Great Barrington

Swimming Pool




Linda and I drove over to Great Barrington today. This is an impulse trip, but we had a nice day even so. Linda had a chance to try out her new digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 5600) - I think she's getting more comfortable with it. She was also able to find a small case that will hold both the camera and her cell phone, thereby reducing the contents (and weight) of her handbag.

We had sort of anticipated having lunch at Pearl's Bistro, but they were closed today. Instead, we went to a Thai restaurant. Interesting experience - it was a little smokey when we walked in, and got progressively worse. We noticed that the manager was turning people away, and when the waitress brought our check, she said that the ventillator fan in the kitchen had failed, so they had chosed to close the restaurant rather than have to deal with all the smoke.

Also visited the Iris photo gallery. That's a pretty nice operation.

I found a couple of pictures, one on the main street, and on in an alley next to Pearl. I don't know how they will "come out", but I know that the experience of making the negatives was exciting and inspiring.

Whenever I think of Great Barrington, I am reminded of a radio program years ago. Alan Chartok used to have a weekly interview/discussion with Mario Cuomo called "Me and Mario" - I remember listening one night while waiting for Jeff at Pai's Tae Kwan Do. Cuomo was busting on Chartok about living in Great Barrington - asking him if there was something in the name that made living there more attractive. He sarcastically asked him if there were a "Lesser Barrington" for people who didn't consider themselvse so elite. You may not like his politics, but I really like his style!

In the past week, we have booked reservations for a trip to California next month, and also to Hong Kong and Beijing for October. Maxed out the Mastercard!

Got some great news this week. "Sea of Seats" was selected by the juror for inclusion in "Saratoga - Inside/Out" at Saratoga County Arts Council. The show opens next week and will remain up through racing season. This will be very interesting - there will be a lot of big spenders in Saratoga during that period. Perhaps they will be buying art - - -

Tomorrow we are scheduled to go to the Aery's for dinner. Roxy warned us that there is some risk that she might have to go to Rochester - but so far, we haven't received a call rescheduling so I guess its still on.

This picture is from our trip to Virginia. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Ashland, and I noticed that the swimming pool had some interesting light early in the day. This was the morning we left. There was no one in the pool after breakfast, so I went in and made several exposures to test different development routines. This is the N-2 negative.

Mid-Summer Dreams

Mechanicville Hydro


It's been pretty hot and relatively dry. I just came in from watering the area in the backyard where I reburied the gutter drain a couple of weeks ago - still waiting for the seed to germinate. A lot of the area has had a lot of rain, but it's been very localized, and in our little pocked we haven't seen much water.

Went to the Engineer's Luncheon today at the Queen. It was nice the see the guys again, although the news about Fred was distressing. It was also nice to chat with Ron again, and catch up on what is happening in the office. Yes, I left at the right time!

We have been staying pretty close to home the last week or so. Took a little drive on the 4th - up through the Battlefield and into Schuylerville, and then back to the Waterfront for lunch. I went out looking for pictures on Friday with no success - just read the editorial in the latest Lenswork in which Brooks Jensen notes that it is better to anticipate the location, and go there seeking images, than it is to just ride around looking for locations. How true.

I was able to spend some time printing over the weekend. The negativs from Mechanicville Hydro are good, as are the negatives of the pool at the Ashland Holiday Inn. Also made a nice print of the shadows on the side of the Yarmouth boathose.

This morning I mailed off the CD with my submissions for the Albany Underground Artists show at the Institute of History and Art. Keeping my fingers crossed about that one. This weekend I will submit my entry for the SCAC Saratoga Inside-Out show.

This image is the better of the two from Mechanicville Hydro. That's a really neat project - and I have a lot of respect for what Albany Engineering is doing in rehabilitating and operating that plant. It's been in continuous operation since 1987, and is the oldest continuously-operating hydroelectric plant in North America. And technically, its really neat - designed by Steinmetz as a 38 Hz facility, and later speeded up to 40 Hz for parallel operation with another plant at Spier Falls. Still operates at 40 Hz through a couple of frequency changers. One thing I noticed was how quiet the plant is - the generators must be perfectly balanced to be able to spin at 720 r/min and produce essentially no sound. Of course, the freq changers make up for the silence of the main generators.

Virginia

The Potting Shed


Linda and I drove down to Virginia on Sunday to visit family. The trip down was hard - we encountered a lot of traffic, especially at toll booths and on the Beltway and I-95 south of Washington. Mapquest predicted that it would be an 8 hour drive - it was more like 10 hours.

We devoted Sunday evening and Monday to visits with Linda's relatives. It was nice to see Dot again, and visiting with Joseph is always pleasant. Then, on Tuesday we drove across the state to Roanoke to see Laney and Debbie. Scott came in Tuesday night, and then Mark and Amy (and their boys) came over for the day on Wednesday. That was a very nice visit, one that was long overdue.

We also stopped in Charlottesville to tour Monticello en route to Roanoke. I had been to Mt. Vernon many years ago, and my recollection is that it was much larger than Monticello. Even so, it was well worth the stop and the cost of the tour.

The return trip was very long - 600 miles. Mapquest said 10 hours, and it was more like 11. I enjoy driving, but that's a bit much. We didn't encounter an abnormal amount of travel, although in retrospect, I wonder if it might have been faster to take I-81 up to Binghamton and then I-88 to Schenectady, rather than get snarled in the rush hour traffic on I-287.

I took the large camera but I didn't get many opportunities to use it. I did one landscape exposure at the Alvin Witbeck farm, but the negative was fogged - it looks like the darkslide may not have engaged in the hinge properly. I also did three negatives of a really neat scene in the hotel swimming area on Tuesday morning. I could tell that the contrast was high, so I planned on doing two of them at N-1 and N-2, and the third was intended for a water bath process. The two N- negatives turned out well, but the water bath negative is very thin, even with selenium toning. I guess I need to understand better how that process works. But I'm excited about the scene and am looking forward to printing one of the N- negatives.

The image this time was captured in the old nursery shop at Peters Valley. It was about 7am, and the only light was coming through a window from the left. This is one of my favorite images.

One of the APUG commenters noted that the shadow appears to be moving. I think he was referring to the fact that the edges of one of the shadows isn't sharp. I hadn't noticed that before, but I believe that it is a matter of reflected light partially filling in the a portion of the shadow.