Rough Harvest

A couple of weeks ago I was out in the west end of the county during gun deer season when I came upon this scene.

Portage County, Wisconsin  November, 2010.

From that same roll of  T-max film. Last image in black and white of ice crystals made at the time of last post.

Today out side of Rudolph, Wisconsin. A hoary frost covered the trees.

Winter 2010

Over the weekend we had our first real snow of the season. After the snow Melissa and I got the driveway cleared so we could get out. We got a solid ten inches with drifts close to two feet. Several surrounding counties had blizzard warnings posted. Now it is just bitterly cold with a high of 10 degrees today. I went out today and made some headway with the snow blower so I can get to the wood pile out back. It is a funny looking trail around the house.  What you see here should remain until spring.

The wind blew most of the snow off of the trees. A few remain that are flocked with the snow.

Water is in the title of this blog. I find it amazing what can happens to it in it various states. Yesterday I found crystals formed on a singled paned window in the garage. Yesterday it looked pretty cool but today was another animal all together.

Still Life

Every once and a while I see something that catches my eye. Today it was a broom.

This reminded me of an Image I made a couple of years ago that also included a broom. The broom in the next imge is in the lower left corner deep in shadow.

Anti-Freeze

Early last week after running some errands, I arrived home to find a small anti-freeze under Davenport (Toyota Pick-up). So I crawled underneath to take a look. Right away I noticed that most of the coolant was coming from just behind the water-pump. I have been around cars long enough to know that there is a small weep hole located on the water pump just behind the impeller where the belt pulley attaches to the pump. When coolant starts to come out it is only a matter of time before the pump fails and all the engines coolant will drain out in a matter of moments.
   I do not consider myself a gear head or mechanic but out of necessity I find myself taking on such endeavors.

   

The image above shows the front of the engine with the water pump removed. It was also a good time to replace the belts and hoses.

I took all of the images in this post with my cell phone. I took this self portrait weeks before.

These images are about to find a new home but first they had to be sprayed with a preservative to keep them from fading. Then they will be matted and framed. This was the first time I had applied this preservative to any of my images giving them a matte finish. After they had dried they had a rough texture almost like sandpaper.   Images that I have made with my printer that are under glass have not faded at all but some that I printed a couple of years ago  that have been exposed to air have faded to look like something out of my childhood.

Blustery Day

This morning, I caught the sun out while a front blew through. I often have taken images from this view without the highway sign in the frame. Today I felt it needed to be included.  

Hanging On

The leaf season here in Wisconsin is just past peak now. Several of the leaves have fallen to the ground except for many oaks, elms, and ash trees which are falling fast. For the last couple of days I have collected several pictures of different color leaves in various states of decay.

This maple is mostly bare now. I enjoy the single leaf in the upper right hand corner of the image being caught by the breeze as it made its way to the ground.

It is hard not to take a bad picture when the subject has done all the work for you.

Overcast days often allow for rich colors to be seen.

A day I wish I was wearing rubber boots. After several steps in the marsh, water filled my shoes.

Ah! Tamarack Pines.

Oak.

Black Water

A couple of weeks ago, I set out to Saxeville, Wi to take pictures of the Springwater Bridge. Today I am finally getting around to posting an image from that short trip.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to spend some time in the darkroom doing some printing of images I made last week.  These prints were scanned on a flatbed scanner after the print has dried. I have a negative scanner and it does a pretty good job but there is something about looking at a contact(print) sheet from of a roll of film. It has an aesthetic that appeals to me. A look that scanning then viewing on a monitor sometimes leaves me uninspired. For example, last week I scanned an image that looked promising. After looking at it on the monitor I decided that there was no further need to pursue printing this image. So I put the negative back in its sleeve holder until yesterday when I made a contact print of the negatives. The same picture I had scanned took on a different look altogether.

Tomorrow River

Holding and viewing prints in your hands means something altogether different as well, at least for me.