2019 Holiday Sale Schedule

Laughing Frog Images’ 2019 holiday sale schedule is out! 

Save 40% or more on selected days through December 25th.

Click here for days and details.

As a (very) small business, we invite you to browse our image galleries and the 2019 holiday sale schedule.  You can get someone special something special without dealing with traffic and crowds.  Or you could just treat yourself…!

We feature paper, canvas and metal prints.  We’re different from many online galleries.  We let you choose the medium,  We let you choose the size you want.  In most instances, that allows for the crop you want as well.  You can also make a color image into a black and white image with a click of your mouse! 

Frames are also available if you’d like your product to arrive ready to hang.  And yes, frames are included in the sale events.   

Note that there are variations in brightness and color calibration on devices folks use to view our galleries.  We recommend choosing auto-correction where that’s available for the most accurate print.

We also have three books currently in print for that train enthusiast you know. 

  • The Port Huron and Detroit Railroad in Color, 1982-1984 covering the last two years of the PH&D in color. 
  • The Port Huron and Detroit Railroad in Black and White, 1984 covering the last year of the PH&D in black and white.
  • Seven Days in September 1994 chronicles a seven day road trip in pursuit of trains in ME, NH, VT, PQ and NB.  Railroads include GRS (MEC), SLR, NHVT, LVR, CP, CN and VIA.  Over 2000 miles of driving and 26 rolls of film are memorialized in a book best described as things you can’t see anymore.

Click here to be taken to Laughing Frog Images and shop stress-free this holiday season.

Regardless of where you shop, we wish a safe, joyous and happy holiday season to you and yours from Laughing Frog Images.

2018 Holiday Sale Schedule

Here’s the Laughing Frog Images 2018 Holiday Sale Schedule!  We’re going to keep it simple this year – a sale within a sale, and just two sale codes.

From November 22 to December 24, save 40%* on paper prints, frames, canvas prints and metal prints.  To take advantage of our 2018 Holiday Sale, use code 2018holidays.

Ellis River above Glen Ellis Falls. Jackson, NH. White Mountain National Forest.
Ellis River above Glen Ellis Falls. Jackson, NH. White Mountain National Forest.

If you’re a pre-planner and follow schedules well, this is the sale for you this year.  From November 23 to November 26, we’re combining Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday into one event within our 2018 Holiday Sale.  Save 50%* on paper prints, frames, canvas prints and metal prints.  Use code 2018supersale.

Port Huron and Detroit Alco S-2 60 at the roundhouse.
Port Huron and Detroit Alco S-2 60 at the roundhouse.

* Please note that the discount does not apply to books, shipping, or applicable taxes.

Nevada Northern Railway Alco 2-8-0 93 on a photo freight at East Ely, Nevada.
Nevada Northern Railway Alco 2-8-0 93 on a photo freight at East Ely, Nevada

Why shop at Laughing Frog Images instead of at “the other picture place”?

We allow you to choose your medium – paper, standout, metal, or canvas.  Each makes a different statement.

We allow you to convert a color image to black and white or sepia if that’s what you want.  Each tells a different story.

We allow you to choose the size you want.  There’s nothing like seeing an image you like that’s too big or too small.

We allow you to choose the aspect ratio you want – square, rectangle, or panoramic.  Perspective and proportion can make or break an image.

Our image, your way.

If you have any questions about any of the images, or how to make a print your own, please send us an email and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

If you’re not buying for yourself, or for a gift, just forward this to “that” someone along with the link to the image you want.  It may not be a subtle hint, but it’s a hint nonetheless!

Thanks for looking, and happy shopping!

Octoberfest Sale!

It’s October, which means Octoberfest to many, and Laughing Frog Images Octoberfest sale to us!

Through October 31st, you can save 40% off everything except our books.

That’s 40% off of:

  • ready-to-hang canvas prints,
  • ready-to-hang metal prints,
  • paper prints, or,
  • framed prints.

Where will the road take you on a fine fall day? Zeeland, NH for fall foliage, perhaps?
Where will the road take you on a fine fall day? Zeeland, NH for fall foliage, perhaps?

Laughing Frog Images features a wide range of subjects for every taste, and a product for every budget.

Laughing Frog Images Octoberfest Sale is your opportunity to decorate a wall, or cover up that ugly patch you didn’t get quite right.

On a side note, we know you haven’t heard from us in a while, nor have the posts been coming on a regular basis.  The day job that makes everything possible has been quite busy the past two years  Maintaining a blog, a web gallery and store, and a social media presence are far more than I ever envisioned.  There are more galleries coming when time permits.  Time is the constraint here – it’s not will or want.  Instagram (and as a by-product, Facebook and Google+) is where I post most frequently these days, mainly because it’s convenient.  If you don’t follow Laughing Frog Images on any of those sites, I invite you do so.  And, if we can get a share out of you every once in a while, that’d certainly be appreciated as well.  I’m somewhat certain there’s a way to do everything I do for a blog post on a desktop on a mobile device – and if and when I figure it out, the blog posts will be more frequent.

Enough about that.

Click here and check out some pictures.  Relax and forget about all that’s going on for a while, and check out some leaves.  Or trains.  Or polar bears.

Most importantly, just simply enjoy!

PH&D in Black & White

I finally got around to uploading over 70 black and white images of the PH&D in black and white, and a couple of the GTW and Amtrak in Port Huron, to the galleries.

These images represent most of what is found in the Frog’s second book – “The Port Huron & Detroit Railroad in Black and White 1984“.

PH&D

I struggle with admitting that I found my black and white work to be more stirring and evocative than my color work.  I still can’t explain that to myself.  Perhaps it’s the nostalgia that black and white photography brings with it.  A connotation of times past?  I don’t really know, but it stirred me as I was scanning the negatives and working on the book.  And it still does.

I spent a great deal of time working on fixing 15+ years of less than ideal negative storage.  It wasn’t until sometime around 2000 that these negatives found a home in archival plastic pages that then made their way to binders for flat storage.  They’re still not perfect.  As I mention in the gallery commentary, if you want to order a certain image, and notice that there’s something I missed, please let me know and I’ll fix it and report the image.  I just reached a point where it became apparent to me that some people really want to see these images, and they can’t do that if they’re stuck on my computer.

As I write this, I’m looking at the image above and there’s a part of me saying “get rid of that pole and the wires above the engine!”  I don’t know why that thought came to me now.  And there’s a part of me saying “but that’s not how it was – so just leave it alone!”  And that’s the part of me that’s winning.   All of that said, if there’s anyone that does want the pole removed to make this “THE” PH&D in black and white image for you – let me know and I will take it out (and add a disclaimer to the caption for the sake of being honest!).

All of that said, as I look at the picture more, it occurs to me that there is so much in this image that speaks.

The trackage itself tells a story – these are the roundhouse leads.  The wood-sided buildings.  Old naked ties where there once was a track.  The PH&D main fading off into the distance.  The Detroit Edison power plant in Marysville off in the distance (it’s gone now).  And then, there’s the main subject.  ALCo S-2 # 60 and her caboose.  There’s the last light of the day softly and evenly highlighting the details on the 60.  The pole hanging by the cab speaks of an earlier time, but the “No Foot-Board” reminders and rotary beacon on the cab pull us into the 1980’s.

I didn’t get all of what this picture said 31 years ago.  I’m not sure I get all of what it says now.  If I keep going, I might test the saying that a picture does in fact say a thousand words.  But that might bore you.

So, I’ll stop now and invite you to check out the Port Huron and Detroit in black and white as seen in 1984 on Laughing Frog Images.

Half of all profits on products from the PH&D galleries go to the Port Huron and Detroit Railroad Historical Society to support all that they do. 

For each PH&D book sold through Laughing Frog Images or our CreateSpace Store, $5.oo is donated to the PH&DRRHS.

PH&D books at PH&DRRHS HoboFest

The Port Huron and Detroit Railroad Historical Society will have the both of the Frog’s books – “Port Huron and Detroit Railroad and Connections in Color, 1982-1984” and the “Port Huron and Detroit Railroad in Black and White, 1984” – available at their 2015 HoboFest, September 11-12 2015.

All proceeds from the books available at HoboFest go to the Society for their maintenance, restoration and preservation activities.

HoboFest event details can be found by clicking here.  The Society also has a webpage and Facebook page.

These books are the first two creations in the “Through My Lens” series, and show the PH&D as I saw it from my first visit in 1982 until the last run on December 13, 1984.

To the best of my knowledge, these are the only two books ever published that focus on the PH&D.

2015-08-24_7-02-52 proof cover 480

The color book includes images of the PH&D from Tappan Tower to St. Clair, as well as the GTW, CN, and Chessie System (C&O/PM) in Port Huron.

The black and white book also covers the line from Tappan Tower to Sr. Clair and features photographs from the cab of PH&D Alco S-2 #60 and caboose #62 on a St. Clair run.  Also included are topographic maps of the PH&D with photo locations, PH&D forms and a look at train orders from the Grand Trunk Western.  Way back when, paper, not computers and smartphones ran the railroads, and it’s not often you can see how things used to be.

Can’t make HoboFest, but you still want the books (as only a complete set will do)?

The books are available at Laughing Frog Images (click the “Get Our Books!” link at the top of the page) and CreateSpace.  For each book purchased through Laughing Frog Images or CreateSpace Laughing Frog Images will make a $5.00 donation per book to the PH&DRRHS.

The book is also available on Amazon, but due to the associated costs of selling through Amazon, there is no donation made to the Society.

 

 

PH&D in Color Published!

The Frog is finally pleased and able to announce that The Port Huron & Detroit Railroad and Connections in Color 1982-1984 is officially in print and available via Laughing Frog Images and the Laughing Frog Images CreateSpace estore!

This book has been in the making for over 30 years – at least in my mind!  Way back on the last day of the PH&D in December of 1984, the notion that I would be able to scan my PH&D slides at 5000dpi, use software to help compensate for shooting in bad lighting and for my primitive abilities with Kodachrome 64, and self-publish a book was beyond imagination.

PH&D in Color cover proof image 480

This project started out with the intention of being a fine-art book, with a hard cover and printed on high-gloss paper.  As the project grew, so did the price.  While my intentions were noble, it became apparent that I might not purchase my own book because it was so expensive!  So, the project went on hiatus while I searched for a new publishing option.

The passing of the PH&D didn’t get much notice.  Keep in mind that this was back in the days without the internet, without message boards, without email, and cell phones.  So, in a way, this story has never been told.  Telling the story in a way that is accessible to anyone is important to me. And the research continued.

I finally found a publisher that offered a way to tell the story in color and at a price that most everyone could afford. Granted, I had to give up the hard cover and high-gloss paper – it’s a soft cover book on trade paper (and the photo reproduction challenges that go with it), but the story could finally be told.  Naturally, the project that I’d started was in a format that was not compatible with CreateSpace, so I had to start all over again.

And here we are on April 18.

After more digital proofs than I care to think about, and several physical proofs, it’s finally “real”.  I have learned a new appreciation for editors and proof readers, as every time I reviewed a proof, I found something else.  I have now either found everything, or looked at the book so much that I’m blind to any remaining errors.  Somehow, I know when I receive my print copy, something is going to jump out at me…

For the people of the PH&D that I got to know from 1982 to 1984, those still with us, and those who have passed, I am pleased to share with you The Port Huron & Detroit Railroad and Connections in Color from 1982 to 1984.

PH&D Collages added!

For the 30th anniversary of the end of the PH&D as we knew it, I created five PH&D collages as viewed through my lenses and captured on Kodachrome from 1982-1984.

Four versions of the PH&D collages were donated to and auctioned off at the December 2014 meeting of the Port Huron and Detroit Railroad Historical Society to help them in their fundraising efforts.

Now, all five are available on Laughing Frog Images in the Port Huron and Detroit Color Collages gallery.  Any of them will print in full in 2×3 format – any other ratio will result in cropping.

As with the main Port Huron and Detroit in Color gallery, half of the profits from this gallery will be donated to the PH&D HS.

If you don’t purchase a PH&D product from Laughing Frog Images, please visit their page, and consider joining or making a donation to assist them in bringing Alco S-1 #52 home!

 

Port Huron & Detroit in color, 1982-84

I discovered the Port Huron & Detroit Railroad with a forgotten cohort in July of 1982.

An Alco-powered shortline in Michigan, the Port Huron & Detroit was something new to me.  Alco switchers were all but gone in Western Pennsylvania. And the folks there put up with, educated, tolerated, and supported a young railroad photographer.

1984_04_25_PHD_image049 al

I was shooting Kodachrome 64 – each slide cost me just shy of a quarter for film, postage and processing. I was making $4-5 dollars an hour through various summer enterprises. And I lived about 300 miles away.  30+ years later, I wish I’d shot more… I have too many memories of the people that made the railroad what it was, and too few pictures of them.

Back then, I was still mastering Kodachrome, let along photography in general.  After working the scanner for hours, it’s been hours of cleaning, editing, and fixing.  The PH&D gallery can be found on Laughing Frog Images by clicking here.

I made several trips to the Port Huron & Detroit through the end of the railroad’s time shooting black and white and color (that’s how you had to do it back then – no click of a mouse in a software program like there is these days!).  In December of 1984, the Port Huron & Detroit was purchased by CSX.  I still keep in touch with a couple former employees. Doesn’t seem like 30 years ago…

The Frog is working on a black and white Port Huron & Detroit gallery – hopefully it will be up before Thanksgiving.

Port Huron was also served by the Grand Trunk Western and Chessie System (former Chesapeake and Ohio, and before that, Pere Marquette).  The Chessie line was still referred to as the “PM”, and had a carfloat operation to Sarnia, Ontario that I never shot…  (Yes, I regret it – but the lighting was bad in the morning, and by the time the light came around, I was chasing the PH&D.)  You could drive in to the Trunk’s engine facility, check in – and as long as you stayed off of the tracks and engines – and didn’t do anything stupid, all was well.  Look for future blog posts and galleries from these railroads I came to know because of the PH&D.

The Port Huron & Detroit Railroad Historical Society’s Facebook Page can be found here.

Half of all profits from this gallery will be donated to the Port Huron & Detroit Historical Society.