Winter Theme at Green Lake

February 05, 2025  •  Leave a Comment

There are plenty of opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors here in Orchard Park and they are right at our finger tips. Up on the hill south of the village the Chestnut Ridge Park is the big one. East of the village Birdsong Park is another wonderful place to escape the civilization. But even right in the village Yates Park is beautiful in all seasons.

Winter at Green Lake, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYWinter at Green LakeYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Winter at Green Lake, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

It's 2 miles on foot for me to get to the park and we have integrated Yates Park into our walks for a while. Sometimes, it serves as the turnaround point and we circle around before heading back. Other times, we pass by and then complete the circle on the return leg of our walks. That all depends on how much time we have on our hands to keep on walking.

Green Lake Gazebo, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake GazeboYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake Gazebo, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

Other times, Green Lake and Yates Park become my destination, especially when I plan on enjoying its beauty with a camera in my hand. I can easily spend an hour or more having fun here and that does not work too well with a non-photographer buddy tagging along. For these occasions I prefer to come alone. I don't feel bad slowing anyone else down and they're not driven crazy by my slow pace forward. But really, what does forward really mean in this case? Is it the progress in a certain direction? Is it the number of steps taken? Is it the number of frames captured? Or is it simply time spent enjoying the location? I bet that if you've ever accompanied a crazy photographer like me you get the idea.

Warm Water at Green Lake, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYWarm Water at Green LakeYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Warm Water at Green Lake, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

This post is based on photos from a single outing to Yates Park on a beautiful sunny winter's day. Sunny weather is quite rare here in Orchard Park, NY (and Buffalo or the whole Western New York in general) and when it happens it's great to take advantage of it. The timing was on my side and I was able to take an hour around noon to walk around, observe, enjoy, and find scenes to capture.

Green Lake South Shore, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake South ShoreYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake South Shore, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

I put on high winter boots to be able to walk through the almost knee deep snow, drove to the park, and started my mission to find 36 perfect photos for a whole roll of black and white film. Specifically, I wanted to use one of two of my expired rolls of Ilford PanF Plus 50 film. While I had used the film before and liked the results I somehow did not reach for the rolls in several years. I prefer 400 speed film as it gives me more options for handholding even with an orange or red filter attached to the lens, effectively bringing my EV to 100.

Green Lake Bench is Occupied, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake Bench is OccupiedYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake Bench is Occupied, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

I knew Ilford PanF has one specific quirk. While it is perfectly fine being a few years expired it suffers from amnesia. It is strongly recommended that it be developed promptly after exposing it, otherwise the captured moments fade almost like human memories. That's a paradox, isn't it? Photography is often said to preserve fleeting moments for eternity. With Ilford PanF it better be developed soon or that eternity becomes fairly short. I can't attest to this personally as I don't create long backlogs of film to be developed and I was not going to test it on this occasion. Thus, the goal was to finish the whole rolll so that I could develop it without worrying about the images disappearing like the moments in time.

Wide View of Green Lake, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYWide View of Green LakeYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Wide View of Green Lake, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

There were no tracks anywhere. While that is usually the case it still always surprises me. Such a wonderful area, so many sights to be had, yet, no one came to enjoy them? That's ok, I didn't mind and I came prepared with my boots. I circled around carefully to be able to frame some of my photographs with only that pristine undisturbed snow, while later including my own tracks in the photographs for different looks. I really liked this approach as it gives the photographs a different mood.

Green Lake Gazebo with a Hat, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake Gazebo with a HatYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake Gazebo with a Hat, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

Overall, I photograph a lot more on the north side of Green Lake. This time, I switched the pace a bit, took a few initial pictures heading towards the bridge, crossed over, and focused on the south shore first. I repeated some of my past compositions there too but also found some new ones. And the generous amount of snow provided for new opportunities. Once satisfied and soundly into the second half of the roll I crossed back to the north shore and finished the roll there.

Green Lake in White, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake in WhiteYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake in White, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

I had my 24mm lens mounted on the camera and focused on wide landscape photos. To darken the sky a bit I had orange filter attached. I really like that approach all year round but especially. in winter it nicely separates the white snow covered ground from the sky. Otherwise it might all get just too white, too blank. Since Ilford PanF is an ISO 50 speed film and the orange filter cuts further 2 stops of light I was at 1/60 second and f/8. I did not meter a single photo on the whole roll and went with this Sunny 16 based calculation the whole time. Id served me well in the past and yet again this day.

Green Lake Winter Theme, A Stump, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake Winter Theme, A StumpYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake Winter Theme, A Stump, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

Another successful approach might be using an incident meter as opposed to reflective, which may be rather challenging with all of that snow around. I find that going with incident readings works very well with negative films that have a pretty good leeway towards overexposure. However, since this was a nice bright sunny day and midday too, the light was constant and there really was no reason to meter for each photo. Thus the good old Sunny 16. I did the simple math once at the beginning, set my manual exposure on the dials and not worried about it. That freed me to focus on composition instead of fiddling with the technology.

Green Lake Winter Theme, Buried Stump, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake Winter Theme, Buried StumpYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake Winter Theme, Buried Stump, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

As you can see I finished the outing with some close ups of the winter scenes. With the 24mm lens that meant getting really, really close. And every time I thought I was close enough I had to crawl closer. I was down on my knees glad I came prepared for it in ski pants. A longer lens might have saved me the crawling in the snow but getting closer comes with a different perspective and I enjoyed it. Nothing wrong being a kid again and playing in snow, right?

Green Lake Winter Theme, Snow Capped Stump, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NYGreen Lake Winter Theme, Snow Capped StumpYates Park, Orchard Park, NY

Green Lake Winter Theme, Snow Capped Stump, Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY
Photographed with a 35mm Nikon FE Camera on Ilford PanF Plus 50 Black & White Negative Film, Developed in Rollei Supergrain

So that is it, a roll of 37 exposures full of new memories, camera packed in the bag, and I am heading home with the plan of developing and scanning the roll soon to prevent the PanF amnesia. And of course, I hope to take some of these to the darkroom and preserving them on paper rather than in bits on my hard drive and the World Wide Web.

35 mm Nikon FE film camera, Ilford PanF Plus 50 black and white negative filmNikon FE, Ilford PanF Plus 50 How do you preserve your photos for "eternity"? What is your goal with your photographs? Do you care what happens with the pictures once you're not around? Should they outlast us by at least a few years? A generation? Or two maybe? I am afraid not.

Thank you very much for stopping by and spending a few minutes with my photography. If you have something to say about any of it, please, drop me a note via the guestbook functionality, I would love to read what others think. I know blogs are a mostly one-way monologue but the guestbook does allow for a two-way interaction, even if underutilized.

Enjoy The Beauty That Surrounds You! #etbtsy

Do you enjoy reading my photography blog? Would you like to see more photographs from Buffalo and Western New York? Visit my Buffalo Cityscapes and Buffalo & Western New York Landscapes and enjoy! For more travel photography, my Travel Photography gallery offers an interesting mix of places all around. And for more black and white photography hop over to the World without Color photo collection.

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