Catching Tadpoles [Pinhole Photograph]
September, 2009 • In the Sierra Foothills, California
(click in the image to see a larger version)
It's time once again for another edition of Time Machine Tuesday, where I revisit an image from at least a year in the past, and usually from about the same time of year as well. Although today's photo is from a day in late summer four years ago, it also has a very new feeling for me because until I scanned the negative a couple of days ago, I had never worked with it.
This is a pinhole photograph made with medium format film that was taken at one of our usual swimming spots on the Yuba River. We hadn't been there very long before my daughter and the other kids who were there realized that the water was teeming with big, fat tadpoles. In due course, some containers were located and a group tadpole hunt was under way. After collecting and observing many fine specimens, the adults convinced the kids that they needed to release the wannabe frogs and could not take them home. There was some initial complaining, especially from the younger boys, but the catch and release policy was adopted.
I liked this image from the start, just from looking at the negs on my light box, and even though I'd always wanted to get to it, other things quickly came along and pushed it to the bottom of the pile. I'm not sure why I thought of it again last weekend, but I'm glad I finally spent some quality time with it. It's a scene that really evokes for me the idea of summer time and especially childhood memories of summer. Coincidentally, the last time I posted for Time Machine Tuesday, the image in question was also a pinhole photo (or rather, an overlapping triptych of three images) taken on a summer afternoon at the Yuba River.
Comments