Photographs by Frank

1 October 2013

White Mountain Foliage Tour

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,the White Mountains — Tags: , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

Yesterday, I took another drive around the White Mountains to “leaf peep” and photograph.

I did not get going until mid-morning so I decided to concentrate on the west side… Franconia Notch and Crawford Notch. I got off the interstate at Campton and took US 3 (the Daniel Webster Highway) north to Franconia. There, I  stopped for lunch at a favorite spot, Wendle’s Deli, for a sandwich.

From there I wandered north and east through Whitefield and Jefferson, my goal was the north end of Jefferson Notch Road, where I turned south. Jefferson Notch Road is a lightly traveled, summer only, well maintained dirt road that leads from US 2 to Crawford Notch.

Heading south from Crawford Notch, I took the Bear Notch Road (another summer only, but paved road) short cut from Bartlett to the Kancamangus Highway and arrived at the pass just in time for the sunset. From there it is just a short drive to I-93 in Lincoln and the roughly 90 minute drive back home.

The day was just OK for landscape photography… the sun shone brightly and there were widely scattered clouds which never seemed to be in the “right” direction.

Here are the results:

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28 September 2013

Pondicherry NWR

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,the White Mountains — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:30 PM

Yesterday, we (Joan, her cousin Margie and I) took a drive to the Pondicherry NWR in Jefferson, NH.

I can report that the foliage in the White Mountains is just about at its peak for this year.

The two ponds that make the centerpiece of Pondicherry are an easy hike from the road. The route is mainly along an old rail bed.  Cherry Pond ((the larger of the two) offers spectacular views of the Presidential Range*. Little Cherry Pond is also worth the extra walk as it is a very different habitat than Cherry Pond.**

This was our first visit to Pondicherry and I am certain that it is not our last; highly recommended.

Here is the crop of photos, all but the last one made at Cherry Pond. The last one was made from a pull off on Bear Notch Road in Bartlett on the way home.

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*From Cherry Pond (looking south east), the peaks of the Presidential Range are Madison, Adams, Jefferson and Washington (left to right, or north to south).

**The light was not very good during the time we spent at Little Cherry Pond, so I do not have any photos from there that are worth showing.

22 September 2013

A Windy Day in Early Autumn

Filed under: "Camp",Early Fall,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , — Frank @ 9:00 PM

Late this afternoon, we took a quick “spin” on the lake in the kayaks. It was breezy and cool but the interesting clouds made for good photography.

September Skies #1 (Gregg Lake Near Our Camp)

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September Skies #2 (The Gregg Lake Shore)

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A Hint of Things to Come

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21 September 2013

Moon Light Madness

Filed under: Early Fall,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , — Frank @ 7:00 PM

Thursday was the full moon for September… the harvest moon.

I spent the evening at a Monadnock Camera Club meeting and therefore did not have time to photograph. However, I was so smitten by the moonlit drive home that, yesterday evening I headed out so see what I could photograph.

In preparation, I spent a bit of time in the afternoon using a wonderful program called The Photographer’s Ephemeris. This program shows you in what direction the sun|moon rise|set will occur on any day at any location. It is an incredibly useful tool for landscape photographers.

After a bit of exploration with this program, I decided that the view looking east across the south end of Gregg Lake was a good candidate for a moon rise photo. So I packed up my gear and made the roughly a quarter mile walk from the house to the lake shore. I arrived shortly after 6 PM and caught the last of the days sunlight on the shore as it disappeared behind the ridge to the west of  the lake. Sunset was 6:48 PM yesterday. As I waited for the moon to rise (7:17 PM), I enjoyed the peace and quiet and a loon out on the lake kept me entertained.

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Things did not work out perfectly. The moon did not begin to appear over the ridge and trees to the east of the lake until about 20 minutes after it rose; the sunlight was completely completely gone by this time. Thus, there was no light on the foreground as the moon rose.

I really should have tried this a day or two before the full moon not the day after… next month!

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I packed up and headed home in the dark… LED head lamps are a wonderful invention!

After dinner, I decided to head down to the bridge and the “civilized” end of Brimstone Corner and see if I could make photos of the north end of the lake by moon light. I think that I got a keeper… what say you?

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Technical note: This is a 1 min exposure (at f/8 and ISO 400). The only processing applied is noise reduction… and a lot of it!

The same is true of the moon rise photo (30 sec at f/8 and ISO 400)  immediately above.

7 September 2013

Three Days in the White Mountains

Filed under: Landscapes,Summer,the White Mountains — Tags: — Frank @ 2:00 PM

This past week, Joan, myself and both kids  spent three days in the White Mountains. (At ages 28 and 30, “kids” is probably not politically correct, but hey, it is my blog!)

Back in May (when I retired) I had teased my former colleagues that I was going to go on vacation the day after Labor Day (i.e. the day fall semester begins). Thus, with this trip, I made good on my “threat”!

On Tuesday, we drove north to Franconia Notch and spent time at both the Basin and at the Flume. We were the last folks admitted to the Flume before they closed for the evening. After we finished the hike in the Flume, we headed to the Dry River Campground in Crawford Notch where we set up camp and ate dinner in the dark.

On Wednesday, we took the Cog Railway to the summit of Mount Washington and then hiked to Arethusa Falls (the tallest in New Hampshire).

On Thursday, we broke camp and headed over to Pinkham Notch. There, we did a fairly easy loop hike that took us to Brad’s Bluff and to Lila’s Ledge; both places have spectacular views of Mount Washington. I took no photos on this hike as I was out of “juice” for the little Nikon V1 and had left the charger at home. I have definitely put Lila’s Bluff on the list of places to return for some serious photography in the future.

Day 1 (black and white work):

(Please note that “Pemi” is the nickname for the Pemigewasset River which has its headwaters in Franconia Notch.)

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Day 1 (color work):

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Day 2:

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2 September 2013

A Loon and (Intimate) Landscapes

Filed under: Birds,Summer — Tags: , — Frank @ 1:00 PM

On Friday afternoon, I headed down to the lake and put the kayak in the water. I specifically left the “ode rig” at home and took only my little Nikon V1.

My intent was to force myself to look of things, other than odes, to photograph.

My thought was to cruise the shore line and to look for details that might make interesting photographs.

My inspiration  is the book “Intimate Landscapes” by Eliot Porter, in which the photographer concentrates on “details” in the landscape rather than broad, sweeping views. Porter was also a pioneer in using color film for landscape photography.

While on the lake, I had a close encounter with a loon, I had seen this loon on the surface a number of times, but was pretty much ignoring it since I had the 10-30 mm lens on the camera. However, at one point “he” popped up very close to me (and the shore). I was able to switch to the 30-100 mm lens and make a five or six  frames (in about 90 seconds) before he was gone.

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7 July 2013

A Trip (Partly) Up Cannon Mountain

Filed under: Landscapes,Summer,the White Mountains — Tags: — Frank @ 12:00 PM

On Friday (5 Jul) we took a trip to Franconia Notch, Joan had some botanizing she wanted to do and I went along for the ride. Our goal was the bottom of the cliffs on the east face of Cannon Mountain (these are seen prominently as the west side of the notch).

The climb up was not too bad, one follows the bike path from the south end of Profile Lake for a short while before turning on to an unmarked trail that climbers use to access the cliffs. Eventually this trail emerges onto the boulder field at the base of the cliffs. From there it is about a 400-500 vertical foot scramble (in about 0.1 miles) to the base of the cliffs. The total elevation gain from the Lake to the base of the cliffs is about 800 feet in 0.4 miles.

As I said, going up wasn’t too bad, but coming down is another story. There were a couple of brief showers just after we started down… nothing quite like walking on wet rocks! My quadriceps are still recovering as I write this two days later. The seat of the pants I wore will never recover… nylon is no match for NH granite!

Anyway… I got a few nice photos from an unusual vantage point. One climber we talked with said that he had never seen a hiker (i.e. someone without climbing gear) up there before… I guess we are a bit crazy!

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18 June 2013

One Foggy Evening

Filed under: Landscapes,Summer — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Late yesterday afternoon a band of thunderstorms passed through the area… the temperature went from the upper seventies to the upper sixties in a manner of minutes. Several hours later, as the sun began to set and the temperature dropped further, all the moisture in the air began condensing out.

I saw the “show” at the north end of the lake begin to develop as I was out on the lake.  Sunset yesterday was at about 8:30 PM. However, the sun had already dipped below the ridge to the west when I made these exposures at about 8 PM.

[singlepic id=1395 w=1000 h=289 float=] A three frame panorama, it would print at about 11″ x 40″.

[singlepic id=1394 w=600 h=480 float=] A detail.

7 June 2013

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge — Part 1, Birds & Landscapes

Filed under: Amphibians,Birds,National Wildlife Refuges,Summer,Wildlife — Tags: , , — Frank @ 5:00 PM

My parents recently moved to one of those “soup-to-nuts” retirement places in suburban Washington, DC and we spent last weekend visiting them at their new abode.

On Monday we headed for the Blackwater National Wildlife refuge in Cambridge, MD (on the Eastern Shore). We had made a short visit there last summer and put it on our list of spots to return to for some serious exploring and photography.

We arrived in the area mid-afternoon on Monday and dropped off the camper in the campground before hitting the wildlife drive though the refuge in time for the good late afternoon and evening light. On Tuesday we spent nine hours in the kayaks exploring the Blackwater River. On Wednesday morning we did the drive through the refuge again before pointing the car north. We arrived home just after midnight.

On our first visit to Blackwater, we were amazed at the concentration of herons, egrets, osprey and bald eagles. This was not a random event. The same was true this trip. There were spots in the water where six or eight egrets and herons would be lined up in a space of a few dozen feet. At times it seemed that no mater which direction you turned you could spot a bald eagle nest or an osprey nest. The density of the large charismatic birds is quite astounding.

It seems that this trip, we caught fledgling time for the bald eagles. We often saw two adults sitting in the same tree nearby a nest. On a couple of occasions we watched a juvenile land in the same tree.

Of course, there are also many smaller birds around as well as numerous dragonflies and damselflies. I tried to photograph them all!

The odes will have to wait until I get at least some of them identified. They are mostly different from the familiar (to me) ones in New England. But, here is the first installment of photos…birds and landscapes.

Blackwater Birds (all made in the refuge proper)…

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Landscapes (the two black and white photos were made in the refuge; the sunset photos were made from the campground we stayed at in Turners Island)…

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17 May 2013

Early Green

Filed under: Early Spring,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: — Frank @ 1:00 PM

Photography, for me, gets placed on the back burner in early May as this is a busy time for me.  Lots of end-of-the-semester assignments and exams to be graded, course grades to be assigned, etc.

I finished all of that yesterday around noon… for the last time… ever!

Thus, I finally had time to process two batches of photos… one made about a week ago as I headed to the transfer station with the trash and one made yesterday evening as I headed to the monthly camera club meeting. I usually try to leave a bit of extra time when I head out from the house… one never knows when there will be good photographs to be made at the lake!

The first three photos are from last week and the last two from yesterday.

Yes, I know that two of the “early greens” are in black and white!  I could not help myself… I am just a sucker for skies done in black and white!

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