This picture, as well as the previous one, are from a half hour walk yesterday along the Farmington River in People’s State Forest in Barkhamsted. The half mile of open field and picnic grounds are bordered by a strip of younger white pines known as Matthies Grove. On the other side of the pines, the river flows south. At the northernmost edge of all this, there’s a few old growth white pines that are truly breathtaking.

On Labor Day, the state park was crowded with folks enjoying the final breeze of summer. Toward the end of daylight yesterday, it was just us and a couple of dog-walkers; a cold wind and a forecast calling for the first winter storm.

With these last two pictures, my aim was to spread the deep grays right to the edge of black and let the lighter areas fall where they’re so inclined. For me, that’s the best way to make music in the shadows.

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Farmington River / People’s State Forest, Connecticut

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Besides cold hands, the walk to Phillips Pond resulted in a landscape. “Panorama” is the word for the format, but I prefer to think of them as sweeps.

That’s partial ice out there on the water and the little sign in the foreground is the trail marker.

If you ask me, the trail marker makes the picture.

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The driveway is curling into the shadows of late November. It is caught, taken to the computer to be bathed in a light sepia tone and shared throughout the world the next morning.

During my darkroom days, the only toner I ever worked with was selenium and that was used primarily for print permanence. Its faint purplish tone is barely discernible and, at least to me, does not resemble the various pre-sets for it found in photography software.

The word “sepia” has become synonymous with “old.” Early albumen prints had a wonderful warm-toned look, but they were susceptible to fading. Print impermanence would remain an issue in photography right up until the digital era. “Sepia,” it turns out, can also mean “faded.”

When Susan Sontag said, “all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt,” she was well-aware of the double entendre. The photographs, as well as their subjects, are the testimony she had in mind.

New Hartford CT

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The picture is from late yesterday; a overlook on the Tunxis Trail in Barkhamsted, Connecticut. There was a climb to get up to this spot, and it looked quite a bit different than when I was there in July.  November’s evening cloak was already spreading over the woods reminding me to start heading back while I still had some light.

Nineteenth century photography is always tugging at me, and I often borrow one thing or another when working on a picture. I tend to avoid the full-throttle treatment in most situations, but when I caught the scent of melancholy that it brought to this file there was no turning back.

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Yesterday’s walk on the Tunxis Trail got rolling late. It was on a section I hadn’t hiked before, south of Route 4 in Burlington Connecticut. The trail climbed steeply from the busy road into a wintry-looking forest. Three in the afternoon is long-shadow hour at this latitude in November, and with the wind, it felt more like January. Down below, there was an uninspiring view of a CVS, a Cumberland Farms and a Dunkin Donuts.  

Putting that in the rear view, I continued on, climbing an unnamed hill for the next half mile. Turning around near the top,  I was surprised by the long view east, with the Metacomet Ridge near Hartford visible through the trees. From the other side of the hill, I took a stitch of four images with the sun behind me, just below the summit.

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Trawler hull

New London CT

Napeague State Park, Amagansett NY

Cathy Lester Preserve, East Hampton