Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

“If the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, gets his tail in the water, nothing is accomplished..”

"Those are pearls that were his eyes."

It’s been snowing here in west Michigan, the steady wave after wave of lake effect snow that comes with the first real blast of arctic air. And so tonight brought the second round of snowflake photography of the winter.

Unlike the wildflowers or dragonfly chronicles, I have few new observations to offer about day to day changes in the environment. The garage remains essentially unchanged.

The sustained cold spell has meant that the garage has cooled down quickly, and unlike last year when it took weeks for the interior temperature to drop comfortably below freezing, this winter the garage is already quite cold.

So – on with the snow crystal photography.

First off, I decided to abandon using the new Pentax K10D for this venture. It’s a great camera and I’ll be posting a rave review of it in due time, but it really is not the best tool for this job. I need TTL flash that works with an archaic system of bellows, extension tubes, and reverse mounted lenses. The K10D’s flash system is marvelous – but no longer has the backwards compatibility to work with this kind of setup. So, my trusty *ist-D has a permanent commission.

So tonight I picked up more or less where I left off, catching snow flakes on a glass plate. I was not happy with the results of session from a few days ago. I have my excuses – the snow crystals were of poor quality, I was struggling to adapt to new gear, the garage had not quite cooled down enough, etc… Tonight ‘s results are a bit better – I can raise some of the same complaints, but I feel a little closer to the flow of things now.

After all – one of my best snowflake photographs was taken on a March day. Then the crystals were only so-so and in the warm temperatures they melted as they hit the glass. But still the results were fine.

When you enter a body of water, you walk through the shallow areas. That’s the awkward phase. But suddenly you reach a point where the water lifts you, and if you can swim awkwardness is gone and movement is easy. And then you reach the point where the current carries you along, and you are really in the flow of things.

At this point, with snowflake photography, I’m still wading into the river. My ankles are wet. I waded into it with wildflower photography last spring and with dragonfly photos in the summer. Eventually the current took hold, and I drifted along for a while. Maybe my sorrow at the passing of the dragons was just an expression of the frustration of being washed ashore again.

Better snow crystals are on the way - maybe not in the next post, or even the post after, but in time.

The handful of snow flake photographs from tonight's session can be found in the Image Stream.

Although late fall and early winter is a definite off season for outdoor photography in Michigan, I still carry a Holga or other toy camera around in the car. It’s more or less drive-by shooting – when something of interest catches my eye I either hold the camera up to the window, or hop out of the car, and grab a quick shot.

Here are a few recent (late October – November) shots. .

“Waiting for a Train” is probably the best of the batch. Probably because I had so much time available to work on perfecting the shot (I really was waiting on a rather long train.). There’s something appealing about the basic sense of perspective in a shot like this.

Scanning the film introduced a few annoyances, though. I often marvel at the ability of the film scanner to pull detail out of the thinnest of negatives. In this case the lower potion of the train is all but clear on the film – there’s nothing there, not light got in and hit those silver crystals.

But still the scanner tries to pull more detail out. In this case the result is a lot of noise mucking up what should be the dark, near silhouette of the train. Well, maybe a re-scan will help things along….

Winter has pounced on Michigan like a cat landing on an unsuspecting mouse. Where just a week or so ago we were enjoying balmy temperatures in the mid sixties, now waves of lake effect snow are rolling in. The temperatures today didn't get much above 20 F.

And so – time to start snow crystal photography again! This year I’m somewhat prepared – I put together the bellows, macro lens, and lighting setup a few weeks ago, and also cleared out a small space on the table in the garage.

Usually, it takes several days after the first serious cold snap and snow storm before the garage actually cools down to a temperature below freezing – but the deep cold of the last 48 hours has moved that process along pretty well.

And so this evening marked the first snow crystal session of the winter. Overall, it was not too productive.

The first attempt at shooting snow crystals is usually an exercise in re-learning. It’s been months since the last shoot, and getting the eye for the fine focus (no easy thing looking through a foot of extension), lining up the shots, dealing the virtually no depth of field – all this comes back, but only after a few hours of fiddling, remembering, and getting back in synch.

And then there is the snow. Today’s snow was (and still is) coming down too hard, too clumped together. The individual crystals that I did try to get had bounced out of larger clumps, and showed the signs of that passage. The air is more humid that it will be later in the season, and the snow crystals that do emerge individually have more effervescence on them, than the crisp clear crystals of mid winter.

Topping it off, I decided to use the new Pentax K10D for this work. Having only had the camera for a few days, I wasn't sure how it would fare in the cold, and with this sort of extreme macro photography.

The K10D had a few surprises in store for me as well. First off what the discovery that P-TTL does not seem to work with a reverse mounted lens on manual bellows and extension tubes. As a result the flash fired at full power no matter what. It’s always possible that I had things configured wrong – working with long flash cords in sub-freezing temperatures is an invitation for error – but the flash kept defaulting back to just plain “TTL” mode – an older setting not supported by the new camera body.

Well, manual flash is pretty easy to use with a digital body, so I just flipped over to that, adjusted the power settings, and started shooting. The speed of the new camera (its very fast) made it a real pleasure to work with, and the large LCD in back made it easy to assess the quality of shots as they were being taken. And happily, the rechargeable battery seemed to hold up despite the cold and prolonged period of operation.

At the end of the day, I’ll probably go back to the 6 megapixel *ist-D for snow crystal work, if only for the flexibility of TTL flash and being able to use the body’s exposure compensation to fine tune the flash power.

As for the day’s shoot – well, nothing here that would make it into the permanent snow crystal gallery. But then I think about that bleak day in March when I took the first wildflower shots of the spring – and how a pretty good wildflower season rose up out of that humble beginning.

Snowflakes are winter’s wildflowers, and I hope this is the start of a good season.

Yesterday I picked up a new digital camera – the Pentax K10D. After charging the battery I took a few shots of the website maintenance staff, and then called it quits, figuring that I’d save the battery for shooting out in the storm today.

Of course – I knew it would storm today. Everyone knew that a weather system was passing through the media hype was predicting up to a foot of snow by this evening.

But of course, the weather forecasters were wrong, as usual. But the weather today was still nasty.

Early this morning, it was pouring rain on top of a few inches of snow (which rapidly turned to slush.) The temperature was just below the freezing point, so the rain was freezing into an ice sheet at a remarkably fast pace. Fortunately, that didn’t last long After that, a light snow settled in and as the temperatures dropped, the snow picked up and left a blanket over the region. 

Today was the day I had set aside to test out the new camera, so I packed up a purely digital kit (the K10D and *ist-D) and headed out into the snow storm.

Since firearms deer season is over, I decided to head off to the Allegan Game Area. I last visited Allegan in mid September (!) so I was way overdue to touch base with the area again. I was also eager to see how the new camera would perform.

After a slow drive along an icy M-89, I finally made it to the Allegan woods. My first stop was the Coreopsis Field along 46th street. This is a prime insect and wildflower shooting area in the summer months – but as you can see from the first image, it was pretty bleak today!

I pushed into the scrubby woods along the border of the field, hoping to extract an interesting tree shot. It’s hard to describe just how much time and attention goes into lining up the trees, framing and re-framing, till the shot seems to be just right. I decided to use the K10D handheld at ISO400. (If it works for Neopan, it should work for the digicam as well….)

I also used the DA 18-55 lens that came with the camera for all of these shots. Though it is a bargain lens, it seems to be competent once stopped down. Between the relatively high ISO and the built in Shake reduction, I was happy with the degree of sharpness and detail in the images. In fact – I’m pretty surprised at how big an increase in detail the 10 megapixel camera shows over the 6 megapixel *ist-d. The new camera seems to do a much better job capturing the nuance and detail in scenes with lots of data – like brambly woods – better than I expected.

 

Of course – the amount of info available to capture today was limited. The heavy snow and intermittent waves of fog that would rise up and blow through the woods all made for very low contrast scenes. As good as the evaluative meter in the K10D seems to be, it was still thrown off by the blanket of snow, so most of these shots were taken at +1 stop exposure compensation. And believe it or not - these are color shots (I actually pumped up the saturation) - it was obviously a pretty bleak day.

After stomping around the now barren field, I headed over to 126th street to dead end near Swan Creek and the wildlife refuge. The narrow two track was mucky and slick with snow – and it was a fun game to keep moving fast enough to not get stuck in the mud, but slow enough not to skid off into the woods.

The parking lot at the end of the road would have been filled with hunter’s vehicles just a week ago, but today was empty. It’s almost always empty when I visit, and I should feel lucky to be able to enjoy the 10 months of the year when this place is more or less just deserted, and I can wander around for hours without seeing a soul.

Swan Creek was its usual picturesque self. Here again the shake reduction and ISO speed made it perfectly feasible to shoot hand held at F16, for maximum depth of field.

I filled up the memory card for the K10D at Swan Creek. It took almost a hlaf an hour to dump it onto the X’s drive II, so I decided to head back home and take a look at the images for the day.

A this point in time, my impressions of the camera are excellent. Sitting at the computer, processing RAW files is not as much fun as listing to the radio and dunking film in the developer du-jour, but one thing doesn’t preclude the other. For now, I have to say that the increase in resolution from 6 to 10.2 megapixels is greater than I expected – and since the relatively low resolution of DSLR’s for landscape shooting has been my major concern with them, it looks like the digital tide is sweeping in faster than ever…

A few more photos:

Ok – I may be complaining about autumn and winter and the all too short days etcetera… but in reality it’s been quite warm here in SW Michigan. Last year at this time the ground was white with snow, and we had some of the coldest weather of the season. This year things have been unseasonably warm.

So, on the Friday after Thanksgiving I ventured out to the McLinden Nature Trails, camera in tow. It was a gorgeous warm sunny day – more like late September than the end of November.

 I had a couple of hidden agendas. For one thing, I had just placed my order for a new digital camera – the 10 megapixel Pentax K10D. With the improved resolution, build in anti-shake device (which turns virtually any lens into an image stabilized lens) this camera will certainly be another nail in film’s coffin.

So – I decided to grab a few rolls of 35mm black and white films - Ilford delta 100, Neopan 400, and my last roll of Plus-X 125 – and go for a bit of a walk. What better time to fully embrace film, and a good session developing it – than while waiting in expectation for the latest digital camera.

That’s one agenda. I also just wanted to get out an do some shooting. None of the projects that I’ve been contemplating seem to be engaging any more, none of the stuff that I just plain have fun doing – shooting bugs and botanical close-ups, for example – are available. Even the fall colors have given way to the just plain bleak and boring Midwestern landscape. So I figured it was a good time to just get a camera in my hands, and shoot on impulse – what better way to blow off a November funk.

And lastly – the most hidden agenda of all – I harbored hopes that maybe, just perhaps, there would be one hardy meadowhawk or late Mourning Cloak still out and about, offering the chance for one last session of insect photography.

Well, the tick frost in the shaded areas – even in mid afternoon – quickly dashed those hopes. Yes – it was has been unseasonably warm, but it still get cold at night. And aside from a few small gnats and mosquitoes, there were no bugs to be found. 

I turned my attention to trees, hoping to capture some of the stark ‘Novemberness’ of them. Trees are always around, so more remarkable than others.

I brought a light kit with me to the park. I had picked McLinden because this weekend was the middle of firearms deer hunting season – and my usual haunts are open hunting areas. And while McLindon is technically a city park, even there the dull thuds of hunting rifles drifted through the trees – maybe people hunting in the park, maybe on adjoining land.

I took a light kit – actually, I thought I took the Pentax Mz-S, FA 20-35 zoom, and FA 28-70 zoom. But I mistakenly grabbed the F 17-28 fisheye zoom instead of the 28-70 (they are about the same size) and so my focal length options were wide, and wider.

I don’ think anything notable came out of this November ramble. I had wanted to shoot the fallen tree for a while, and I was glad to have the chance to work with it. As the afternoon wore on, and as I looped around the trail to find the sun shining in my eyes, I became more interested in the play of the sunlight on the leaves, the grass, and water in the small stream that runs through the park.

So I spent more time trying just to capture the feel of light in the local, with less and less regard for the subject matter itself. Somehow, being liberated from the subject matter is a compelling and ongoing photographic project unto itself.

So I particularly like the sunlight glimmering on the leaves scatted on the path in the park. Leaves on the ground are at least a minimalist subject, and any dynamic in the photo comes from just light itself.

I've mentioned Harry Callahan in a few recent posts. My first exposure to his work was in the form of a Hallmark Calendar for 1967, simply labelled "Photographs By Harry Callahan." The photo for November is "Chicago, 1950" and the subject is simply leaves on the ground.

Seeing this photo was a marvelous experience for me - it's a great image, but more than that it is a radical image. It works, but has none of the mechanisms that make a photo work. If it was posted on Photo Blink or Photo Critique.Net, Photo.net, or any of the other myriad internet photo sites - it would be ignored, laughed at, or 'critiqued' to conform to the commercial-pop standards that reign. Seeing that photo was a wake up call for me - and it weighed heavily on my mind as I was out shooting on this November walk.

On a technical note – the Delta 100 and Plus-X were developed in Rodinol 1:50, the Neopan in Microcol-X, 1:3.

More photos:

 

As I mentioned in the last post, November is a bleak month for outdoor photography, at least in Michigan. The short days, the beginning of the extend periods of clouds and gloom, and the almost non-stop rain really defy the conventional wisdom of what makes for a good shoot.

Now that I no longer shoot full time, I’m constrained by the day job and the business aspects of photography more than ever. You have to take what you can get in terms of days and weather and light and shooting conditions.

Maybe that’s not a bad thing. We want life to be a big buffet were we can pick what we want when we want it. But maybe its better just to be given a dealt a card and be challenged as to how to play it.

At least that’s how I chose to see it this morning. As usual the weather forecast was wrong, and the anticipated snow / rain / sleet mix did not arrive. Though the day was gloomy and cold, I figured I would take shots that tried to express the idea of ‘gloomy and cold.’

Complicating matters is that the firearms deer hunting season started on Wednesday, and my favorite haunts, places I visit dozens of times a year in search of solitude, are now crawling with hunters.

So I headed out with no real plan, which is the worse plan of all. To cover all bases I brought a wide variety of gear – the digital SLR, the 35mm camera with half a roll of Delta 100 languishing in the chamber, the Pentax 6x7 medium format setup with 2 frames left on the roll I started last week.

After driving around for a few hours, listening to the news, stopping for coffee and breakfast, I had shot nothing. Not one frame. A big nada for the day.

So – back home. 

A squirrel was sitting on the empty bird feeder, digging for any last morsels he could find. I decided to fill up the feeders – for him and for the house sparrows – and while I was doing that I noticed an interesting composition of leaves in the birdbath near the feeder.

The leaves were rotting and the glare of the water affected the shots – far more than it affected my vision of the scene.. But I took several shots, and worked with the photo in Photoshop later to negate the surface glare (which in the un-processed image all but obscures the detail.)

Maybe we don’t have to stray too far to capture gloom and autumnal shadow.

In the back yard, next to the downright rotten jack-o-lantern I had carved for Hallowe’en, was a small sorbet bowl filled with water. I had put the candle for the jack-o-lantern into the bowel, and had pulled it out and set it aside a few days ago. Maybe November has me reaching for straws – but I liked the scene, and shot away.

Several other back yard shots proved to be pretty uninteresting. But here in the early November evening, I feel that at least I got something. And for today at least, something beats nothing.

Like most photographers, I'm always looking for new venues for exhibiting work.

I recently have had an opportunity to work on a new project, with a new approach towards exhibiting photos. In this case, I've been working with Lin Foulk, who has selected several of my local landscapes photographs to accompany her recitals of Hilary Tann's composition Kilvert’s Hills.

Here's the announcement of the recital:

Lin Foulk, horn
Janine Gaboury-Sly, horn
Deborah Moriarty, piano

Tuesday, November 14, 6 pm, MSU Hart Recital Hall
Saturday, November 18, 8:15 pm, WMU Dalton Recital Hall
*free admission to both performances


Calls for two horns .......................... Verne Reynolds
Lin Foulk, horn
Janine Gaboury-Sly, horn

Etude No. 3 for solo horn .......................... Verne Reynolds
Janine Gaboury-Sly, horn

Seaside Impressions for horn and piano .................... Franz Strauss
Janine Gaboury-Sly, horn
Deborah Moriarty, piano


Intermission

Kilvert’s Hills for solo horn .......................... Hilary Tann
with projected images by Mark Cassino
*premiere performance

Lin Foulk, horn

Time & Space for two horns and piano .......................... Richard Bissill
Lin Foulk, horn
Janine Gaboury-Sly, horn
Deborah Moriarty, piano

This recital features the two regional artists together and as soloists. Lin Foulk will premiere “Kilvert’s Hills” for solo horn by New York-based composer Hilary Tann. Featuring projections of landscape photography by local photographer Mark Cassino, the virtuosic work is both majestic and spiritual and highlights the lyrical sound of the horn.

Lin Foulk is Assistant Professor of Horn at Western Michigan University, where she teaches horn, coaches chamber ensembles, and is a member of the Western Brass Quintet. She has performed and presented lectures throughout the United States and in Spain, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Canada and has frequently performed with the Milwaukee, Madison, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek Symphony Orchestras. Dr. Foulk received degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Janine Gaboury-Sly is Associate Professor of Horn at the Michigan State University School of Music. She received both a master of music degree and a performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Verne Reynolds. Gaboury-Sly is an active solo, chamber and orchestral performer. She has given recitals nationally and internationally, and has been an invited performer and clinician at numerous regional and international workshops and symposia. She is a member of the Beaumont Brass Quintet, a faculty ensemble at MSU, and principal horn of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra.

T.S. Elliot may have thought that April is the cruelest month, but my vote goes to November. The days are short and dark, and each one is shorter and darker than the one before. The trees have lost their leaves – except perhaps for a few lingering glimmers of fall color. Here in Michigan wind, rain, and later wet snow are the norm.

This can be a time of year when there are slim pickings for outdoor photography.

Once the snow falls, things will be better. Early spring is a lot like late fall, except that the progression of the days in much more positive. Each day brings a chance to find more. The challenge of finding the first green shoots, the first wildflower, the first dragonfly is much more uplifting than counting off the last time these things were seen…

But still, you have to get up and do something…

Last week I went to the beach at South Haven. As usual, the weather was variable and the forecast was wrong – which in this case was not a bad thing. Instead of cold rain and a gale rolling in, the morning started with mild temperatures and still breezes. 

There wasn’t much happening on the beach. Once the pier and lighthouse were interesting to shoot. But nowadays I look at it and feel that all of my shots have been taken. But the beach itself always holds out some opportunities – a resin chair with a 40 oz beer bottle, some buried metal pilings.

After wandering the beach for a while I visited the Northpoint Conservation area, where I saw the difference that a week can make. The shots I took the week before caught the last of the fall leaves on the trees. Now virtually all of the leaves were on the ground, and those that had been bright yellow just a week before are just a shade of brown – like everything else this time of year.

Well, you have to march through the dark to get back to the light. I shot my second to the last roll of Konica Impressa ISO 50 film at Northpoint – well, shot about half of it. It really was pretty bare.

I was through shooting by 10:30, and by noon the weather had tipped and dark clouds were rolling in. Ah – November in Michigan…

A few more photos: