diverse habitat means diversity of species and I was not disappointed.

The most common odes by far were meadow hawks, I saw roughly three dozen. Yellow individuals (females and immature males) outnumbered red ones (mature males) by about four to one. The meadow hawks were present in sunny spots along the road as well as in the old log landings.

The next most common species were the spreadwings in the stream just down stream from the culverts; I counted about a dozen. There were also a small number of ebony jewelwings present here and two variable dancers (one of each sex).

Over at the beaver pond, I saw roughly half a dozen male slatey skimmers. They are hard to count has they were, for the most part constantly moving. The aerial “dogfights” among the slatey skimmers are fun to watch.

The find of the day was a single black saddlebags in a sunny spot at the junction of two woods roads. This species is fairly rare around here… rare enough that there are many summers when I do not see one.

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15 August 2021

New Salted-paper Prints

Filed under: Alternative Processes,Birds,Mammals,Odontates,Salted-paper Prints,Uncategorized,Wildlife — Frank @ 12:00 PM

I have spent the past week making a new batch of salted-paper prints. In doing so, I mined my archives for photographs that I think will work well as salted-paper prints. The initial exposure for all of these photos were made between five and ten years ago.

Making salted-paper prints is an iterative process.

I process the image in Photoshop making educated guesses as to how the negative should look to give me a good print. Then, I make a negative and use that negative to make a small test salted-paper print on 5×7 inch paper.

I probably get things exactly right the first time about two-thirds of the time. If the print is not to my liking, I go back to the computer and make further adjustments in Photoshop. Most often these adjustments involve dodging and burning… adjusting the brightness of very localized areas of an image. It is very rare that I need to make more than a second negative.

The photograph of the dragonfly in this series is one of those rare images. After the second iteration, I was still not satisfied with the print. In this case I went back to the original file and began anew. Of course, I had the ‘education’ gleaned from the first two unsatisfactory versions and thus the third version “hit the nail on the head” as they say.

The first five images below are all 4×5 inch prints (on 5×7 inch paper). Many times, after making a successful print at that size, I will make a larger negative (6×7 1/2 inches) and print that on 8×10 inch paper. The last two prints in this series are of the larger size.

This process illustrates why I much prefer working with digital negatives for alternative processes compared to analog (film) negatives. Both ideas (making detailed adjustments to the negative and printing an image at different sizes) are possible but extremely difficult in the analog realm.

I often have thought of making even larger prints, maybe up to 11×14 inches. My light source is large enough for a 16×20 inch contact printing frame. However, when I begin to work out the logistics of the larger trays and the space they would require as well as the cost of the materials for such large prints, I run smack into the wall of reality!!!

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7 August 2021

Pieces

Filed under: Uncategorized — Frank @ 6:00 PM

For some (unknown) reason, I seem to be seeing pieces or details these days. The camera goes with me most places these days. Here are some of the fragments of the world that have caught my eye over the past week or so.

Color Work

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Black and White

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24 July 2021

One Hour, Two Species

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 11:01 PM

This evening, I spent about an hour in the field at the Cilley Family Forest in Greenfield looking for odes. This piece of conserved land was once part of Joan’s cousin Stevie’s dairy farm. The temperature was in the mid-70s F and the skies were clear.

The land, which runs along the Contoocook River is mostly wooded but there is also a large field that gets nice late afternoon/evening light and often has good odeing. I arrived at about 6:30 and headed back to the truck about 7:30 as I had lost the light on the field.

I saw only two species of dragonflies and no damselflies. There were small numbers (maybe a half dozen or so) of female widow skimmers and similar numbers of Halloween skimmers (of both sexes).

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17 July 2021

Afternoon Odes

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,Wildlife — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:00 PM

I had a few ‘free’ hours on Thursday afternoon. I used them to take a walk down the road on the Harris Center’s property near our house. The temperature was in the low 80s F and the humidity high. The skies were mostly clear.

We had a long rainy spell; about 12 inches of rain over two weeks. Thus, I was not expecting an over abundance of odes. My expectations were met. There were odes out and about just not in large numbers.

In the two hours I was out, I saw three or four frosted whitefaces. These were the most common ode present. For all of the rest of the species I photographed, I saw only single individuals. I also saw (but did not photograph) a lone male calico pennant.

Most surprisingly, was the absence of ebony jewelwings . The stream draining the beaver swamp just downstream from the culverts is usually a reliable place to find this species in mid-summer. None were present on this trip.

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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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7 July 2021

Wednesday Olio

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

I have had my eye on the barn with the flag painted on it for sometime. However, there has been a large RV parked next to the barn for months.

Yesterday, as we drove back from dropping off our little camper for service, I noticed that the RV was gone but I did not have a camera with me. This afternoon, I headed back with the camera to make the photograph I had in my head for months.

The rest of the photos in this set were also made this afternoon and evening as I wended my way though life.

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