Spring At Last

Golden May Dummerston Vermont

West Guilford Valley Vermont

It was a long, cold and snowy winter, but happily spring has arrived with its spectacular explosion of wildly varied color. It always seems unfair that the best seasons for natural beauty in New England are the shortest. The period of maximal color in both spring and fall last for only a couple of weeks. In autumn the vibrant leaves crash to the ground burdening photographers with the torment of the long dull “stick season”. During spring, the leaves hang on, but the wonderful variety of colors that explode as the foliage arrives quickly transforms to the monochromatic shade of deep green that predominates for most of its photosynthetic life span. 

Black Mountain Cascade Brattleboro Vt

Spring Flow Dummerston Vermont

Ferns Uncoil Brattleboro Vermont

I love the colors of early spring that vary from glowing yellows to rich browns. The hillsides always take on a patchwork array of hues that I think rival the more garish colors of fall foliage. Also, as the fresh buds first open there are often bizarre forms of unfolding greenery to study with macro photography. It all pushes me to get out as often as possible to capture the brief sublime symphony of color. Included here are several of the images that I was able to collect during this year's special season. 

 

Spring Bloom Brattleboro Vt

This year my ability explore was limited by the fact that I was committed to participation in the spring concert of Keene Choral. We performed Mozart’s Requiem, a challenging piece that required intensive rehearsal and time taken up by practice at home. It was painful watching colors evolve from my studio, but I did get out shooting several times over the course of the season. We had I great concert on May first supported by a wonderful orchestra and soloist and since then I have had more time to devote to the remainder of the fresh color. 

Country Club Rainbow Keene NH

Partridge Brook Dam Spofford NH

 

Westmoreland NH

Early in the season I spent time exploring my local area, checking out some of my favorite locations including one of my favorite hilltop barns and the cascades of Partridge Brook as it flow through my village. I also was able to catch a lovely rainbow that predictably appeared as a spring storm passed over as we were having dinner at the Country Club in Keene NH. The shot shows again that, with care, great images can be obtained with the improved cameras in today’s iPhones. 

Against the Drop Brattleboro Vt

Stickney Drop Brattleboro Vt

Hillside spring Dummerston Vermont

Later in the season I was able to spend much of a day exploring many of my favorite spots in Southwestern Vermont, accompanied by Benji our very patient Golden Doodle. Benjamin loves to go for drives and on many of the quiet back roads I was ale to let him loose to explore, sniff and collect his allotment of ticks. We wandered through Dummerston, Brattleboro and Guilford. The weather varied from overcast to bright sun as I found views including overlooking the West River Valley, Stickney Brook Falls, and Guilford's Green River. Truly, even though it was a bit late, the colors were spectacular every where I looked.

Green River Bridge Guilford Vt

Green River Falls Guilford Vt

Miniwawa Gold Roxbury NH

Although the colors are calming down, just the other day when I had some time to kill in Keene, I was able to catch some nice sparkling backlit views along the upper Miniwawa Brook in Roxbury and finally the obligatory vista of Monadnock still framed by the spring gold. 

 

Monadnock in Shadow Keene NH

Ancient Cemetery Granite Spofford NH

Bonnyvale Vista Brattleboro Vt

The foliage is now rapidly settling into its mature hues, but I still have many images to work on and I must reconcile myself to enjoying the building warmth. Of course the spring rains are still filling the local waterfalls. That should keep me busy for awhile and I’m sure I’ll find something to shoot throughout the summer. Autumn will be here before you know it. 

Spring Home Spofford NH

Jeff Newcomer

 www.partridgebrookreflections.com

Done! Retirement and Discipline

Retirement

Some years ago I captured a picture of a broken down and decaying farm implement descending into the earth of a field in Vermont. I glibly entitled the image "Retirement". Hilarious! But now after 34 years of the practice of pulmonary and internal medicine in rural New Hampshire and Vermont, I find myself wandering out into that overgrown field and wondering where I go from here. My final day of clinical practice was a little over a week ago. I have been looking forward to this day for some time, anticipating the opportunity to devote more effort to my photography and other interests. I am relishing the ability to sleep late and control the pace of my activities, but I'm also sadly aware of the inevitable losses and the need to apply self-imposed discipline to my future endeavors.

Saying Goodbye
 

Halloween Deb &  Katy

 
 I will greatly miss the support and friendship of my staff and the interaction with MOST of my patients. Following the announcement of my retirement, I have enjoyed my office "farewell tour" receiving many expressions of appreciation, best wishes and a tsunami of hugs from so many of my friends who just happen to have also been my patients. It is greatly reassuring to know that I am handing them over to

Donna Pushing the Calendars

the excellent care of the physicians and staff of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene Pulmonary Medicine Department, but I hope I can be excused for pointing out that it will take two physicians and a future associate provider to do what I did by MYSELF for nearly 30 years, both in Keene New Hampshire and Brattleboro, Vermont. Of course I was never really "by myself". I could have done nothing without the constant support of the amazing group of women who kept me on task and who managed the endless details of a busy practice. They told me where to sign and I signed. 

"Better Breathers" Heading Out to Cruise Lake Winnepesaukee

Donna Keeping Me on Track

For several years it has been a clinic tradition to recognize retiringemployees with a "retirement tea". The proceedings includea cake and the presentation of a framed print of one of my photographs. It has been nice to contribute to the honoring of so many loyal staff, but I never felt the honor so acutely as when I was presented with one of my own pictures at my 'tea'. What were they to do? Give me someone else's photograph? At least I will be able to celebrate the closing of the circle when I sell the image back to the clinic with the next batch.




 

Done




So I'm done. What to do now? Obviously photography. Over the last years as my commitment to photographing my special corner of New England has increased I have longed for more time to pursue both the creative and marketing side of the art. After years of struggling over daily decisions which, not to be too dramatic, involved varying levels of life or death consequences, I look forward to the time when my most portentous quandaries are over the choice of f-stop or the selection of an image to submit to a juried exhibition.

 For years retired friends and patients have told me the same thing, "Now that I'm retired, I have no time whatsoever". I have already become aware of the tendency to take everything slower now that I have a less dictatorial schedule. It is lovely to know that if I don't accomplish everything on my daily "to do" list that there is always tomorrow. But there lies the trap, and, knowing myself, I am certain that I will need concrete long and short term goals and a plan to reach them. So here goes.


 


Long Term:
Photography. Ok, no surprise here. I would like to use my time to expand my vision, not only to include broader coverage of my New England home base, but also to explore aspects of photography beyond my landscape comfort zone. I have always been drawn to the study of the human face and I would love to delve more deeply into portraiture. It has been my honor to be a member of the New England Photography Guild. The Guild is undergoing a reassessment of its goals and I hope to be part of an expanded commitment to use the great expertise of our members to celebrate the unique beauty of our region and to share our appreciation of high quality photography through classes and workshops. Of course, I will continue my work with the Chesterfield Conservation Commission to protect and promote the natural beauty of my wonderful New England home. Oh, and I better mention that I promised Susan to try to bring some order to my chaotic office and studio.  I can rely on her to keep me on task for that one.

Shorter Term
Given my innately lazy nature some degree of discipline will be required. I have been actually retired for all of about a week, so it is undoubtedly early to formulate a detailed list of retirement resolutions, but here is a quick and preliminary list of some of the goals that I would like to place on my new "task list".

• Up for sunrise at least once per week. I am old and lazy, but I can no longer use the standard excuse; " I have to get to work today".
• At least one sunset per week. Much easier to manage.
• In the studio one day per week or at least a half day to produce physical work.
• Out of town trip at least once per month.
• Office promotional work once per week, although lately this seems to consuming most of my time.
• Blog weekly. I'm approaching 200 blog articles and finding new topics is not getting any easier.
• Gym at least 3 times per week.  The secret to exercising is just showing up.
  
  

Settled In - NOT at the Gym

 




That's a start, but please don't keep track of the success of my program. After putting this article together I know one early goal should be to try to get more pictures of broken down farm machinery for my portfolio, but I'm retired, and if I don't get it done today, there is always tomorrow. 


Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

Brattleboro Camera Club

I will start by apologizing for this weeks blog. Instead of my usual insightful and beautifully illustrated articles revealing the secrets of masterful photography, this week I descend to crass self-promotion. You are invited to join me and the Brattleboro Camera Club next Monday, March 11th for a discussion of photography in the digital age. The club will be meeting at the Brooks Memorial Library at 224 Main Street, at 6:30 PM

Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to talk to various groups including the Audubon Society, Keene State College and a number of regional camera clubs. It has been my goal to try to share some of my excitement about the expanding world of digital photography, but in these session, I always find that I learn more than I teach. I would like to do more teaching, but the challenge has been to find the time to assemble the materials needed for more formal courses.  My ideal would be to start with small personal workshops combining lecture with shooting and critique, but short presentation to interested groups is a great way to get started.  It is still challenging, but much more manageable. With each talk I have been building my PowerPoint slide collection and expanding the range of topics I can feel comfortable presenting.

Finding Something to Say
The first issue in preparing a talk is convincing myself that I have

Wet and Digital Darkrooms

something constructive to say. I have no degree in photography or fine arts, but I have been a student of photography for years, form film to digital.  Perhaps most importantly, I have accumulated a great deal of experience by doing almost everything wrong, at least once. So what should I talk about? I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out what people want to hear, so my approach is to talk about what interests me and hope I can find a few people to listen. Of course, I try to direct the talk to the interests and sophistication of the audience. For my presentation to the Southwestern Vermont Audubon Society, I guessed that I couldn't go wrong by discussing my experience photographing the remarkable wildlife of the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. With that group, I had to be sure that I knew the name of every bird, fish and slithery thing that I had photographed. Camera clubs provide a much greater challenge. These clubs welcome the full range of photographic experience and expertise. Anything I say can be expected to seem overly simplistic to many and hopelessly advanced to others. In any discussion about the

Booby Dance
Blue Footed Galapagos Booby

benefits of digital photography, it is inevitable that digital editing and especially the magic of Photoshop will hold a prominent place. For those with no Photoshop experience I can only hope that my examples will open them to the possibilities that digital editing provides and entice them to consider jumping into the process. I work primarily with Camera Raw and Photoshop CS6, but I am aware that many photographers rely on Lightroom, Aperture, early versions of Photoshop, Elements and more. It is not possible to be familiar with all the different procedures, but again in a short talk the goal should be to open possibilities and not to present detailed work flows. 





 

Happily photographers are becoming more sophisticated. In my last talk to the wonderful folks at the Worcester Camera Club, I found that everyone seemed to be using some form of post-processing, mostly Lightroom and Photoshop. Only one was still shooting in JPG instead of RAW, and, of course, I was merciless with her. Given the growing sophistication of photographers and especially those who participate in camera clubs, I feel that I must go beyond discussions of pure technique. My goal is to try to link the fundamentals to a broader philosophy of how the digital world has change the approach to photography. That is, Getting It Right in the Digital Camera.




Getting Right in the Digital Camera, In the Can
For the few who have read my blog on a regular basis it can be no surprise that, on Monday, I will be talking about Getting it Right in the Digital Camera. It has been my perpetual theme that the best image in the digital camera is not the prettiest, but the one that provides the best material for the digital editing process. My blog is full of examples of this philosophy and the talk will be based on that discussion. Happily, I have presented the topic before and I have the advantage of many slides already in my Powerpoint collection (In the Can). The chore is to review, re-arrange and up-date the presentation. Powerpoint makes this all much easier, but it is important to keep all of the program's flashy bells and whistles under control. The message can be too easily lost among all the flying

Part of  "The Can"

images and exploding menus. Cutting is always the most difficult struggle. I inevitably have much more that I would like to say than the time will allow. I do my best when I leave plenty of time for discussion and questions. I hate to feel rushed. 


So, I'll stop here.  I have a lot of work to do. I hope to see some of you at the Brattleboro Camera Club meeting next Monday night.  Please be kind. If you can't come, keep checking in. I'm sure I will be assaulting other groups with my philosophies. The Queeche Camera Club is coming up on April 8th . Now I have some serious cutting to do.