Lone Tree, Rocky Hill Meadows, Flood 2023

    Many times opportunity knocks only once, particularly when weather events take place out of season ! Such is the case with this month’s image. Not only were these rare weather circumstances out of season, they appeared suddenly and with less than desirable timing. In only a few days a good friend was coming in for the weekend to get me up-to-speed on the Wet Plate photo process. Monty would be teaching a 2 week course on Wet Plate at the prestigious Penland School of Craft in the mountains of North Carolina. Monty asked that I assist him in the class, he would handle the Wet Plate instruction and I would handle all technique related to the View Camera. I eagerly agreed with the understanding he get me somewhat familiar with the process prior to the class. Monty has an extremely demanding job so the last minute weekend here in my darkroom came as no surprise. However, a surprise was to come…Monty told me, “I’m going to have to be in some meetings with last minute notice during the class, You will have to take over the class” !!

    A few days prior to Monty coming up for my crash course I began seeing on social media that the Rocky Hill Meadows was flooding in dramatic fashion during the middle of July. I essentially saw the below photograph on social media and realized the water level was as high as I’d ever seen it, even beyond most typical Springtime runoffs. Not only did I grow up in Rocky Hill, CT, the Meadows was my destination for all things a teenager would deem adventurous. Once serious photography took hold of my life the Meadows became a source of imagery and inspiration. My interest in the “Meadows” would spread to Wethersfield and Hartford, more for documentary type imagery illustrating the seasonal changes. The RH Meadows held the magic, more diversity with interesting shapes along the Connecticut River and its floodplain. With the anomaly of such high water and rich foliage I knew I had to step away from my prep for the Penland class only a week away from leaving for North Carolina.

    I drove down to the CT River in Rocky Hill that 1st afternoon to scout out a shot for morning light. I found dozens of onlookers at the river’s edge and saw the water level to be higher than I’d ever seen it before, see the photo with the Red Arrow showing the floating docks, normally at the river’s edge. The cell-phone shot with the orange safety pilon shows even the local wildlife were all mixed up. The next morning before dawn I had to drive around police safety barricades now blocking access to Ferry Park, likely due to the large crowds the previous afternoon. I made one documentary shot and was ready to leave when I looked down the flooded road and saw a lone tree. I liked the shape and the story telling component of the singular tree and decided to setup a shot. The rising morning sun was not yet high enough to impact my composition, but I had to move quickly to avoid distracting shadows in my composition.

    As it happens my Chamonix camera is really only designed to make horizontal compositions. I wanted a vertical composition, so, I had to devise a workaround. Several compromises would have to take place in order to come away with a large format negative of this month’s featured image in a vertical orientation. First, the goal of any serious photographer is to utilize the entire negative area, it’s an integral piece to the large format experience. The black border around the B&W image seen below is the actual edge of the film illustrating exactly what was on the piece of film. In order to approximate a vertical composition the camera was titled on the tripod, and then the legs of the tripod were biased to a point where the camera’s own weight almost tipped the camera on it’s side. Simply inserting the film holder into the camera back ran the risk of altering what the camera was seeing, together with the real possibility the camera could tip over. A second compromised happened because the tree and far off stop sign were not completely upright as they appear in reality. As I have written about in the past, the act of setting up a B&W shot with the big camera has become second nature. That leaves my mind free to wander around the composition to ensure I’ve seen and taken into account all the subimal components of the composition. The Stop sign off in the distance would provide a secondary interest and balance to the composition. A bit of irony to the Stop sign and barricade, vehicle traffic is prevented from entering the Meadows…but not the onslaught of the flood waters !

    The print is made using considerably less than the 5×7″ area of the film. I could then turn the negative so that the tree would return to it’s natural upright position, see the resulting cell phone and accompanying full frame negative to illustrate the compromise. An added bonus to such a severe crop to the negative is the distracting sky reflection in the lower left  could be somewhat cropped out with the remaining area darkened in the printing process while still maintaining balance and spacing to the final image. As good fortune would have it, I’ll be showing a portfolio of 10 images, many from the Rocky Hill Meadows this coming Friday afternoon at the Rocky Hill Hampton Inn, details on the Free to All event are here: Photo Arts Xchange

    As with so many back stories, the unexpected happened in the form of the town’s Fire Chief (a neighbor from my RH first home) drove up and said “This area is closed, you’re gonna have to leave…go ahead and finish your shot, but then please exit “. “Thanks very much Mike” !