One of my favourite weeks of the year is our annual pilgrimage to Craftsbury Sculling Camp in Vermont. This time I brought copious amounts of Kodak film, so please join me to find out why this is one of the best places in the world to row!
Every June we prepare for our trip to deepest Vermont for another installation of the 6 day Sculling Camp at the one and only Craftsbury Outdoor Center. This being our 5th year in a row, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to document our experience by shooting lots (and lots) of film.
The Craftsbury experience
The Craftsbury Outdoor Center is set alongside the Great Hosmer Pond, a c.2 mile long lake that has the best conditions for single sculling you will ever find, probably anywhere. It could be a tad longer, but with such an idyllic setting, we aren't complaining. The Center has been around for a while too, since 1976 to be precise. It is run as a not-for-profit, focusing on rowing, nordic skiing, biathlon and running. The Sculling Camp season runs from about May to September, with skiing related camps running through the winter months. You can find out more about Craftsbury Outdoor Center here.
To give you an idea where Craftsbury is, check out the map below. My trip involves flying from Frankfurt to London to meet my brother, Eoin, then London to Boston. After that a short 1 hour drive to Manchester, New Hampshire, where we spend the night. We travel the remaining 3 hours the next day. The camp runs Sunday afternoon to Friday morning and involves 14 (yes, fourteen!) sculling sessions - a rower's dream for sure! More on the specifics of the sculling programme here.
There's something very special Craftsbury Sculling Camp, its location provides some of the flattest and best water you will ever find, and it is very disconnected from busy city life (forget strong telephone signals or televisions), giving you a chance to truly relax and focus fully on the wonderful sport that is rowing. Adding to that are world class training facilities, some of the best food you will ever eat, and a real sense of community and focus on health through sport. Come join me to explore a week at Craftsbury Sculling Camp through the eyes of my film cameras (as always all photos are clickable for full screen view).
As some of you fellow 'Craftsbury campers' are likely to see this post, feel free to drop me a line for the full size shots (and these are only a selection, I have plenty more).
Craftsbury Outdoor Center is located up towards Canada and is nestled between the deep forests and rolling hills of Vermont.
A note on the film selected
I picked Kodak's Portra 160 because I figured its low ISO would be good for the summer bright weather (although the weather can be quite changeable the week we go), and it is a great film for portraits and people shots. I actually shot this film already back in Week 3 of this project, but that was experimenting with an old camera and I didn't get many shots to fully review it. Plus, you absolutely cannot go wrong with Kodak's Portra line of film, so I was excited to see what shots it would produce. I packed both 35mm and 120mm film, with my hand luggage consisting of only my camera gear! Of course, I was here to scull and not just take photographs, but that being said, I still managed to shoot 7 rolls of film!
Still very much 'The Queen of the Skies' - our 747 plane for Boston.
Familiar surroundings and officially the entrance to the Center.
Calm waters. Shot from inside the boathouse. I really like how this film depicts the green colours of the trees. As with all films, it is hard to shoot in the harsh light of midday.
The Boathouse from the outside, with more single sculls than you will ever see in one place, I can guarantee you that!
My twin brother Eoin in action - look at the 'pop' on this photograph! That's my Hasselblad camera with its medium format film in action!
Another outing finished.
I really like how the greens come out. This was taken during the 11 am outing session, so very bright conditions to shoot in.
And before you ask, no I did not take these shots from my sculling boat (have you not seen how big a Hasselblad is?!). Water shots taken aboard a coaching launch with the always entertaining coach Julia.
The far end of the Great Hosmer Pond. There's Bob in the background, who gave us twins more than a run for our money on the water.
And there is a good reason for that - he wiped the floor with us at the Head of the Hosmer race (held every Thursday - a Head race the length of the lake). Well done Bob - we will have our revenge next year (or sabotage your boat, one of the two!).
View of the lake from the dining hall. The food at Craftsbury is also a reason people keep on returning, lots of it is grown on-site and the rest is brought in from farms across Vermont.
Monday Cheese & Wine night, with local Vermont cheeses.
A view from the pontoon. On the right is our Cabin B - any closer to the waterfront and we'd be in the water!
A typical scene at the end of an outing. The weekly sculling camps have up to 35 'campers'. We are lucky that our week has an unusual amount of repeat customers, 22 this year. It's nice to catch-up with the same people and coaches every year. Oh, and it looks like someone decided to take a dip in the lake below!
Wonderful Concept 2 sculling oars. Every sculling boat has 2 oars - so times 60 boats makes a lot of oars!
If you ever needed a reason to come to Craftsbury, this is it! Total calm towards the end of another busy day. My lower ISO film struggled a bit with the lighting here, but at least the reflection is nice!
Wes, aka 'Captain America', getting ready for another outing.
A solitary coach Kevin rowing for home. This photo is heavily cropped from the original, as I was quite far away, and I am amazed as to how clear it still is - that's medium format photography for you!
Coach Will giving a Dock talk demonstration. Every day at 11 am, a different coach provides practical overviews of the rowing stroke. Look at how bright the image is - you just cannot go wrong with Kodak Portra film, one of my favourite shots of the week!
Attentive campers.
We also do video review sessions. That's my brother Eoin on screen.
The pizza oven roaring and ready to go. Look at how bright the yellow and orange colours are from the fire - very cool.
Beginner's learning to get back into the boat, with other scullers returning from an outing in the background. Harsh colours in a very bright day. This film likely works better away from the sun and during the early morning or late afternoon, where the light is a bit softer.
Oh, and you can learn how to stand up in a boat too!
Another great shot - look how bright the colours are...with that wonderful blurry 'bokeh' effect (more on 'bokeh' here)
Nice concentration rowing down the lake between the trees.
A shot of rowers coming through the 'Narrows'.
A very happy Coach Julia - what a great shot, this is why Portra 160 works so well for portraits, just great colour and skin tones.
Eoin in action again.
It's not hard to see why we keep coming back...
Jim after finishing another outing. I really like how balanced the colours are with this Portra 160 film.
In case you needed evidence to show we were in Vermont...!
Down in Crafstbury Common I came across this shot and I really couldn't resist...welcome to the USA!
A quintessential American scene.
Time for some late afternoon fishing.
The sculling Armada. Curiously, the greens are much darker on the 35mm version of this film.
Another great outing finished.
Happiness and relaxation after another successful completion of a week at Craftsbury Sculling camp.
Overall observations
I have never been let down by Kodak's other Portra film varieties (400 & 800), so I was delighted the shots came back as consistent as they did. Whilst I think this film is designed more for pure portrait photography, it produced some excellent rowing shots. Even with the very harsh light, where I probably shouldn't have taken any shots, it still produced acceptable results. I can certainly recommend this film, and I will absolutely stock more of it for some portrait sessions I plan to do in future.
The 35mm version of this film has a very distinct 'film look' to it, which I really like. The 120mm medium format version seemed to pack more of a punch, with the photos really producing that amazing 'pop' to them.
And if you wonder why it is that around January time I start to get very excited about the prospect of going back to Craftsbury in June, the shots above are fully explanatory!
So there you have it, being able to combine rowing and photography in a week long session - it doesn't get much better than that! And if I am able to get so excited about photographing my hobbies, so are you - so get on out there and start taking some photographs!
I have a backlog of other Weeks ready to go, as I spent the last few weeks taking lots of photographs, which meant more time away from the computer. Plenty of cool films to come including a limited edition Lomography film and a variety of new and classic black and white films - so keep tuned!
'Til next time,
Neil
