Category Archives: Uncategorized

New Show Coming Up!

I have not been showing any work particularly during the pandemic. I’ve had some work remaining in some League of NH Craftsman galleries, and I think a lot of that is sold, so I’ve got to replenish work in those galleries. I’ve refreshed my work in Long River Gallery in White River Gallery.

I’ve been posting new work on my Mastodon account — a refreshing and better alternative to Twitter, especially for photography. It’s quite a passionate-about-photography online community. I’ve been much more daring, posting work that is more like sketches than fully formed and printed pieces. Somehow in that context I feel more comfortable doing that than anywhere else. Really, I’ve never liked to post work that is not “locked in” to an edit, including the paper I print it on. However, in recent years I’ve accepted that I will want to improve work and will do it actively — and it’s a shame to keep something locked into an interpretation when I’m seeing it better or have better capability to express it than I had in the past. It’s why I rarely do limited editions. Though I also understand the idea that the print is the print and will be the print — that’s the print. But anyway, I’m feeling flexible these days.

To find my photos on Mastodon you can use the hashtag #johnlehetphoto. I tag pretty much everything. And follow me. My current address on the Fediverse as of 3/10/23 is @[email protected].

Anyway, this upcoming show, for April. The theme the gallery wanted is Spring. So I have a range of spring interpretations, quite a lot of photos I’m considering and working with the trade-offs between the wide range of my work interpreting spring, versus the harmony between pieces. It is in a state of furious flux at the moment.

More Coming, the Fediverse and Beyond

I’ve been rather behind on posting new photos to this blog, but I’ve got a digital ton of new stuff to put on here. Will do quite soon!

Edited this post to remove the stuff about turning the blog into a federated server. I was excited about Mastodon (still am, and I have deleted my Twitter account). There was no need for that plug in or publication of the blog to the fediverse automatically. I’ll post links on mastodon.

My Mastodon presence in general is [email protected]

Follow me there! I’m posting way more photos than I did on Twitter.

I also find that on Mastodon I’m rather looser about posting unedited or first-quick-edit photos.

Post Pond Work and Rework

In working up the show of Post Pond images now hanging at Matt Brown Fine Art in Lyme NH, I of course had to over-work on it. Doing so was worth it. The show looks great!

So, I of course had to look through my catalog to find files I’ve never really printed before, and introduce them. I had taken a stab at the one above, an older exposure, but I think I hit it this time.

One of my favorite Post Pond photos, and one that is well liked when I show it, is this one of Pickerel Weed and Mist:

From the same set of exposures, I also made another print I like quite well, which I printed the same size (about 14 x 20). For such a close proximity in time and space, it has a very different feel, I think because I interpreted the file a bit differently and saw the color balance a bit differently. I like it quite well too:

Another image that I liked quite well but hadn’t ever been satisfied with a print until now was this one:
Post Pond October Mist, Reeds, Yellow Trees
I like it because autumn is often dreamy and subtle like that. Though I personally am not always happy with punchy, saturated fall color prints, it’s harder to do the subtle thing. I guess as it always is. I haven’t been able to hit this one just right for some years, but I’m very happy now. Hanging in Lyme.

This one too, I am much happier with the current version than what I had done before. I think my eye as a photographer, when making exposures, is getting better, but I know my eye as a printer, working with files and paper, is getting much much better each year.
post pond misty waterline, cloud reflections and hills, black and white

 

(Here is a collection of everything I am currently printing from Post Pond.)

Boston Athenaeum Exhibit is Wonderful!

On Wednesday evening, April 5, I really enjoyed the opening of the Exhibition in which some of my photos play a part: “New England on Paper: Contemporary Art in the Boston Athenæum’s Prints & Photographs Collections

Here is a virtual tour of the show on the Athenaeum web site, but you should really see it in person if you are in Boston.

TOP Print Sale

TOP Print Sale

Of course the photo of the week is The Online Photographer Print Sale!

This is a beautiful print, and I’m pleased to offer it. Read about it on The Online Photographer.

Here is a post on The Online Photographer about the lens used to make this photo, and the slippery slope of manual focus vintage lenses for a modern high resolution sensor.

(Now that the sale is over, the print is available on the site.)

Seagulls’ Bad Date

seagull's bad date dune fence shadow

In Buddhist psychology the “three poisons” are passion, aggression, and ignorance. These three are said to drive the entire engine of the aspects of our existence that ultimately cause us suffering, the cycle known as samsara. It can all happen quickly. Even an attraction can suddenly turn to aversion. Have you ever had a date like that, or a longer relationship? These two seagulls apparently had attraction suddenly shift as they wandered through the display of phenomenon, walking along at the beach.

This image is available as a print.

Ascutney From Windsor VT

Mt Ascutney From Windsor VT

I’ve had some really busy days making exposures with some new lenses, a new camera, and with the new leaves. I’ve been working rather frantically to take advantage of a certain kind of see-through-the-trees thing that happens in the spring. A too quickly passing phenomenon. So while making a lot of exposures the other day, and pretty tired, I thought that the bits of feathery cirrus clouds might show up behind MT Ascutney and make a good backdrop for this composition that I’ve been working on over the past weeks. Hopefully the trees not too far along to mess up that misty effect on the hillside… hopefully the clouds will be in the right place…

Yes. It worked out. I think rather well.

And instead of one of the high res images from one of the splendid new lenses, it’s the good old infrared camera that comes through. My most inexpensive bit of gear takes the prize, once again. But I do think I have some gems among the other exposures, hopefully brought to light soon.

This photo is viewable at better resolution and for sale as a print here.

Seeing What’s Here, Letting Go of What’s There

Vermont Ice Storm Ascutney

Anyone who has spent any time at all honestly examining their mind and experience knows very well that most of the time most of our awareness and attention is not directed at the situation at hand.

So it was that I started the day of New Year’s Eve, 2015. I was looking forward to photographing at Post Pond a bit later in the morning, since I was scheduled to be in my old town of Lyme NH at 10. I figured I would leave early and give myself a generous amount of time there to photograph before 10.

Here in Hartland VT the trees and weeds were glazed with ice from freezing rain the night before. The light was soft but bright, and there was some fog and mist in spots. A good opportunity! I had to spend some time here before I headed to Lyme. I made way too many photographs right in the back yard, and heading off I was just barely going to be on time. But I still had to stop and expose the image above.

It turned out that as I approached Lyme, the ice storm was not in evidence, the light didn’t have the luminous quality that we had in Hartland. My 10am appointment was to gallery-sit at the Long River Studios gallery. After that was over I went to Post Pond, and — nothing inspiring. I could spend some time and find something, always, but it was not as it had been in my mind. There wasn’t even any ice on the water.

But in honor of my fantasy of how it was going to be, I’ll resurrect an old exposure of Post Pond — sort of how I thought it would be there. It’s kind of funny, because I’ve been wanting to go back there with my newer, higher end cameras and lenses, but that gear didn’t help with nothing interesting in front of it. The photo below (which I will not be able to print very large) was exposed with my earliest DSLR and the worst lens I ever owned in 2005. It worked out. Sometimes the situation works out if you’re fully in it.

Post Pond, Ice and Mist, Black and White

These photos are available as prints:

Ascutney Mountain Through Ice Storm Branches VT

Melting Ice and Mist, Post Pond Black and White

Two Old Post Pond Autumn Dawn Mist Images

Post Pond New Hampshire Autumn Dawn Mist

As usual, this isn’t what I was going to do this week. I was doing a bit of digital housecleaning, moving some files around from a temporary folder of “maybe I want to work on this” to a permanent folder of “Yeah, OK, work on this someday.” It seems this one passed through my filter at one point. One thing that happens as I get better both in making exposures and in making prints is that I can both see and realize potential better. This image I obviously saw when I exposed it, probably holding my breath not to break the spell. It was actually before dawn, before 7 am in October. But I never saw it as something I could push forward before. Today, moving the file and then not just moving the file — “I can make that good!” And I did. This is an old image from 2007.

Post Pond Dawn Mist

This one is not exposed at the same time as another one of pickerel weeds and mist: this one, one of my favorite photos. It looks like it almost could be, a bit after a breeze picked up, but no, this one I’m posting today is from an exposure made in 2006, a year earlier.

“Luminosity” show at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center

Reception on Thursday October 15, 5-7 pm!

This show is now hanging in area 4T, which is very convenient if you are looking for an endoscopy.

I got a call from the art program at the hospital telling me that a space was available now, a couple of weeks ago. I had a number of prints still framed from the show at the Howe Library in Hanover and also the Hermit Thrush show in Brattleboro, but I didn’t want to make the same show. I figured I could swap some prints in. I know a little music theory; I know that in, say, Bach’s flute sonatas he swaps a few accidentals in, and suddenly the piece is in a whole new space. So I had to find those new notes.

I’m usually sort of shy about showing work that I haven’t had in my mind for about 30 years or so. Is it a flash in the pan? Will I like it next week? And maybe it will be hard to print! With the short notice and the creative task of making the show reborn, I threw that baggage to the wind. New stuff. Can I print it? Yes, and very well.

The Four Square images at the top of this post were pulled from the catalog just for the way they might go together in and fit in this show. I’d never shown them to anyone, and indeed, I hadn’t thought very much of at least 3 of them. They weren’t even on my radar. But I think they are as good as anything. It feels good to just pick up a couple of arrows and let them fly, hitting the target without a few years’ forethought. If I can do this, I can do a lot more.

There are a handful more that I’ve never printed before too, some new work, some work pulled just for the atmosphere I was trying to create.