(early-June 2023)
(Watch the prelude.)
For her birthday, my Frau decided that she wanted to have our portrait, as well as a solo one where she is sporting her fancy new tiara, done on tintype. Tintype is a kind of photography where the emulsion is on a piece of iron. Since the only place in anything resembling close proximity to us that does tintype photos is the H.H. Bennett Studio, that meant we'd be taking a trip to the local tourist trap, Wisconsin Dells. I’d been there many times when I worked for the Wisconsin Historical Society and so I knew of this old-timey photography method but this would be my first time actually having my photo taken with it.
Bennett moved to Wisconsin as a teenager, specifically to Kilbourn City, which is now known as Wisconsin Dells. He took up photography in 1865 and ten years later opened his studio that is now a historic site and where the Frau and I had our tintypes taken. The Dells area became famous, in large part, because of his photographs with the most well-known being one of a boy jumping between 2 tall rock formations.
I just looked this up and discovered that the boy was Bennett’s son, Ashley. Today, Bennett would have been locked up for standing by with a camera while his son casually made leaps where one small mistake, one teensy slip of the foot, would have meant certain death for the boy.
Bennett’s shop is well-preserved and visitors can imagine early Chicago area tourists stopping in to see his work or perhaps for a portrait after seeing his photographs of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Folks such as the Frau and myself who want a tintype taken are corralled into Bennett’s studio with its windowed roof and paucity of artificial lighting.
The camera is very basic – it’s a wooden box mounted on a tripod with a primitive lens.
All focusing and shot composition was accomplished by moving the camera. Talk of such luxuries as digital zoom and auto-focus would have been sheer madness in Bennett’s day. The photographer threw a black cloth over the apparatus and slid a carefully prepared sheet of iron into a slot in the back.
The Frau chose our background, we sat, and were very still for about 15 seconds. We were told that it was fine to breathe normally but I held my breath anyway. Can't be too careful, right?
With the exposure done, the plate was removed and placed in a tray where it received a bath of some magical developer elixir. Before our very eyes, the image of Madison’s premier power couple faded into being.
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Since my Frau developed her mystery allergies/illness, she’s been spending much more time at home. Not only has her condition prevented her from working, but her social life has been severely interrupted. It has made me very sad to witness her go from being a social butterfly to a recluse. Well, not as bad as someone like Paul of Thebes, but she just spends much too much time at home these days.
One thing she’s done to occupy herself is to litter our deck with plants. Look at this coleus! Or is that two colei?
And that exhausts my knowledge of flowers here. But there are more photos.
Forgot. She grew a chili plant too, there on the left.
My contribution was a single coleus which I potted and put in our carport to add some color.
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Driving down County M south of Madison, one sees some pretty scenery tucked in the rolling hills. I discovered that there is a fairly new bike path in the area, the Oregon Rotary Trail, that has a trailhead just west of the town of Oregon, population ~ 12,000. The paved path winds its way through the gentle hills and the Swan Pond Waterfowl Production Area and ends on the northwest side of Oregon.
And so one morning I threw my bicycle into my car and headed southwest out into the countryside. The small parking lot had one car that presumably was owned by the laughing young couple on the trail walking towards me.
Off I went.
There are signs at the base of the hills that tell you exactly how steep they are and I discovered that anything over an 11 degree incline gets me worried about cardiac arrest as I pedal upwards and onwards.
It was a lovely day and the grassy field near the trailhead presented me with an opportunity to go all Terrence Malick/Emmanuel Lubezki/Néstor Almendros with my photography.
All that was missing was a lovely young woman to run her hands across the top of the grass.
I wasn't too far from Swan Pond. It is unclear to me what makes it a waterfowl production site. Is there a swan factory there? A duck forge? Maybe it is kept in a state that is optimal for waterfowl to engage in some, er, amorous congress, shall we say. Perhaps certain plants are the waterfowl equivalent of mood lighting and a mirror on the ceiling. However waterfowl are produced, I was near water and so there were plenty of red-winged black birds about.
It didn’t run away immediately but instead slowly, cautiously put some distance between us, looking back to make sure I wasn’t showing any hostile intentions.
I made it to Oregon ere long. Oddly enough, I hadn't seen much in the way of waterfowl on the trip there. The northwest side is a weird mix of conservation park and industrial buildings. There is scrub dotted with small ponds next to a concrete factory, for instance. I also discovered that Trachte had facilities down here. It was all newer stuff on their lot, though. None of their vintage steel buildings with the barreled roofs.
As I rode down one street, I saw a pair of sandhill cranes on a patch of grass in front of the concrete factory. After taking a couple photos, I continued on. I rode around the area and through a section of the conservation park and then returned to the spot where I had seen the cranes lazing about.
There I found that they had crossed the street and were on the sidewalk beyond which was just a field of grass and small trees.
And then I saw a savage example of nature being red in tooth and claw unfold before me as the gentle birds were mercilessly attacked!
The cranes must have wandered into someone’s territory because a pair of red-winged black birds started diving at the them in a ferocious Blitzkrieg just like the Luftwaffe! OK, well maybe not. But they did seem to annoy the cranes a lot.
I felt a bit badly as the cranes didn’t mean any harm; they simply wanted to get away from me and then they found themselves running, well, strolling, a gauntlet of angry black birds. Having been attacked by territorial red-winged black birds myself, I could, as Bill Clinton once said, feel their pain.
I like this photo because you can see the full wingspan of the attacking black bird and the crane has this “Oh brother. Not again.” look on its face. Plus, there’s what I think is a female red-winged black bird down at the bottom presumably gushing over her mate’s bravery and derring-do.
“Oh, Harold! You’re so rugged!”
The cranes eventually got tired of being accosted and left. With the action over, I continued on to the trail.
At the very start of it I noticed a killdeer just standing there looking around.
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