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Week 8
Week 8
bassbone


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Collection: 2012 PAW
Camera: Apple iPhone 4
Location: Brownsville VT
Date: Feb 18, 2012
Galleries: Camera Phones
Date Uploaded: Feb 19, 2012

Viewed: 347
Comments: 7
Favorites: 0

 Hipstamatic
-John S lens
-Float film

For those of you wondering, this is a maple sap bucket attached to a sugar maple tree. This is the old standard method of collecting sap, hanging buckets with covers on taps that extract the sap as is flows. The covered bucket is pretty standard up here, used to avoid snow and rain to get to the sap. To collect the sap, closer to water than anything else with only a small amount of the maple sugar, you generally need cold nights below freezing and warmer days. During the day, starch stored in the roots for the winter rises through the trunk as sugary sap, allowing it to be tapped. Sap is not tapped at night because the temperature drop inhibits sap flow, although taps are typically left in place overnight February and March are ideal times in Vermont for this, with the cold nights and the warm days.

You actually don't see the sap buckets very often anymore, since most modern maple syrup 'factories' hook all the trees up to an intricate system of tubing in the woods and collect the sap at a low spot. It works great, but is less nostalgic than the old maple sap bucket here.

From what I recall, it takes about 40-50 gallons of sap to give one gallon of the finished maply syrup....that is a lot of boiling!

Yeah...the road. Vermont has those stinkers (mostly two laners that wind along stream) all over the place and my goal of the challenge is to take a SINGLE image every week with the intent of entering in the PAW. This was the shot. Yep, I have a better one that I took after the fact, but this is the one I needed to enter.

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AuthorThread
Nikon D3000
Nikon AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6G ED
 02/22/2012 12:32:27 PM
Ooh, this is a marvelous capture of the sap-collecting process. Nicely done!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-5D Mark III
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM
 02/19/2012 07:25:29 PM
I like the colour tone here and the dark frame. Interesting shot and thanks for the story. Michele
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS R5 Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L IS
 02/19/2012 06:20:05 PM
that green hue is not unpleasant.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D800
Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX APO IF HSM for Nikon
 02/19/2012 04:25:15 PM
As a non North American all I see is a tin contraption tied to the tree next to a road. However I am curious as to what it is and the camera used. Is all photography meant to be pin sharp and mind blowing or is it meant to be a magic recording device?
I absolutely love the retro classic feel, the slide style frame, the odd almost separating tones (CA) which are a trademark of the Hipstamatic mimicry of old disposable cameras. Amazing what can be done with a cell phone these days. Thank you for breaking the monotony of crisp sharp and DPC eye candy and the education. Maple Syrup. Well I never...

Message edited by author 2012-02-19 16:49:06.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Fujifilm X-T30
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
 02/19/2012 02:20:59 PM
I like the processing very much...overall a good shot. The subject is less compelling to me than if I could see where the sap is being drained...Perhaps it's just having the protective hood over it which hides the typical "view" I would expect to see.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-550D Rebel T2i
Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM
 02/19/2012 01:48:39 PM
Very nice feel in this image; brings back memories of time in vermont. I agree with sfalice about the road though..
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon PowerShot SX60 HS
 02/19/2012 01:22:43 PM
Ohhh. can it be a maple syrup tree?
Nice story telling shot. Would have been super if you could have found an angle to eliminate that b'ground road.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
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