Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

A few days ago I caught my cat Jazz sitting in the sun and took a quick snapshot or two. Here’s the best of the bunch - click on the image for a larger view.

I like it because it has that classic film look to it - I’m not sure how it would have turned out as a digital exposure. With the bright light on the cat, the background is darkened and that also gives the shot of a bit of a noir feel, at least to my eye.

Jazz is indifferent to the photo - well, few among us like their own image.

Made with a Pentax LX and Kiron 105mm f2.8 macro lens on Fuji Neopan 400, rated at 400. Developed in D76 1+1.

Last weekend I visited the Devil’s Soupbowl, a glacial kettle hole located in the Yankee Springs state recreation area just north of Kalamazoo. It’s a nice place in that it affords an opportunity to look down into the foliage of the trees growing 60 feet or so below.

It was a dim overcast day and I found myself trying to capture the colors of the trees in their early foliage and flowers. Here are a couple of photo - both taken with the Pentax 6x7 and SMC Takumar 170mm f2.8 lens on Fuji Reala. Click for a larger view.

Note: I changed the above image on 4/9. You can see the original, less sharp one here

A couple more photos from mid March…click the images below for larger versions.

Early March on the Oak Savanna, where even an easy winter can be hard on some…

And redbuds beneath the tall oaks as March comes to an end…

Here are a some Holga shots from the last few weeks.

First - I’ve been experimenting with Ilford SFX in a Holga. A 52mm deep red filter fits nicely on the front of the plastic lens (you have to push hard, but it will fit on and stay there). Here’s a little country church taken with this setup:

Solar flare activity was quite high when I took that shot and you can see the aurora in the sky over the church even the the midday sunlight… Or maybe the Holga was leaking light. Well, more likely that…

Here is an SFX shot of barren spring woods - not much infrared effect but there was not much greenery out yet:

SFX is a pretty tame infrared film, but it is fast enough to be used in a hand held Holga, even with a deep red filter. (I developed the SFX in HC-110 Dil B and pushed these exposures by one stop.) I’m hoping for some more pronounced IR effects once the green foliage is out.

And here is a double exposure of a snowmobile trail, looking to the east, looking to the west …. Classic Pan 200 developed in HC-110 Dil H.

Lastly , a squirt gun found out in the woods, same place where I found a bunch of dead fish a few years ago:

The winter that wasn’t has transformed to the exceptionally early spring. Crocuses in my yard are out in force - I had hoped to get an “Ah Spring” shot of a honey bee in the flowers, but so far I have not seen any honey bees this spring. So instead I went down to Cass County, Michigan to see if the hepatica had emerged yet.

It’s very early, but to my surprise there were a few hepatica out. Harbinger of spring was also out in force while skunk cabbage shoots and flowers (which smell like rotten flesh) were just starting to poke out of the ground.

A few photos - first off, Harbinger of Spring (click for a larger image):

And then some blue hepatica and white hepatica:

Looking forward to spring … Here is a shot of Swan Creek in the Allegan Forest, right on the border of the wildlife refuge. Taken in the early spring of 2010 on Kodak HIE. Click on the image for a larger version.

Pentax LX, FA 20-35 f4, HIE developed in Rodinal 1:50.

“I’m melting! Melting!
Oh, what a world! What a world!”

– Wicked Witch of the West

In a winter as warm as this, every snow is like the first snow. Wet flakes land on warm ground, melting on the sidewalks and streets but sticking on the grass. Last night’s snowfall proved to be no exception, as the temperature outside hovered just a few degrees below freezing… And inside the garage where I shoot snow crystals, the residue of the last few warm days kept the temperature right at the freezing point.

Well, at least it was snowing… I tried a few shots and the snow crystals quickly melted, before I could take any photos. Back in December, 2009, I took an usual shot of a snow crystal just as it melted away - or maybe it was a photo of a drop of water, just as it emerged from a crystal. I don’t remember… Well, with all these melting crystals, maybe that is something to try again…

So - here is one of the first shots of the evening - a rather nice stellar dendrite that had already begun to melt when I snapped the first image of it. Here’s the first shot, where the structure is still more or less intact -

(With all images - click for a larger view.)

Here’s a shot about 45 seconds later - the last wafer thin remnant of the crystal floats on (or presses into) the drop of water, which is the melted remain of the rest of the crystal…

Well, that’s interesting. I tried some more… Here the lingering remnants of a crystal’s heart twinkle with color. It was a large dendrite that melted before I ever got the glass plate beneath the lens. I speculate the some sort of partial dark field effect accounts for the colors.

Maybe the same thing happened with this shot -

There was no opportunity to tweak the lighting for these shots - in a manner of seconds the crystals melted away to nothing. Here is another crystal that I was able to capture just as it was starting to melt - the lighting is so dead-on that it looks virtually like a B&W shot:

The crystal was not well formed, and even in the first shot it was melting in the upper right. About half a minute later, it looked like this -

Finally - the bones of two crystals that melted together, floating on their co-joined watery remains:

This winter is turning out to be disappointing. We’ve had day after day of warm temperature, often barely dropping below freezing even in the evenings. What little snow we have gotten has been sloppy an d mixed with rain.

Last weekend we finally had a hard snow and a true blast of cold weather. While the detached garage in which I take these snow crystal photos had cooled down a bit, it still took till the next morning to finally drop below freezing inside the structure - even though it was well below freezing outside.

And so on Saturday morning I set up the camera and managed to get one, just one, snow crystal photo. The snow stopped just as I set up the rig and prepared to start photographing. Here’s the one photo I did get - click for larger version.

And here we are - another warm day and rain on the way. Maybe more crystals will come soon…