I took the image of Figure 1 at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA. Most people come into the refuge from the parking lot, but there are a few who enter by canoe or kayak along the river. With its historical roots, the river always carries with its course a kind of wistful remembrance. I’ve tried to capture that here – an excuse of dark tritone,

As I looked at my final “print,” I started thinking nostalgically of the days of hypo and selenium toner. Always there was the smell of hypo, and it was critical to remove the hypo lest the print yellow with time. Again Ansel Adams taught us how to create the archival print, which would outlast us. Pressing the print to dry overnight and then the tactile sense of the double weight paper. Most important was the lesson of creating a print that might still catch the viewers eye a century from now.

I don’t miss those days really, because between the selenium and the silver refuse, things were much less than green. But the smells and scents are gone, and while I love the control of digital photography, it always seems that something is missing.

Canon T2i with 100-400 mm f/4.5 to 5.6 L USM IS lens at 150 mm, Aperture Priority AE Mode, ISO 1600, 1/1600 sec at f/18 with no exposure compensation