Summer Photo Fun---what's on your agenda?

[John Kasaian]

For sure:
A 'self assignment' photographing pack mules

Painted Cave

Night photography on a really cool beach in Southern California

A hike up in the mountains following a delightful creek with cascades between a series of lakes during spring run-off

St. Joseph's Church in Mariposa

Night photography in Yosemite NP

A week long amble in the Colorado Rockies (for a photo essay on a route followed by a 19th century dude---got to do this one!)

Ifandwhen:
Jack London State Park

The Royal Chapel of the "old" Presidio in Monterey

The Pinnacles NP(I'll probably wait unitl winter for this one)

Night photography around Fresno

An unnamed volcano above Mammoth, and Fern Lake (In all likelyhood I'll probably have to put this off until next summer:( )

Any glacier that gets in my way:)


A big part of the excitement is planning, ordering film, loading holders, charting a route, finding the time and working out (most of these outings are 8x10-able)

Anyway, that's what I have planned. Realistically I doubt if I can do it all but it is still fun---anticipation is a tonic for me.

The only fly in the ointment is my old truck, which is getting ready to give up the ghost. I'm hoping VW releases it's TDI soon or at least the Forest Service has another truck auction!

What are you planning? Where are you going shooting?

I love this time of year :)

[vinny]

Sound like you've got your work cut out for you. I read up on the pack mule stuff when you posted a few months ago and it sounds like fun. Not having to carry anything sounds fun too.

I've got a few things planned like a cross country drive home to northern Michigan to Bill Schwabs get together with shooting along the way. Maybe i'll drive through the upper peninsula on the way back too. A stop in Boulder, Colorado on the way back as well.

Two shows, a group show here in los angeles and my first solo show in northern Michigan in August. That's it other than a week long camping trip in Yosemite later this month.

vinny

[Vaughn]

In early July we have 5 days on a houseboat on Lake Powell -- 11 or 12 family members, so hopefully I can find room for my 8x10 on board. Then possibly over to Zion...my wife wants to hike up to Angel's Flight (Stairs? whatever) and I might try to get the 8x10 up there, too.

We'll see what the rest of the summer brings!

Vaughn

[Stephanie Brim]

A summer long self-assignment on human interaction with still life photography.

My daughter kinda makes me unable to do the 500 mile road trips. :)

[Preston]

Summer fun begins Saturday 5/10! I am going to marry my sweetheart, and then we'll be off to the East Side of the Sierra for a week! She encouraged me to bring my 4x5 along! How cool is that! :D

I also plan to get up into the Sonora Pass Country and Tuolumne Meadows during the summer months.

Have fun everyone!

-PB

[Scott Rosenberg]

cool thread...

what i've got planned for the summer / early fall is (in no particular order):

mt rainier np (later july / early august)
columbia river gorge (NOW)
olympic beaches
SE wasington state (now and again in august)
north cascades np
vietnam (hulong bay)
cambodia
china (huangshan, yangshuo... )

hmmm, i'm sure i'm forgetting tons of places, but this is a good start!

[Scott Rosenberg]

congrats, preston!! you might want ot consider leaving the 4x5 home for this particular trip!

[Preston]

Thanks, Scott! I promise that this particular trip will not be totally about photography!

-PB

[Kerik Kouklis]

- Scotland in June to teach 2 workshops, then travel and photograph with my family and great friends in Glasgow.

- Carpal tunnel surgery in July :mad:

- Montana to teach at the Formulary in August.

- Alaska to teach 2 workshops and travel/photograph with my younger daughter in September.

[Curt Palm]

Tuolumne Meadows to the Lyell and triple peak forks of the Merced river ( and back to Tuolumne Meadows)

[Pete Roody]

Bar Harbor/Acadia Park, Maine a week from Friday!

[jnantz]

3 weeks in the doubs region of france ( july/aug )
i am not sure what else ..

[Frank Petronio]

I have some low paying but creative gigs lined up, and in between I'll still shoot for free.

Late May - 3-day magazine shoot w Cris Ashley in Big Sur

Late June - 4-day portfolio shoot w Jessalyn in Santa Fe/Taos

End of July - First Week of August road trip Rochester, NY to Tennessee to Minneapolis to Chicago to shoot with people between here and there.

Quality not quantity ;-) although I think it will still easily be a 500-sheet Summer. It looks like I'll be concentrating on sweaty tattooed people.

[katie cooke]

Up the road to Glasgow in June to do a workshop with Kerik!

Probably sticking around in Edinburgh otherwise, making photographs during the many festivals in August

[Greg Lockrey]

Gee you guys sure are lucky. I'll be glad if I can get the time to photograph that grain elevator at the edge of town. :(

[Brian K]

Preston, Congrats!! Best of luck!

I just got back from a long trip and from a long year of travel so I'm looking forward to working on my pale. I'm hoping that by mid August my legs will be about a zone VIII, this due to my devotion to catching up on all my darkroom obligations.

But life is not all fixer stains and squinty eyes, toward the end of the summer my wife and I head to Alaska for some shooting and a cruise.

[Per Madsen]

Photographing 12'th century churches, bronze age burial mounds and industrial architecture in the summer in Denmark and 14 days in Budapest in september.

[Eric James]

I plan to photograph Turnagain Arm flora near Anchorage before and on the Summer Solstice, then on to Wonder Lake in Denali National Park for three days. If the bears and mosquitos don't get be, I hope to visit Rainier and Olympic National Parks for flower/mountain landscapes later in the summer. With a good deal of luck, I'll make a road trip from Fairbanks to the Brooks Range in late August or early September.

Curt - if you get a chance, check out the Rafferty Creek bed. Later in the season you can low-impact boulder hop up the creek past many beautiful photographic opportunities.

Frank, you're going to have groupies if you make your schedule public.

[Dave Aharonian]

I'm taking the month of August off and a friend and I are paddling our sea kayaks down the west coast of Vancouver Island from Port Hardy to Victoria. And the great part is I'm taking the 4x5!

[Photojeep]

I have 3 weeks between spring and summer semesters. I have just started thinking what I want to go shoot. I'm leaning towards dunes in death valley or ghost towns in central nevada.

[Photojeep]

Oh and congratulations Preston! :)

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Who shoots in the summer? It's the worst time of year to be out with the camera! About the only locations that make sense are high altitudes and northern latitudes, which are inaccessible the rest of the year. In most of the lower 48, the weather is hot and the light not very good for photography. I know, it's a pretty big generalization, but so often you just get harsh light and dull blue skies, at least for much of the west and southwest. There's none of the great scenery associated with the other seasons, like autumn leaves in the fall, snow in winter, and wildflowers in the spring. Also, with the days being so long, the good light doesn't end until 9ish, and you don't get to sleep until 11ish, so that means getting about 5 hours of sleep or less to get up for dawn shooting. Also, the droves of tourons descend like mad locusts on much of the popular photo locations, and can completely ruin your experience. I'll stick to shooting mostly in the fall, winter, and early spring, when the light is sweet and I can get a lot more space to myself. Gas is usually cheaper, also...

[Struan Gray]

"...you're just another tourist carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea - "Oh they don't make it properly here, do they, not like at home" - and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh 'cos they "overdid it on the first day."

I'll be on the beach in N.W. Scotland. Tins of Tartan rather than Watneys Red Barrel. Maybe we'll take the kids for a sleepover on top of a mountain. I'll certainly be photographing my usual sunsets, rocks and trees, and musing yet again on capturing the otters on LF.

[Matus Kalisky]

Oh yes - a great summer ahead of me: It starts with a long session: Furnish that flat !

[Matus Kalisky]

Oh yes - a great summer ahead of me: It starts with a long session: Furnish that flat ! :rolleyes:
Than there will be a big photosession, but unfortunately I will be modelling, not photographing. This one is called: Wedding :p

But otherwise I hope to have enough time to make some architecture photography here in Muenster and also in the surroundings.

[r.e.]

I'll be spending three months in Newfoundland in a rural fishing community, where I plan to begin each day on the brook in the back yard doing a little early morning fly fishing for trout or salmon, followed by a leisurely breakfast. In case that sounds far too lazy, I also plan to spend some time out on one of the commercial fishing boats. The main project is to complete architectural plans for a place that is going to be built there in the fall, and I'd like to get some of the landscaping done this summer. I also want to start a still photography and sound recording project, which I see taking two or three summers to complete, about the community and the people who live there. I don't have an exact count on how many residents there are, but I know that there are 33 telephone numbers in the phone book.

For the photo project, I have a 4x5, a Mamiya 7II and an old Leica M3. I don't know if anyone here is into in sound recording, but for that I'll use a Sound Devices two-track recorder and a couple of Schoeps microphones, with voice recording in mono and ambient recording in stereo. It's possible, having spent this summer doing still photographs, that I'll bring along a high definition video camera next summer and turn the project into a film. The Sound Devices recorder is designed for synchronized sound via time code, so this wouldn't require additional recording gear.

Re Struan Gray's "musing yet again on capturing the otters on LF", I played around with using the Mamiya/150mm lens to photograph the local Humpback and Finn whales at this place one afternoon last summer. It happened to be the camera that I had with me. I've since seen Salgado's medium format photographs of whales, and I'm doing some musing myself about taking along an MF camera that can handle a lens in the 300mm range. These are two of the photos that I took with the Mamiya. They aren't great, and the light was mid-day harsh, but they suggest that using a medium format camera to photograph fleeting wildlife, especially a camera that takes longer lenses and perhaps a motor drive, may not be as lunatic as it sounds. Large format might be pushing it though :)

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[Diane Maher]

I am taking an environmental figure workshop in June and I hope to do some pt/pd printing the rest of the summer.

[Louie Powell]

Hmm - let's see:

In July, spousal unit and I are going to San Jose to visit our son. Expect to spend a couple of days in Napa Valley. I will take the 4x5 and do a lot of photography along the way.

In August, I'm doing an environmental portraiture workshop at Peters Valley. Expect to use both the 4x5 and 35mm.

In a few weeks, spousal unit and I will be going to NYC for a day - I will take the 35mm. My wife is supposed to plan this trip (I plan the one in the Fall), but I expect that I will end up suggesting a lot of things. Lots of street photography.

Additional day trips on the list include the Shelburn Museum in Burlington, VT; Rhinebeck, NY; the Storm King Arts Center, Shellburn Falls, MA; Lenox, MA; Cooperstown (the Farmer's Museum); Utica, NY (for Union Station), Bish Bash Falls in MA; and the Clover Furnace in Harriman State Park.

[Struan Gray]

r.e.: I was photographing a leash* of hares with a 150 mm on 6x6 just this lunchtime. They romped into my background as I was fussing around a marl pit and it's pollards and arranged themselves neatly into a row across the middle distance. I couldn't have placed them better myself had they been cast in resin :-)

I think environmental animal and bird photography is eminently possible, even with LF. The biggest problem would be touching up the focus: even if you don't want that false sense of cuddly closeness so beloved of the nature industry, if the critter is more than just an accent in the frame it'll need better than zone focus - at least in Northen European lighting. Doing it on a deck might be more tricky, although Cambo at least used to make a handheld 240 mm point-and-shoot 4x5.

I have only come close to otters in twilight. They are very wary in the areas I tend to go to, and I don't deliberately stalk them. That said, a family of five skipped back and forth around me in a tidal boulder field a couple of years ago. The idea of fiddling with camera equipment at such a time seemed more than a bit ridiculous.


On second thoughts, it was more like a husk :-)

[Shen45]

Summer? That season has already finished.

[r.e.]

Summer? That season has already finished.

Unless one lives in Australia and pretty much has summer all year round. At least, in comparison to some of us :)

[Shen45]

It is excellent to see the proposed shooting plans some of you guys have. I'm planning similar but different now that the heat is over and the light is not quite as harsh.

Our weather here in Adelaide at the moment is just ideal, now just to get motivated. Very pleasant 20 degrees today.

Happy shooting.

Steve

[David_Senesac]

My late winter and early spring 4x5 work chasing wildflower blooms down in Southern California had exceptional results. (see link below) My next major road trip will be about the end of this month in Humboldt and Del Norte county coastal redwood forests including the rhododendron blooms. Given my skills hiking, exploring, and photographing away from trails, I have prepped to do a fair amount of unique work in pristine locations others have never traveled.

David Senesac

Spring 2008 Wildflower Trip Chronicles
http://www.davidsenesac.com/Spring_2008/spring_2008_p0.html

[AlexLF]

Well, since I live in Moscow and all good landscape places here, in Russia, are faaar away, I'm going to Spain for 20 days for some good 4x5 photography - in the mountains, mostly. Then I probably go to Ukraine to shoot some nice places in Carpathian mountains... in August-September. And hopefully I'll go to Chile late in November. That's going to be FUN!

[John Kasaian]

My apologies for being hemispheric-ly insensitive! :D

[Colin Graham]

Trying to get back in shape to do some high country backpacking. I've been spoiled by beach trails all winter.

[Hollis]

Im sitting in Marathon Texas at sunset and will be heading into Big Bend tomorrow. There was a quick rain squall and the clouds are epic. A good start to a 20,000 mile road trip.

More later.

[Rick Russell]

Congratulations Preston!

For the last 2 years I've pushed myself to get out to photograph at least one weekend a month. In March I visited both Death Valley (the sand dunes close to Stovepipe Wells) and Darwin (the semi-ghost town on the western edge of the park) and Yosemite Valley. April was a business trip to Zurich, Switzerland (a nice night scene of the river) and a trip to Descanso Gardens, here in the Los Angeles area.

Summer begins in earnest with a late May weekend trip to Yosemite. The trees obstructing Tunnel View have been cleared which makes for an awe inspiring view. I'm hoping 120 is open, as I would like to shoot Tenaya lake at sunset. I also will take a long look at Mirror Lake and Glacier Point,as well as the various and sundry spots in and around the valley.

In June, after the Large Format conference I'm off to the Palouse for a long weekend.
July is 4 days in Bodie and Mono Lake. In August and September I will hike to Pioneer Basin for 2-3 days and Ediza Lake and Thousand Island Lakes for 2-3 days.

I haven't made plans for late summer and into fall.

Rick Russell

[Ben Chase]

Busy summer for a lot of us it seems!

Congrats Preston....

My schedule this year:

The Palouse region in E and SE Washington: Now and just prior to wheat harvest
Cracker Lake area in Glacier NP: June 27 - 29
East Glacier NP: June 26, June 30
Mount Rainier Area/Paradise: Late July
East & West Glacier NP: September 10 - 15

[htswv]

I leave for Yosemite and the Sierras on May 27th...less than two weeks away now. Nervous...yet tremendously excited! Looks like the Tioga Pass might actually be open(fingers and toes crossed).

[mrladewig]

Maze District of Canyonlands (done)

Key West, FL/Dry Tortugas/Everglades (leave Sunday)

Then the madness of summer in Colorado's mountains starts. I have some particular things planned. I tend to like hiking to alpine lakes where I can do a bit of photography and fly fishing. This year should also provide some very good wildflower conditions.

And before I know it, it will be fall. Last year the Colorado fall color was less than spectacular. Hopefully this year will be better.

Mel-

[keeds]

Now I've just paid for my new camera from Richard Ritter I see some 7x17 fun in my summer!!!

[SamReeves]

Just going to stick around here, and wait for FALL!!!

Fall colors and excellent weather is when I'll pay up for the gas. :D

[Jeremy Moore]

Printing a portfolio of images in palladium (started yesterday!) and beginning work on a book of salt prints of views in the Dallas and Ft. Worth, Texas.

[John Bowen]

The Ted Harris Memorial Weekend is the first weekend in June. I'm really looking forward to that. Lots of good friends are expected.

Shenandoah National Park, rural VA and NC along the border...lots of abandoned farm houses etc to fill the days.

A trip to Western NY is also on the agenda. I hope to get to Letchworth State Park.

A fall trip to Maine is also in the plans...