You may have noticed already (since its been up for about a week or so off the main portfolio site) that I also now have a store. There are currently only two items available but more are coming. You can pick up a Hidden Lake composite print or, for the first time ever “Condensation Trails” as a 40×20 inch canvas gallery wrap. As always, you can still just contact me directly if you have questions or want to purchase anything.

I also just built and launched a mobile compatible version of www.jeffreyscottfrench.com so if you browse to my site on the go you should be automatically redirected there. If you have an iPhone, Android phone or any other mobile device let me know how you like it via the comments here.

Another “Portrait Sessions” post is coming up shortly. Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

It’s amazing how much I took for granted the cycles of nature when I was living in them, especially the changing of the seasons. Part of that may have been that Spring, Summer and Autumn always seemed so short compared to the lengthy, harsh winters of my hometown in Central New York, and thus I felt like the actual transitions took too little time to go from Summer to Fall to Winter and too much time to go from Winter to Spring to Summer. Or maybe it was completely average compared to other cities in that latitude and I was just feeling slighted for no reason. Either way, now that I have lived in Florida and am subject to what is basically – to me at least – “nice Summer” from October to April and “sweltering Summer” from April to October, visiting the Northeast in October reminded me how much I missed actual seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fairly certain I will not be spending my years in the snow belt of Upstate New York any more, but I am definitely longing for a little more variety, as well as the opportunity to wear a sweater now and again.

After a couple nights in Syracuse I climbed aboard a rail car and watched the world wash by outside the window while I was taken to NYC. Traveling by train was yet another of my life long goals, and Im not sure I could have picked a better time to do it. We followed the Mohawk River east to Albany and then turned south along the Hudson and followed that all the way to Penn Station, in the heart of midtown.

For me, the best part of riding the train was being able to just sit and stare as the scenery blurred by on the other side of those tinted glass portals – something which is not easy (or safe) to do while driving. As we descended with the water through the Hudson River Valley the colors deepened with us. These trees, having been spared the frosts that a lot of New England had seen, had not yet had their leaves bitten by the cold morning air, browning and robbing them of their full glory until finally letting them go to drift down to the earth. These leaves glimmered with their full, radiant hues.

I spent an afternoon in Central Park with my good friend Jaclyn (a few pictures of her next time) on what might have been the last warm Autumn Sunday of the year. The entire park was adorned in it’s seasonal colors and it seemed as though most everyone who could come out to enjoy them were there. Late afternoon sun poked through golden branches and dappled the sheltered grasses that were now littered red and orange and crunched as you wandered through them.

Of all my memories of fall colors, from my time in the Northeast, in Montana and in countless other places, Central Park held its ground with the best of them, which made me all the more grateful to have witnessed it.

I have traveled the contiguous 48 States many, many times, but a few had evaded me. Maine was the last on my list (other than Alaska and Hawaii of course) and I finally got to check her off that list on a crisp October morning, in perhaps the most perfect of scenarios.

I had driven from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts to stay a few days, visit some old friends and experience the heart of New England in Autumn. My old friend Paula and her man Matt were lovely enough to put me up for a night, and Paula showed me around the next day and graciously tolerated my camera in her face as we explored her neighboring beach towns. The coast was exactly as I had expected it, except better in every way. Sunny with a stiff breeze, wet sand and a blueish hue that seemed to saturate everything with a cold, sad flavor of a deserted New England beach in the Fall. After a day at the edge of the Atlantic I headed to “Boston proper” – as Kaleena had put it – to meet her for food and drinks. Then I made the late night drive up 95 into Vacationland and nestled into a rented room a few miles off the highway.

In the morning I found my way down to the coast to brave the thirty-some-odd degree weather plus wind for a glance at the North Atlantic. I can understand why so many have been drawn to a life out there past the horizon, on the cold and rolling waves of a seafaring vocation. I then turned abruptly and drove off into the woods of Maine to be surrounded by the gloriousness of a New England forest in Autumn. More on that next time.

As many of you know, UPS Freight damaged my installation piece, Hidden Lake, on it’s return trip from Montana after the Day 231 show in Missoula. Somehow during transit they managed to puncture and break open the (custom built) shipping crate. The piece was insured and after some lengthy discussions (about a month’s worth) UPS Freight agreed to settle the claim in full. Unfortunately their policy is that if they settle for the full amount, they own the damaged cargo. UPS Freight came and picked up Hidden Lake, I said my silent goodbyes to the project, and now it’s gone, more than likely to be destroyed. It was not an easy decision, but having to choose between keeping a damaged piece I had worked on for over a year or letting it go and moving on, I chose the latter.

If you saw the piece in Montana, then consider yourself lucky. Hidden Lake was shown only once and was available for viewing for 56 days in June and July of 2009. The piece was and always will be a one of a kind original work, so I will not be re-making it.

In addition to the original installation, there was a total of 17 composite prints made at 30×10 inches that represent the piece. Four have been sold already, and I am of course now keeping one for posterity, which leaves 12 signed prints remaining. The remaining prints bear the title “Hidden Lake” in printed form and my signature in archival ink, which I signed on Friday June 6th, 2009 shortly before the opening reception for Day 231 in Missoula, MT. I did not number them when I signed them, so they are not numbered now, and there will not be any further composite prints made once these are gone. The remaining 12 prints are available for $125 USD plus shipping and handling to your location. To purchase a print you can contact me through the blog via a comment or via my contact info on my portfolio site.

Edit – 11.27.2009: To purchase a Hidden Lake Composite print, please choose Store from the menu at the top right of the page.

Quite a bit has happened since the last post, even though its only been about a week and a half. I guess I’ll start with probably the news that was the most consuming for me over the past days:

Hidden Lake was shipped back to me via a freight carrier and on its journey from northwest Montana to Southwest Florida the shipping crate was broken open. I don’t want to get in to too many specifics, but needless to say there was damage to the piece, and the carrier and I are currently going through the claims process and trying to rectify the situation, even though in reality once any part of an original one-of-a-kind piece of art is damaged, it pretty much can never go back to the way it was. If you don’t understand that concept, and a lot of people don’t so don’t feel bad, then I’m just glad the person hired as the third party inspector for the claim did. Hopefully the process will keep moving relatively quickly and I can be back with an update on that situation quickly.

So that was last Wednesday, and then just a few days later, my ever trusty (and babied) Macbook Pro went to sleep and never woke up in the morning. Luckily most everything is backed up (sometimes twice) and so Monday morning I dropped it off to get looked at and was subsequently told that the mother board had died. Google search tells me that a MBP motherboard replacement runs about 1200 bucks, so of course thats wonderful news. A collectively splendid five days or so, as you can imagine. The least expensive way to fix the laptop is to send it to the mothership and have Apple fix it, so I agree and off it goes. Apple however has run out of the necessary part and estimates 2 weeks of wait time for their next batch from overseas. I’m a pretty patient guy but just the thought of trying to work from my 2002 Titanium Powerbook G4 to do anything other than check my email made me want to pull my hair out. Enter the MacMini, my first non laptop macintosh, which is what I am currently working from, and while it is brand spanking new, it is still not more powerful than my 18 month old MBP. So when I get the laptop back the mini will be turned into a media server.

So that was a lot of words to read, and if you’ve stuck it out this long, then I promise to keep the rest of this brief. The above image is one you may have seen if you follow me on twitter, in fact both of these previews were seen there first, so you might want to follow me there if you are an impatient person. I printed this at 40×20 on a canvas stretched over a 1.5inch frame, and although this first attempt at printing on canvas came back a little dark, I still really like the quality and presentation of this image on this medium. I’ll be offering this as a print soon, so if you are interested drop me a line via the comments/email/twitter/facebook/phone/text/telepathy – though telepathy might not be the most reliable.

I’ve also updated my portfolio site with new images in the site preview (opening slideshow), Fine Art category and a new project titled “Drifting” of which the above is a portion. Although the intricate details on this project are not finalized, I do know that this is what it will look like displayed. Images are based off of an 8×12 inch print and scale up to 60×40 for the largest prints. As you can imagine, it will be fairly long when it is displayed properly. For the full experience visit www.jeffreyscottfrench.com and if you like what you see, share it with a friend.

above: Mission Mountains looking East

Steve and I got into town on Monday the 1st and after some brief delays, checked into the hotel, got some food, ran some errands and rested up from the four day marathon drive from SC/FL. Monday night was dinner and beers and getting reacquainted with the locals. Tuesday we started installing the show in the gallery and stayed and worked until they turned out the lights and locked the doors. Then we enjoyed some sushi and the company of great friends just down the street. Wednesday we continued the installation process and picked up friend Kim from the airport. Kim was the first of 6 friends to arrive from out of town for a mini-reunion based around the opening on Friday. Thursday was finishing touches and Friday was the opening with reception. Celebratory drinks followed with dinner, of course, and fun times consisting of recalling old memories and making new ones lasted well into the early morning Hey, when you work on something for six months you’re allowed to party a little when it’s done, right? On Saturday, Steve and I talked to the 2009 RMSP class and answered questions about our show, what its like going through the course, being an RMSP graduate, and spending time in Montana. Sunday was farewell brunch for almost everyone, then a great afternoon of snacks and drinks on the deck at the Post with Steve and Jenny (Donna Dangerous from GTG) who is beautiful and awesome and seems to have tons in common with friend Steve. And then by seven o’clock that night I was the only non-local left from the weekend. Luckily, I was saved from my solitude by Kerri, her visiting mother Jeanne, and Tom through an invite to dinner. Oddly enough I spent at least some part of each of the next three days with this group, as I was staying at an extra room at Tom’s villa (yes, an actual villa!) and Kerri and Jeanne are just irresistible : )

Monday I started venturing out on my own a little; meeting with Marcy James, lunch with Bob McGowan, chatted about future projects with a local couple who showed some interest in my work during the opening reception, intended to drive out of town and shoot but the rain kept me in and working on what would become the video below; that and playing rummy with Kerri and Jeanne before enjoying a home cooked meal for four. Tuesday I managed to get out of town and drive up the west side of the Mission Mountains to continue shooting for a long term project I started last summer during school. I ended up driving back the east side of the mountain range to check out Swan Lake and The Mission’s eastern face. Stopped and made some images along the way and decided I need to revisit the area during the winter, hopefully sooner than later. Wednesday I stopped by the Missoula Museum of Art to experience Kerri Rosenstein‘s installation with a few less people than had been crowding in there over the weekend. Then, after some lunch, I headed South down the Bitterroot Valley on what I thought would be just a sightseeing/reconnaissance trip for future projects when I inevitably return to Montana, but I actually ended up stopping and shooting quite a bit. I really love the green version of Montana in the late spring and early summer and between the friends and the scenery I contemplated moving to Missoula many times during this trip.

above: view of Wyoming from Montana looking Southwest

After some goodbyes Thursday morning, I began the somber trip home, which will be covered in another post, because that part of the trip has somethings in it which needs more time to put together. I did stop a few places on the way out to make some images though, including the Wyoming/Montana border on I-90. I’ll leave you with this video of the installation process of Day 231 and a few images of Montana from the trip. If you’re still reading this far into this post, then thanks : )

above: Swan Lake and the northern tip of the Mission Mountains looking West

above: Trapper’s Peak and the Bitterroot Mountains looking West

Day 231 opened June 5th 2009 at Rocky Mountain School of Photography Gallery. The title of the show is a reference to the number of days since both Steve Stockin and I graduated from RMSP’s 2008 program. We installed the show the few days prior to the opening with Ghost Town Girls taking the right half of the space and Hidden Lake taking the left. The reception was kind of whirlwind; talked to a lot of people, got to meet a lot of the 2009 students and pretty much enjoyed myself with friend Steve and many other RMSP 2008 alumni. You can read some of the press we received for the show here, here and here. I’ll dedicate another post to the overall awesomeness that was the Steve and Jeff Montana Adventure 2009 in a few days once I’ve caught my breath and sorted through the images and memories enough to regurgitate them here. For now though, here is some pictures I grabbed to help illustrate what the show actually looks like installed. Many thanks to Kim Dresser for the window title shot.

The gallery posted the write up for “Day 231″ on their page this weekend, so if you’d like to see some more info on the show, have a visit here: http://bit.ly/day231

I took a lot of snapshots with the camera phone to post to twitter, but I also brought out the big guns a couple times. I grabbed the following shot in South Dakota just after sunset. We were going fairly quick, about 82-83ish, which is average out in the great wide expanses of the plains and western America. I slowed the shutter down and just let the grass lands and fields melt by in the twilight. I grabbed this off the camera and did a quick edit on the laptop, which has never really calibrated well for me so please forgive any color issues. Obviously I’ll revisit this image when I get back to my workstation at home. Hope you like it all the same!

Also known as the “We’re driving to Missoula to put on a gallery show and hangout with a bunch of awesome friends!” road trip.

It’s Wednesday evening and I am getting the final few things in order for this trip. Sometime around 10 am tomorrow I’ll be putting a very heavy shipping crate in the back of a minivan along with a suitcase with enough clothes for 2 weeks and, of course, my camera, and then driving to Myrtle Beach to pick up Steve. I’m really looking forward to this trip and getting to spend some fun time with friends from across the country. We should be in Missoula by Monday the 1st and installing our respective pieces of the show on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday (if it even takes that long). I’ll try to keep you updated on here if I can, but I know I will definitely be on twitter/facebook via my phone during the drive so if you’re on either of those, look for info there too. My handle on twitter is @jeffreyfrench

I’ll definitely have some pictures up on here from the install and what the real piece looks like on display, so check for those on or about this time next week (wed/thur). Hopefully I’ll also get some grab shots of the reception up as well, even if only from my phone’s camera. If you’re in the area the gallery reception is from 5-8ish Friday June 5th at 216 N Higgins Ave Missoula, MT at the RMSP Gallery, and is open to the public, so stop in and say “Hi!” to Steve and myself and see what we’ve been up to.

As a side note, the work presented in this show is for sale and although Steve’s pieces will probably fit nicely on a normal sized wall in your home or office, at nearly 20ft long Hidden Lake (my piece) might not. Fear not though, for I have thought ahead and will have some 10 in x 30 in prints representing the full piece available as well ($60 each, print only, +S&H if needed), though they will not be on display. I’m bringing 15 prints with me that I will sign and have for the reception and keep at the gallery until they are all sold or the show ends. After the original 15 are sold, unsigned prints will be made available. If you’re reading this and would like a print but can’t make it to the gallery, leave a comment here and the gallery and I will arrange the sale/delivery.

* Edit – 11.27.2009: Please see this later post regarding Hidden Lake composite prints or visit the store for current pricing and availability. *

I am very excited for this show/trip/adventure and will try to share as much of it as I can, so check back!

Long story short: I will be having my very first gallery show at RMSP Gallery opening Friday, June 5th, 2009. I’ll be showing my Hidden Lake project as the main piece of my show and it will be there for June and July. I’ve yet to do anything on this scale before so as that first friday is coming up quickly, the excitement is building and the nervousness / anxiousness is growing. I’m very excited to be making the trip back to Missoula, MT for the opening, and I’m looking forward to seeing many old friends again while I’m out there. Visit my main website for more info on Hidden Lake.

Steve and I have the honor of being the first students to exhibit at the reinvented RMSP Gallery, not to mention being only their second exhibitors. Eileen Rafferty has her show, entiteld “grow” on display there during April and May, and I must say I’m a little intimidated to be following her. For more info on the gallery and the current show go here.