Photographs by Frank

11 January 2017

Meeting Houses, Churches, etc.

Filed under: architecture — Tags: — Frank @ 10:00 PM

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.

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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!

 

1 January 2017

Happy New Year

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Wildlife,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 6:09 PM

Around noon today Joan’s cousin Liz called to say that there was a barred owl sitting, clearly visible from the dining room window, in a tree at the back of her house.

I did what any self-respecting wildlife photographer would do. I headed out the door headed to Liz’s house as soon as I gathered up my gear! Joan came along too.

These two photos were taken from Liz’s bathroom window with my 300 mm lens. The first was made through the storm window and the second after I raised the storm window. The owl was completely unperturbed by my raising either the regular window or the storm window even though it was maybe twenty five feet away.

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31 December 2016

Adams Dozen – 2016

Filed under: Adams Dozen — Frank @ 6:00 PM

Well, it is that time of the year… time to choose my “Adams Dozen” for 2016.

Long-time readers will remember that at the end of each year I pick my twelve favorite (best?) photos of the year; a tradition I began back in 2011 (see this post).

In choosing photos for this collection, I did not consider images from the three projects (Barn Board, Autumnal Abstracts – 2016 and ‘Belfries, Spires, Etc.’ that I have been working on this year. The first two projects are more-or-less finished while the third is still a work in progress. These will be presented in due time.

Thus, the photos selected for my Adams Dozen are ‘singletons’ (i.e. not part of any project).

Here they are:

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I am still having trouble with my gallery software. I have figured out a work around for getting titles displayed but I still am unable to control the order in which the photos are displayed… #$@!&* computers!!!

 

15 December 2016

Doors and Wreaths

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

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!

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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.

 

21 November 2016

Belfries, Clock Towers, Cupolas, Spires, Et Al.

Filed under: architecture,Landscapes,Monadnock Region,November — Tags: — Frank @ 6:04 PM

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.

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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!

 

13 November 2016

Washington, NH Again

Filed under: architecture,Landscapes,November — Tags: — Frank @ 5:30 PM

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.

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11 November 2016

Yesterday, The Photography Was Good

Filed under: architecture,Landscapes,November — Tags: — Frank @ 4:00 PM

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.

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My second stop was Hillsborough Center. I have photographed the church there a number of times. Yesterday, I looked for other subjects there.

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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).

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By four, the light was pretty much gone (even on the hilltop site of the common) so I packed up and headed home.

 

 

6 November 2016

Stone Walls, Etc.

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Frank @ 2:00 PM

Early yesterday afternoon, the light was nice… soft but directional.

I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in a favorite out-of-the-way corner of Hancock making photos.

I headed home only when the clouds thickened making the light dull and drab.

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Shadowplay

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: — Frank @ 2:00 PM

Yesterday, while photographing stone walls, I noticed that, when the sun peaked out from behind the clouds, the nearby trees were casting shadows upon a nearby granite ledge.

Me thinks that there might be a project in this idea… we’ll see!

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Bumper Stickers

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Off Topic — Frank @ 1:00 PM

Have you ever noticed that folks who put bumper stickers on their vehicles are not usually satisfied with one?

Found in Peterborough yesterday…

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