Bastrop State Park, Texas: Crispy Sign

by dorothy mladenka

  The fire ignited on the afternoon of September 4, 2011 near Bastrop, Texas with high winds that knocked drought-weary trees into power lines (Bastrop is about 30 miles southeast of Austin). The blaze created a 16-mile-long front line and galloped at 5 miles per hour, speeding through treetops and jumping state roads. It took 250 firefighters from around the country and 160 fire trucks and other equipment three days to contain the fire.  The fire devoured 32,400 acres and destroyed nearly 1,700 homes. The endangered Houston toad was believed to have lost the vast majority of its habitat in the fire. The sign in this photo talks about the Houston toad habitat. The irony is that the sign, in the upper left hand corner, says “Enter with care”.  This is in Bastrop State Park where the fire consumed 96% of the park which was home to the loblolly pines, known as the lost pines. The park is slowly recovering. My photo, taken in November 2012, shows where the underbrush has already made a quick comeback. I added a photo of the fire, not taken by me.

 

 

All in one place

by John Thurston

Today, we’re going back to the ice but we’re not going to move much once we get there. All of the images here were made within 50-feet of each other. The subject is a fairly stable ice cave. I say fairly because it was created by an active creek so there is water flowing into it. The ground is mud, silt, ice, and gravel and is sliding into the cave and under the glacier. The ceiling is made of ice and is full of mud, silt, and gravel and is falling onto the floor. While I was working, some nice ladies stopped in to visit the cave. I used my Fuji to get a set-the-scene snapshot.

Deep V

In The Groove

Just inside the cave, the layers of the ice are obvious. The younger ice is above, the older ice is denser and is funneling the melt water out to the edge. The running water has carved a Deep V in the ancient ice. The mud and sand is trapped between the layers of ice and is being washed down and dropped on the floor. When working under the ice, the water running down your back is really mud (of various dilutions).

A little to the right, and closer to the ice, In the Groove better shows the layers in the ice and the sand and silt trapped between them. We can also see melt water pouring in to join the creek farther inside the cave.

Farther in the cave but looking a little up, we can see Below the Surface(BW). There is sand and silt embedded inside the ice, and the layers are evident from the back just as well as the front. (Now’s a good time to wish we had carried a helmet with us. The roof is melting, remember?) Finally, we can move a little farther in and get in close. That sand in there has been trapped in the ice for a couple hundred years. It’s just itching to get out so it can slide down into my camera.


Below the Surface (BW)
Below the Surface

All images were created with a tripod mounted TL120-1. I don’t record exposure times but the fastest time used was 1 second. They were shot on Provia 100F, Provia 400X, or Ilford HP5.

Nugget Falls Revisited

by John Thurston

After visiting Nugget Falls, and seeing the other visitors on that cold November day, I started thinking about the presence and absence of the camera-toting tourists. With that idea, I returned to Nugget falls in the height of the tourist season to try to capture some Alaskan Wildlife.

I approached the project in two ways. In the first, I went among the tourists. I openly carried my camera and snapped pictures as I saw fit. I didn’t try to be obscure or secretive, and I my TL120-1 was certainly not discrete. I was able to capture some characteristic tourist activities. These included primping for the camera, chimping the group shot on the camera, bickering over the camera, and arguing over the correct way to operate the camera. You get the idea. I fit right in.

In the second case, I set up a blind on a common game trail. I tried to get my 20′ air-release to work, but it failed me and I was forced to work with a 10″ cable release.  I aimed the camera, set its exposure, and settled back onto a boulder. By kicking back on the rock with my arms crossed, I was able to hold the cable release in my fingers and trip it when I felt the scene before me was set. Too bad the TL120 lacks a motor advance or I wouldn’t have needed to get up and break my repose. One person called me out on the rig he spotted in the rocks and correctly identified the device as a “big stereo camera”.

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.

Ava B 202

by Boris Starosta

Date: July 2012

Tech:
taken with the Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner on Fuji Astia RAP100F, 1/25 sec., f22. This is the original slide.

Notes:
Here we have my new model Ava reclining amongst some rocks in the James River at Lynchburg, VA. All summer I had wanted to find a nice spot for photographing a nude in water. This place wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for, but sometimes you just have to play the cards you are dealt. The remainder of the summer was taken up with NSA prep (thanks to Chuck for helping me mount MF3d for a month!), and thereafter a trip to Germany. Water pictures must now wait another year. Pray that the film processing remains available through 2013!

“Old Shed” : M F 302

by Boris Starosta

Date: June 2012

Tech:

taken with the Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner on Fuji Astia RAP100F, 1/10 sec., f22. This is the original slide.

Notes:

The slide mount is mis-titled “Old Shed.” But that’s okay… makes it a rarity (LOL, as if other MF3d slides weren’t already). Here we have my beloved posing on a granite outdoor dining set sculpted by Japanese sculptor Turo Oba. We were visiting a friend’s country estate. Believe it or not, she’s three months pregnant in this picture. We are expecting a child in December!

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.