Pond scum is inevitable.  It accumulates to the point of completely covering the surface of ponds and shallow lakes until cool weather ends its season. It's often rather boring...kinda like looking at a random group of clouds that doesn't resemble anything you can read into it.  But, sometimes as the scum ebbs a bit, what remains gets together and dances!  In a breeze driven spiral, this patch of scum was beautiful to me. 

Autumn color is at peak this weekend.  It's incredibly beautiful with saturated yellows, reds, and oranges.  Today is sunny, and the leafy brilliance is dazzling.  But, yesterday was rainy and clouded over which kept the color rich and soft without the glare and intensity that sunlight creates.  Of course, photographs in monochrome can't rely on the chroma of the leaves, but can rely on their values, especially against a strongly contrasting background.  These two photographs were made yesterday in a tiny little park that is bordered by busy roads.  The stream here was swollen with the day's rain, and there were countless fallen leaves that had been detached from their trees by its pelting.  I was happy that enough were left to make these images.  They'll almost certainly be gone in the next few days. 

Equipment is very much secondary to me when making photographs, but it is important.  Almost anything will do if I understand how to use it effectively.  I've been using a spot meter for years until just recently when I bought a metering prism for the Pentax 67.  At first, it seemed to eat batteries within minutes, and I thought I'd have to return it to KEH, but I bought fresh batteries and they've not discharged nor failed.  This is an image from the first roll of film I've used metering with the prism.  I'm pretty happy with what turned out in difficult lighting.  It's a photograph I made on the way home from a very satisfying visit to a gallery that liked the box of prints I showed.  Where that will lead is unknown, but it was a good experience.

As I no longer make small (8X10) prints, most of the images that are posted here are negative scans that attempt to emulate their paper print doppelgangers.  But, this is a print scan from a negative I made a bunch of years ago.  I like it enough to want to reprint it in the manner I now utilize that will crop from the original (as has been done here), and be lightly toned in thiocarbamide and selenium.

For photography, skeletal trees are far more interesting in their winter dormancy than during their leafy lives.  Of course, in autumn, the riot of their color is irresistible, but so tenuous that only the memory of their brilliance remains. Their symmetry, shape, and elegance is best revealed when they're shorn of their 'other' season's cloak.

This site is close to the former home of my all-time dearest cello student who witnessed it every winter day.  I just got it down on film and paper.  Here's to you, kiddo!!

Having an extensive archive of negatives is a treat when making new ones isn't easy or even possible.  On a dreary and unpromising day, time in the darkroom or on the computer scanning some that haven't received much attention is a pleasure.  Some negatives may percolate for years until, when seeing them again, there is renewed enthusiasm for what prompted me to make them in the first place.  This is one of those lost children that is now back in the family. Abstract to the point that I've lost the memory of its original orientation, I've chosen to make it vertical.  Horizontal, though, wouldn't be wrong either.

This photograph was made during August of 2008 at Marineland beach in northern Florida.  The negative is rather thin, and I never bothered to print it.  I did scan it, however, and fussed with it in PhotoShop until it looked as it does here.  Yesterday, I decided to give it a chance in the darkroom, and to my surprise, it printed rather easily with a grade 5 filter that offers the most contrast that is available with the paper and enlarger...it's referred to as a "hard" filter.  The print is darker and richer than this scan, but, nonetheless, I'm really glad it now exists beyond the virtual.

The irony of this is almost humorous as I am soooo not religious...anti-religious wouldn't be inaccurate.  But...out in the early morning looking for something to photograph, this stopped the car immediately.   It was the first time I used a new-to-me TTL (Thru The Lens metering) pentaprism for the Pentax 67, and it worked extremely well...there are almost no photoshop adjustments.  I guess my sins will be forgiven for today at least!  ;-)

It's not often I make photographs of Walton Lake at the bottom of the hill where we live.  But this little spot has occasionally been worthwhile, and this morning it had this to offer.

I've wondered about this photograph ever since I made it nearly a year ago.  It's vague...barely there...but still, for me at least, conjures a mood.  It's ghostly, and ephemeral, but invites curiosity about what's behind the fog; the antithesis of the clarity that I typically look for.  This is a negative scan, but I think it will be a toned print by the end of tomorrow!

I've been examining images of the Hudson River that I've made over a period of years, and very recently.  It's a beautiful place, and as a stable bit of scenery the effects of time of day and events of weather allow for endless variety.  I've made many negatives and a number of prints from this vantage point that I'm happy with. 

The photograph below was made on my commute home from work in 2005.  I just happened to have my 4x5 kit in the trunk, and when I saw what presented itself, I got the kit ready in record time!  That little cloud in the larger one was a lucky bit of timing...it was gone seconds later!  "Chance favors the prepared mind." or in this case the efficient photographer.

There is no end to the variations on a theme invited by an agreeable subject. Though I've posted several, and not too dissimilar images of this scene, I really like this variation.  I'll get some darkroom time tomorrow, and this will be a strong candidate for printing.

Older negatives survive unscathed by time if they're worthy, and die a younger death if they're not.  It's a bit weird to post an image from this past winter, wimpy though it was, when the temperature outside is in the 90's, but I like it enough to buck the season.  Taken beside Moodna Trestle.

My wide angle lens (55mm) for the medium format Pentax 67 camera is becoming my favorite.  It used to be that that role was played by a medium telephoto (135mm) because I felt that the fewer elements it covered helped make compositions more coherent.  But, the larger view has compositional imperatives of its own, and I'm enjoying responding to them.  It's a different way of seeing. 

In the creative arts it is often said, with liberal exaggeration, that 10,000 negatives, poems, essays, stories, films and musical works need to be made and discarded before a true voice is able to emerge from the slag heap.  As a cellist, I'm pretty sure I've paid my dues in hours, and effort.  In photography, I'm still workin' on it!

Below is one from this past winter that I want to print in the darkroom.  I had almost no time to set up the 'pod and camera for this, and was happy to get what was left of quickly changing scene. 

I like this photograph.  But, I like it more because it's the first time I've used "curves" in photoshop to solve a problem that's easily fixed in the darkroom...burning in the sky at a harder contrast than the ground (split grading).

Students of classical musical instruments, who are being guided intelligently, now are learning a host of skills that hidebound conservatories of my generation never would have deigned to offer.  That was due to both an elitist attitude and a total ignorance of popular idioms, improvisation, and creative new directions for the instruments being mastered.  Though I'm not likely to regain that ground as a cellist, I can certainly attempt to do so with photography.  Yes, I'm late to the digital party, but I'm determined to catch up as much as possible.  I will never abandon what I've learned traditionally, but I will expand the tool kit, as I've mentioned before, to include new skills I've been timid to try!

It's not easy to find the best light and weather conditions for other than post card photographs in the full sun of summer.  There's rarely any fog, mist, or other interesting phenomena once the sun is fairly high.  I ended up driving a very long way to find anything that interested me.  I made these just north of the "Hawks Nest" scenic roadway along the Delaware River within a state park.

The work I do in the summer time makes if difficult to take the camera out.  This weekend (July 14th and 15th), however I had the chance.  The first is a view of fields and sky in Pine Island I visited on Saturday...the black dirt region of Orange County, NY.  The second is of the lake at the bottom of the hill we live on very early this Sunday morning. 

For work, I usually get up at about 4:15AM every day.  This past Saturday (June 23rd) I got up then anyway so that I could drive to the places I pass on my daily commute that I can't stop to photograph. And those places can be gorgeous.  The two images below were made as I stood on the Bear Mountain Bridge between about 6:15 and 7:30 AM on the 23rd.  There was a dense, low cloud that wouldn't disperse despite the strong breeze I was feeling on the bridge. Eventually, though, the rising mist allowed me to photograph the upper of these two, and the lower, taken earlier, bypassed the low cloud altogether and appreciated the sky.

I've been reviewing the negatives from Bethlehem,  and have decided that I'd like to add one more to the several posted below.  I think this subject is grist for a whole body of work, but I only had a brief time with it, and wish it could have been much longer.

Perkins Memorial Drive is a road on which l have ridden my bicycle to the top of Bear Mountain (back when I was in very good form!).  Most annoying are the barriers that preclude parking a car anywhere along it. It's great for hikers, though, and the view of below is spectacular.  As there were no park police cruising the area during the early morning hour I made this photograph, I was able to park where I wanted to, but wasn't supposed to.  So...here is the result of my crime!

Every working day I drive slowly across the Hudson River on the Bear Mountain Bridge.  It is a brief trip spanning the river just below Fort Clinton where the American revolutionary army belted a huge chain just below and across the water to stop British warships from any further northward progress. Just beyond the bridge is West Point. (Sometimes I'm saluted on this bridge by cadets on their morning run, the most polite and respectful young adults you could ever want to meet.)  

There are no end of mornings that take one's breath away with their beauty here.  Clouds, mist, fog, wind, haze, snow, rain, and all their nuances are stunning, but while driving, not possible to photograph.   Today (May 28th) I didn't have to make the trip due to the Memorial Day holiday, but I did anyway just in case. I didn't think it likely there would be much to see as day dawned in warm haze.  I nearly turned around to go home when I saw fog in the distance. Yes!!  So, I finished the trip.  Here are three from the two rolls I used. If I could stop every morning that seduced me visually, I'd go into debt buying film.  (Yeah...I know...I could shoot digitally for next to nothing.  Sorry...not interested.)