Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Since getting back from Chicago, I’ve been putting a lot of hours into updating the website. I haven’t done as much new shooting in the last few weeks. What I have done has mostly been B&W film shooting, with the Pentax 6x7. I hit a bit of a milestone – actually having to change the battery in the 6x7amp; (which seems to last forever with normal use.)

A few 220 rolls of expired Tri-X 320 produced no obvious keepers. So it’s back to the fields and marshes of the Allegan forest, with the Pentax K10D, to see what’s up.

My trips over the last couple of weeks have resulted in a fair number of wildlife sightings. One afternoon resulted in two separate coyote sightings, a few miles apart. It’s surprising and unusual to see them in mid-afternoon sun, but there they were, trotting down the dirt roads. Wild turkeys are also out in tremendous numbers, and every trip results in several sightings of large Tom’s and also large groups of these birds.

It’s been somewhat dry these last several weeks, and the fields have lost the lush green appearance that they had through most of July. The seasonal marsh has receded, and it is now where it usually would be at the start of a typical summer. There are still patches of open water, however, and it remains the last bastion of the dragonflies.

The Blue dashers are all but gone. One my last visit I counter a total of two, both perched at the edge of the seasonal marsh. The fields were they were insanely numerous earlier in the season are now totally devoid of any dragonflies, and I’ve had virtually no sightings in the areas north of the river.

Instead, the various forms of red meadowhawks – the Cherry-Faced, White-faced, Ruby, and Saffron Winged, and Yellow Legged Meadowhawks – rule the fields. They’ll remain dominant, with the Yellow Legged, a.k.a. Autumn Meadowhawks, finally emerging as the sole survivor.

And then, in a few short weeks, another dragonfly season will be over. But till that happens, more photos:

Good news came along a few weeks ago - one of my prints has been accepted into the Maryland Federation of Art 8th Annual American Landscapes Exhibit, jurored by Lenny Campello. The selected piece is The Northern Woods, shot in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last fall.

This will be my third American Landscapes exhibit. I seem to have luck with this only in even number years, since I had work in the 2004 and 2006 exhibits before this.

The exhibit runs from September 5 - October 12, at the MFA Circle Gallery, 18 State Circle, Annapolis, MD, 21401. Annapolis is one beautiful town and I plan to be at the artists’ reception on September 14.

The Northern Woods

Things have been a bit quiet around here lately. I spent the first week of this month in Chicago, enjoying the urban life. It was great trip. Pam and I staying at the Congress Plaza Hotel, right on Michigan Avenue. Highlights included visits to the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Field Museum, and, of course, The Dark Knight at the Imax.

Since vacations are supposed to be an opportunity to get away from old habits, I decided to bring a film camera. I finally used up the last of my Ilford XP2 Super – which was considerably out of date. I also shot over a dozen rolls of Fuji Neopan 400 and Adox CHM 400 film.

The Adox film is re-badged Ilford HP 5+, and used to be sold through J and C Photo. The expiration date on the box was 7/2008 – so shooting it in the first week of August, 2008, was right on time. Remarkably, aside from the XP2 Super and a couple of rolls of Plus-X, all the film I shot on this trip was fresh. I guess I’m still using up 35mm ISO 400 B&W film.

I shot 15 rolls of film during the trip, and have been slowly working my way through developing them. The film workflow is certainly a lot slower than the digital workflow, especially when you are developing it yourself.

For development, I mixed up one of my last bags of Micrdol-X, which I’ve been using at the 1:3 dilution. The development time for the Adox CHM 400 is easy to remember – 22 minutes at 22C. For the Fuji Neopan, I’ve been working with the 15.5 minutes at 22C.

So far, 12 of the 15 rolls shot have been developed, but only a handful of those have been scanned. Did I mention that the film workflow is pretty slow?

At home, other projects have been keeping me away from blogging. First and foremost, I’m trying hard to re-do this entire website. Really – it’s time for a new look and a structure that makes a little sense. So, I’m trying to hold off on adding to the current site while the new one is in process – so no new images in the Image Stream at this point.

After a few weeks without heavy rain, things are starting to look like they usually do at the end of July. The fields are tinged with brown, the water in the marsh is receding, and the red dragons rule. Driving down dirt roads, I see a swirling vortex of dust rising up from behind the car. For weeks now the rear window has been covered with brown powder, and when I glance in the mirror I’m only looking back through a dark glass.

Things in the Allegan Forest are a bit different this year as well. I realized this last week that there has been virtually no gunfire in the woods this summer – a real change from past years. This is also a mowing year in the game area – several of my favorite fields that were last mowed three or four years ago, were mowed again this summer. Several fields off 44th Ave, plus the large fields north of the river off 125th Street have been cut. Of the places I regularly visit, only the fields off 48th Avenue remain untouched.

It will be more than a week till I return, and by then even those places may be mowed.

Anyhow, this last week I made a few desultory ventures out photographing. All things being equal, I probably should have staying in and worked on myriad other projects, but I wanted to capture the summer while it was still here.

A couple of trips to the Allegan forest were highly productive. I really worked the red meadowhawks – which I reckon now are about one third White Faced Meadowhawks with the balance being Cherry Faced, Ruby, and even a few Autumn Meadowhawks. The shot above, which was subject to some digital manipulation, is one of the more interesting dragonfly shots I’ve taken this year. I call it Jachim, Boaz, and the Red Dragon. Why not?

I also managed to get a final, goodbye shot of a Blue Dasher, below, which isn’t half bad.

Around the house, I found three or four cicada exuviae around the house this week. In one case the living cicada was on the wall of my garage, next to its abandoned larval exoskeleton. I caught it and put it on a tree, where it quickly raced towards the top – after a very frantic round of shooting (and repositioning the insect a few times) I finally called it quits when the memory card was full.

Overall, a good week and a good start to August. More photos: