This scene unfolds with variations, flower border at the back of my vegetable garden, every year. In 2019 I spent a lot of time working the situation on different mornings, going through a series of lenses, mostly vintage, to get different compositions — the old lenses draw in different ways. The result was that I have so many i like that I am unable to pick a “best" one. This one just popped up on my screen.

#garden #peony #iris #rose #vermont #flowers #vintagelens #johnlehetphoto #bokeh

Wallace Stevens didn’t know which he prefers: the blackbird singing, or just after.

My version of that is: I don’t know which I prefer — a very sharp lens, or one that draws beautifully — the details, or the overall rendering.

Here’s episode 2 of bad garlic scape gardening. I’m letting black eyed susans (and daisies) grow at the edge of the bed because they are pretty. Weeds in this context, but pretty ones.

The garden now:

#johnlehetphoto #garden #vermont #photography #flowers #vintagelens

This one just popped up as a background on my monitor, exposed some years ago. It’s been on my site, and I showed it once. Just reminded how I like it.

I used to split-tone in the darkroom. Papers with silver chloride rather than more silver bromide, as I remember it, would take a lot of selenium in this way and “split.” I liked it for some things, so I made a photoshop layer I can apply to recreate it.

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#johnlehetphoto #landscapephotography #vermont

I haven’t looked at the similar scene (exposed with the same vintage lens) from this year’s garden, which I worked with the other day — still in camera. But here is that batch of Siberian Iris in front of old roses from 2020:

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#garden #photography #flowers #roses #iris #johnlehetphoto

I haven’t looked at the similar scene (exposed with the same vintage lens) from this year’s garden, which I worked with the other day — still in camera. But here is that batch of Siberian Iris in front of old roses from 2020:

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#garden #photography #flowers #roses #iris #johnlehetphoto

I did manage a bit of photography, got my camera in my hands a couple of days ago. Walking by this crabapple tree I had to crouch among the ferns. This is not the only exposure or composition — and it’s a very similar composition to some other fiddlehead fern work I’ve done with other backgrounds. The vintage lens nicknamed “the bokina” was on the camera when I grabbed it, so here we are. Unedited, new. f4

#johnlehetphoto #garden #vintagelens #photography #flowers #fiddlehead #vermont

Irises starting to bloom! Managing a small bit of gardening, an even smaller bit of photography in this busy stretch. A vertical crop from last year:

#johnlehetphoto #garden #flowers #iris #vermont

Here’s the Dicentra and fern from a few years ago. Today I’m working on my #DIY stairs project still, not photographing.

#johnlehetphoto #garden #photography #vermont

Most years I spend some time with a camera by a dicentra that grows among some fiddlehead ferns. This year I have been so caught up in (and exhausted by) my wood projects I almost missed it. Just yesterday evening I saw, oh, I almost missed it. Straight out of the camera. (vertical shot)

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#johnlehetphoto #garden #vermont #vintagelens

I traveled in mid April, and one o the stops was Longwood Garden, in peak bulb glory. It was amazing and overwhelming. Maybe I got some good exposures of colorful flowers. We’ll see. I think that’s very hard. And here is a #blackandwhite #infrared, for me, so natural to do.

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I’m back home in #Vermont. Yay! I try not to post about travels while I’m doing them, not to broadcast my house is vacant. I went down the east coast to visit my offspring, both born here but moved away. It’s full spring south of here, decidedly less so here, though daffodils are in bloom in the yard.
I went to this garden twice this month. This is a photo from a previous trip there at tulip time. Cannot step in the same river or tulip bed twice.

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Stone Wall and Dandelions

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#johnlehetphoto #vermont #spring #blackandwhitephotography #landscapephotography #dandelions

Barn Door in Afternoon Sunlight

This is an old building on the corner, not far from my house. I’ve heard it’s the oldest building in my old Vermont town (my house is much newer, the continually retrofitted 1864 one room schoolhouse a stone’s throw away from this). This building is just used for storing stuff by its current owners.
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#johnlehetphoto #vermont #barn #blackandwhitephotography #infrared

Here is another new print that I framed up and didn’t get a spot in the new prints show. I think it’ll hang someplace by the end of the summer. This is last light of day, and there was some color to the light, so the color version of this is compelling too, tough choice.

Path Through Dandelion Field

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#johnlehetphoto #blackandwhitephotography #LandscapePhotography #Photography #Spring

In hanging the show that went up on Monday, I had selected a huge subset of new work and then devised a way to keep throwing it up in my face. It is still showing up on my second monitor, and I say, “Oh, I should have done this one!” Like so:

Garlic Leaf Through Garlic Scape Morning Dew

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#johnlehetphoto #blackandwhite #garden #macrophotography

This was an out-take from my show I hung Monday. Looking at it now, I wish it was hanging, but there were an awful lot I worked on (and printed and even framed) that didn’t fit on those walls or fit in with the vibe.

Spring Leaves and Clouds, Connecticut River from Vermont

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#johnlehetphoto #landscapephotography #blackandwhitephototraphy #infrared

I hung my show yesterday. A little thread.

This is the main wall; there are other kinds of photos in other spots. This wall together, unlike anything I’ve ever hung, all these color photos, mostly small. It looks all tuti-fruiti and without the somber heft of the This is Fine Art Photography thing I guess I’ve always done. That’s OK. During the worst of the pandemic (which is still going on!) I was hunkered down and looking for maybe some kind of endorphin hit, some cheer. 1/

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@NimbleDave Split toning is pretty hit or miss, so you will of course waste some paper and time. Some tones will pick up the toner in a different degree and maybe even a different color. Just a certain range of tones (with the Agfa paper and Selenium it was medium-dark tones). Here is an example of a digital -> ink jet print of something I used to print this way on the agfa paper from the 4x5 negative. This print looks a whole lot like the silver print
#johnlehetphoto #infrared

I promised the other day I’d feature another epsode of “Surprised by Printer Output — the good kind.”

Printed a test on letter size paper. Behemoth Epson printer and the letter size Canson Edition Etching, sheet, have a bit of an issue, and it’s hard to get it to print at all, yet alone straight. (I often print it from a roll). Anyway, knocked my socks off, the texture in the bokeh yellow-orange area, OMG. So printed it bigger. Will hang
#johnlehetphoto #photography #spring
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2/ Two is that it’s sometimes an amazing surprise how good something looks as a print. I’ll do another one that blew my socks off, but this one is printed on Epson Hot Press Natural paper — a matte paper that can show rich, deep, blacks, and in this case velvety blacks and darks. And so many nice tones all playing in that velvet together. It’s better than I thought. I printed a big one, but I’ll hang a 9 x 9 image in a 16 x 16 frame.

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