Photographs by Frank

31 January 2021

A Group Portfolio

Filed under: Misc. — Frank @ 5:59 PM

I belong to a self-organized group of photographers who meet once a month at the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro, VT*.

We call ourselves “Carry It In” as we are focused on the sharing of physical prints on paper. We also have much discussion about the art of photography.

Recently we decided to put together a group portfolio in which we each contributed a print on letter-sized paper.

We made fourteen copies of the portfolio. One copy for each contributing member and one that we donated to the Vermont Center for Photography. Each set of prints was packaged in a nice folder with a title page and a colophon.

In the interest of wider distribution, we have also made a pdf version of the portfolio, it is available here. This file is best downloaded and viewed in the full screen mode of Acrobat Reader.

Enjoy!

* At least that was our pre-pandemic modus operandi. Like everyone else we meet mostly via Zoom these days, although we did meet masked and outside for a few of the warmer months last summer.

29 January 2021

Random Photographs

Filed under: Landscapes,Misc.,Monadnock Region — Frank @ 9:30 PM

Cold*… snowy… drab… gray.

A pretty apt description of January. My photography slows down this time every year, but still I try. These days the little Fuji I bought about a month ago goes with me whenever I leave the premises.

Learning to see wide-angle compositions** has been interesting and fun.

These photographs were all made with the Fuji over the past ten days.

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* The temperature is 5 degrees F as I write this. The high today was 12. More typically over the past several weeks, the highs have been in the low 20s and the lows around 10 or 12 degrees F.

** Remember the Fuji X100F has a 22 mm (35 mm in “full frame” terms) lens that can not be removed.

19 January 2021

Farm Trees

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 6:00 PM

That is “Farm Trees” not “Tree Farms”! Signs, bearing the latter being a common sight in this neck of the woods.

I had been eyeing the two apple trees near the house at the Bass Farm for some time. They are situated at the cusp of a rise in the field. In my mind, I envisioned a photo of the bare branches against the sky made with my camera obscura.

Late yesterday morning, I headed out to see if I could create what I had in mind. The skies were mostly cloudy, but I was hoping for just enough sun to make things interesting. While I was there, I explored similar photos of a number of other trees on the grounds.

After I finished at the Bass Farm, I headed to a farm field in Hancock with an interesting old (dead) elm in the middle. It is too far away from the field’s edge to use the camera obscura and the field is surrounded by an electric fence precluding a closer approach*. Thus, I made a photograph (the last one in this series) using a short telephoto on my ‘normal’ camera.

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* I am contemplating approaching the owners of this field/tree to see if I can get permission enter the field so I can get close enough to use the camera obscura. If that happens, you’ll see the result here… I promise!

5 January 2021

Mid-day Visitor

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Wildlife,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 12:28 PM

Late this morning Joan was talking to her cousin on the phone when she began to wildly gesticulate in the direction of the French doors to our deck. I meander over to see what was up and observed this porcupine climbing a small beech tree.

It took me a few minutes to find the tripod, put Big Bertha (my 600 mm lens) on the camera and mount both to said tripod. I made my first exposure at 11:51 AM and made eighteen exposures total before heading back inside. There just is not a lot of action when a porcupine decides to “have a sit” up a tree!

Here it is 12:20 as I write this. I’ll be pushing the “publish” button shortly. Thirty minutes from start to finish… ain’t technology wonderful!!!

As I learned from an old newspaper photographer, always give them a horizontal and a vertical), so here are two photos.

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1 January 2021

Adams Dozen — 2020

Filed under: Adams Dozen — Frank @ 2:30 PM

As has been my longstanding habit*, here is my “Adams Dozen” for 2020… the year of the pandemic.

Being retired and living a generally quiet life in the New Hampshire woods, our life has not been changed nearly as much as many others have. We made no big trips this year, but I still got out in the neighborhood regularly to make photographs**.

One of the highlights of this year was the successful nesting of a pair of loons on Gregg lake; the first in living memory. I spent many enjoyable hours back in May and June watching (and photographing) the nesting adults and then the pair of chicks, that joined them. Both juveniles successfully fledged this fall and headed to the ocean.

You will be glad to know that I have included only one loon photo and a single dragonfly photo among the dozen… there are many, many more of each subject in this year’s collection!

Additionally, I used some of my “home time” this summer to start making cyanotypes again (after a twelve year hiatus). This fall I also experimented with hand coloring black and white prints. I intend to keep making both type of prints in the future.

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* The first edition (from 2011) explains the genesis of this tradition and here is last year’s edition.

** For those keeping track, I made 6651 exposures in 2020 (about two-thirds of what I made in 2019) and processed 1037 of these (about 15% of the total) which is about average.

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