Tag Archives: TL120-55

Looking Through the Ice

by John Thurston

Scan000074This is a different kind of ice shot. This is a glacier segment which has calved, floated out into the lake, and been trapped in the lake ice when winter arrived. We skated out to the trapped bergs, before shedding our skates to investigate. It was at least 15′ from the surface of the lake to the tunnel roof.

Based on the size of the tunnel, and the shape of the scallops on the walls, I suspect this began as a vertical shaft (moulin) draining water from the surface of the glacier to the interior. The wind and sun continue to work on the ice even in the winter.

Tripod mounted TL120-55

Windows on the World

by John Thurston

Scan000075Several years ago (2006), a disgruntled man set fire to a homeowner’s boat (on a trailer behind their house). The fire spread to their house and the adjacent church and burned both to the ground. If the winds had been different, a large section of Juneau could easily have disappeared that night. Three years, and many contributions later, enough of the church had been rebuilt to begin services again.

This was shot from the sidewalk during reconstruction, probably hand-held, during a noon-time walk.

Not Too Close / Plowing Prow

by John Thurston

The winter ice has been terrible at the Mendenhall Glacier this year. The combination of snow, rain, and avalanches has meant I haven’t ventured near it, much less tried to cross it to get new winter images of the glacier. These two views from 2008 (captured with my TL120-55) will have to suffice. The area of ice pictured here is now long gone. In the summer it is open water. In the winter, it is lake ice.

Not Too Close

This image is taken about a mile and quarter across the lake from where I laced on my skates. Because of the current lake level, Scan000010there is a patch of stable, rocky beach here. Because of cliff and creeks, it isn’t possible to walk around the lake to get to this bit of beach. Crossing the lake is the only way. Everything off that bit of beach is in flux and subject to change at any moment.

The cracks parallel to the shore show that the lake ice has sunk, and may again. The white froth beside the green glacier is a flowing and frozen waterfall. There is another stream coming down closer to the camera. Both are flowing under the ice, taking relative warmth, and creating areas of thinner lake ice. The glacier is calving from above and below, even in winter. Because of all this, approaching the glacier is a dance with an uncertain beast. I hunt for images and capture them as I approach, never certain when I’ll decide I’ve gone close enough and its time to retreat.

This image was made early in the morning’s dance. The colors and textures beckoned me closer despite the poor ice conditions.

Plowing Prow

Closer (and farther to the left) than the previous one, I captured this image. My exploration is stymied. The lake ice has been broken and refrozen several times, Scan000009and there is water between the farther cracks. The advancing glacier has plowed up the lake ice like I might my driveway. Farther back there are pieces of lake ice resting 10′ out of the water, having been lifted there by the rising glacier. The textures in the ice in front of me still beckon, but I declare the dance done and retreat.

Return to Nugget Falls

by John Thurston

Back in loop-17 (2005?), I contributed a couple of images taken from midway up Nugget Falls on the Mendenhall Lake. I liked the subject and wanted to try with wider lenses.

In November 2011, I went back with my son and we both shot some images. A couple of his shots are provided here to help set the scene. I was using my TL120-55, he was using a Canon 7D.

It was November, so the lake was just starting to freeze and the sun was low even at mid morning. He climbed up the scree pile beside the falls while I loaded film and prep’d my gear on more stable ground. Then I came up shot a roll looking across the face of the falls, across the freezing lake, and into the powered sugar covered mountains.

Stuart caught me while I was framing, so after I had shot my scenics and was climbing down, I turned the camera on him. I had already slung my tripod for the descent, so this was a hand-held shot (with neck strap).

The other visitors to the falls were a fortuitous accident. But when I saw them down below, I stalled my framing for a few seconds hoping they would spread to better fill the frame. My gamble paid off and I was please with their contribution to the image.

Maia C 105

by Boris Starosta

Date: May 2012

Tech:

Available light exposure of 1 second on FUJI Astia RAP100F film, at f22, with a modified TL120 (65mm lenses) on loan from John Thurston. This is the original slide.

Notes:

Chuck Holzner was also along on this expedition with a model, whom we took hiking in St. Mary’s Wilderness, just south of Afton, VA via the Blue Ridge Parkway. We ended up hiking down a trail about two miles before finding a pretty spot with a waterfall. This shot was taken along the way, when we spied some impressive looking boulders. We tried to get this done early enough in the year to avoid full foliage (looking for dappled sunlight), and also lots of other hikers. We mostly succeeded. There was still some sun in places, and only one couple of hikers disturbed us briefly, while we were working. Chuck nearly had a heart attack climbing out of the valley, it was so steep.

Bremo Power Plant Far Room

by Boris Starosta

Date: April 2012

Tech:
Available light exposure of 1 second on FUJI Provia RDPIII film, at f22, with a modified TL120 (65mm lenses) on loan from John Thurston. This is the original slide.

Notes:
Earlier this year I had the chance to photograph inside an old coal fired power plant. Chuck Holzner and I travelled to the plant three times with various MF and digital cameras, and this slide is just one of probably over a hundred made coming out of those expeditions. The plant is in Fork Union / Bremo Bluff, VA, and was built about 1930. It was the first plant to be built with an “automatic” central control room. That means that valves, pumps, and other control elements could be remote-controlled electrically from the control room. This plant was decommissioned in the 1950s and now sits adjacent a newer plant.

Tours!

by John Thurston

Down on the docks, the cruise ships tie up and the passengers disembark. Those who bought package tours on the ship need to find the right person with the sign for their tour. Those who didn’t buy their tickets on the ship, can talk to one of the tour representatives in the kiosks. The cruise lines would rather sell the ticket on-board (as they pocket a large commission on each sale), and make a point of warning their passengers of unscrupulous dealings elsewhere. I’d rather deal with these guys who are here rain or shine, every day of the week.

This was a fun image to make. I was framing the image and chatting with the barkers in their kiosks.  All day long, they see the tourists clicking away with cameras, but my TL120-55 on a tripod was a bit different and caught their attention. I tried framing this with the TL120-1, but I really think the 55mm lenses let me better capture the scene.

Tripod mounted TL120-55, April 2010.

Glare From the Noon Light

by John Thurston

Yes, this is the noon light, not the moon light. Early in January, the sun doesn’t get very high in our sky. It rakes in very low, and there are often shadows mid-day caused by the sun being obscured by some mountains. In earlier folios, you have seen where the ice meets the land. This is where the ice meets the lake.

Catching the dawn light on the glacier is a tricky business. By definition, it involves starting the mile and quarter trek across the lake (either by skate or by ski) before dawn. It requires a bit of nerve to lace up my skates and set out across the lake in the dark with a pack loaded with camera gear. Once there, in the pre-dawn light, the challenge is to find the image that will be there when the sun arrives.

In this case, I caught the light on the extreme face of the glacier.  There is nothing for scale, but the hummock to the right is probably only four feet high. That makes the face about 30 feet high. The lake ice in front of it (as well as where I’m standing) is a mass of re-frozen crumble. At any time, the glacier may slide forward and wrinkled the ice for many yards. The lake is also littered with bergs which have fallen off the face. If that should happen, the resulting waves will leave broken ice for half a mile. I have never been there when it happens, but the evidence that it does happen is recorded in the ice at my feet.

This was shot with my TL120-55 on a tripod in January, 2010.

Re-seeding Images

by John Thurston

My contributions for re-seeding our folio are all from the Mendenhall Glacier area of Juneau. These are near-duplicates of some work I offered in FolioA-Loop 23 (Raining Under Ice, Path To The Underworld, and others). As the folio-box fills and we need the space, I’ll have these images pulled and returned to me to make room for others’ work.

  • Pulled Out TL120-55, tripod, ProviaPulledOut
    Two kayaks are pulled out of the Mendenhall Lake on a scrap of gravel which, two years ago, didn’t exist. As the glacier melts, the rock face on which I’m standing was been exposed to the light of day and the creek (in the foreground) which used to tunnel under the ice falls freely into the lake. I walked in over the peninsula behind me. These two folks were able to take the easier route and paddle around.
  • Freshly Exposed Rock TL120-1, tripod, Kodak EGFreshlyExposed
    As that ice melts, new rock appears. This is rock which has never before been exposed to the light of day. The bit of ice on the right is actually the edge of the glacier. Two weeks ago, the rock in front of my camera would have been under the edge of the ice. It has been ground and polished by the weight of the ice being pressed up it. When I walk the peninsula, I have the opportunity to be the first to tread on a patch of ground.
  • On The Edge TL120-1, tripod, ProviaOnTheEdge
    This is a bit farther down the rock face. In another week (or maybe two), this face will be free from the press of ice and out in the light. If you were to crawl and down, you would probably reach the lake. I, however, feel too mortal to attempt the journey.
  • Under The Blue Dome TL120-55, tripod, ProviaBlueDome
    This is rock which has not yet been exposed to the light of day. It has spent centuries under the ice and will likely be exposed next year. Until then, it is lit only by the filtered blue light that makes it through the ice. Photographing here is a bit of a challenge. The light is dim, it is always raining melt water, and the roof is going to collapse; it’s just a question of when.

Raining Under The Ice

by John Thurston

Scan001098

This image is made much farther under the ice than Path To The Underworld. It felt, however, much less dangerous and I spent almost half an hour enjoying the space and composing images. A cavern like this this has required months to open and is fairly stable and mature, while the sliver revealed in Path is probably only weeks old and still changing rapidly.

If you have a wide-angle viewer, this would be an excellent time to bring it out. In any case, you will need a bright viewer to reveal the details in the wet floor, but this is my favorite from the set of images I made that day.

This was shot with my TL120-55 on a tripod.

Disappearance of a cavern

by John Thurston
Tl120 on a tripod

Note the rock with white-quartz knob

TL120-55 on a tripod

The top of that rock is in the lower right corner

While I know that all four of my images in the last loop from the Mendenhall Glacier, it is where my camera has most frequently been pointed in the past year.  Experiencing the changing ice and witnessing the emergence of fresh ground is thrilling.

Back in June of 2007, I stood in the middle of a stream which had torn a hole in the side of the ice.  The water was disappearing into the darkness under the glacier as it ran out to the lake. It was a bit disconcerting to make my way down the rock-face so I could stand in the stream of snow-melt and make the image.  It would have been a wet, hypothermic climb had I been knocked down and over the edge 😛

A little over a year later, I stood in the same stream and was stunned by the change.  I attempted another image from the same location as before, but found the composition totally boring.  Instead, I brought the camera forward about eight feet.  This was still in the stream, but my tripod had better footing and the composition had some foregound interest and receding lines.  By chance, a rock from the earlier image is present in the lower right of the later image.  It helps give an idea of how much has changed.

The first image was shot with my TL120-1 while the second was shot with my wide-angle TL120-55.  Both cameras were tripod mounted.

Both images are mounted in 46x52mm (MFW) mounts from Rocky Mountain Memories.  I really like the mount.  The aperture is 2mm wider and 6mm taller than the normal 40×50 (MFL) mount.  Give them a try if you can get your hands on any.