Our annual pilgrimage to Craftsbury Sculling Camp in Vermont sees us driving from Boston out into the wilderness, with a stop this year at the Flume Gorge in New Hampshire. Join me and my Fuji GW690ii for a look at the great American Outdoors!
About the trip
Every year my brother and I make the long trek over to Craftsbury Sculling Camp in Vermont for a week of rowing (and more rowing, and then more rowing). We fly into Boston and make the 4 hour drive up through New Hampshire and into Vermont. We have passed Franconia Notch State Park numerous times (this last trip was our 8th trip in a row), but we have never stopped into the Flume Gorge. This time we had a bit of flexibility in our schedule and decided to make the small detour. As I planned ahead I was ready with my Fuji GW690ii (aka the ‘Texas Leica’) for some great landscape shots.
Our trip was last June and most of these shots were taken on my Fuji GW690ii, with a few of them taken on 35mm film (I can’t actually remember which camera).
Franconia Notch State Park also part of the White Mountain National Forest.
I am a big fan of airplane shots, even if they all look similar. However I really like the symmetry in this shot and the massive negative the Fuji GW690ii produces, so sharp!
Dense forest and lovely bright greens.
One of the bridges that crosses the gorge - my brother standing in the middle.
As big as the negative this camera produces it doesn’t really show how deep this gorge is, although at least I can blow this photo right up to see all the details!
Shot on 35mm film - that is a big boulder and humans didn’t put it there!
My brother was talking a shot of me because he thought my camera was so large it was funny (which it is!). I like the frozen waterfall, this was shot on Portra 400 if I remember correctly.
One of my favourite shots of the trip, I really like how much I was able to capture in the frame.
Shot at f11 leaning the camera on ledge and I am really happy with how sharp it came out with the frozen water flow.
My brother in the frame for scale.
Craftsbury Sculling Center
I have already made a few posts regarding Craftsbury for this blog (including some colour infrared photography) so these are just a few of my shots taken mostly on one afternoon in the middle of the camp.
Busy time at the end of a session.
Calm waters on Hosmer Pond.
Don’t disobey the traffic pattern!
One happy Coach!
I love this shot, definitely one to print. Shot on Ilford Pan F 50.
The wonderful boat house.
Two happy coaches (you would be too if you worked there!)
I actually really like the composition of this shot - shooting portrait / vertical shots on the Fuji GW690ii is quite hard due to its size.
Home away from home.
A heavily cropped photo and look how sharp it is! Eoin looking good in action.
That is a lot of single sculling boats!
Overall observations
I have delayed putting up these shots from June, and I have a bit of a backlog of posts as I have been busy this summer. Whilst I like to put up shots that are taken within the last month, it is also nice to look back and remember trips gone by. I was happy I chose the Fuji GW690ii as my main camera for this trip as the negatives it produces are huge and the details it captures is quite amazing.
For anyone thinking about venturing into New Hampshire or Vermont I highly recommend it, they call Vermont the Green Mountain State for a good reason!
If you happen to be a rower and you are reading this and have never heard of Craftsbury drop me a line and I will introduce you to one of the best places in the world to scull.
Thanks for stopping by!
Neil
