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Although I took nearly 300 photographs at the 2013 Mark Twain conference, I'm afraid they don't cover a very broad range of people and subjects. My Nikon DSLR's loud shutter noise (which I have since learned can be silenced) made me hesitant about causing distractions in meetings, and I grew tired of lugging the camera around. Consequently, I took few pictures in conference sessions and at meals and other gatherings. Many of the pictures I did take were of the same people, including one prominent scholar who threatened to bean me after I had taken more than 30 consecutive pictures of her (my new camera's 4 frames/second feature gives me a dangerous sense of empowerment). In the interest of avoiding future beanings, none of those pictures is posted here, even though some of them look very good. Such is the role of violence in literary studies. Another reason I wasn't moved to take more pictures of the campus and Quarry Farm was that I had spent five days in Elmira in May, when I took hundreds of photographs--a few of which I'm posting here. Incidentally, I've been to Elmira seven times now, and I've never seen the campus and Quarry Farm grounds look more beautiful than they were this past spring. Some day I must go there in the fall. Winter, I'm not so sure about. I did see some tiny snowflakes at the farm in May, but I probably wouldn't have realized it was snow if Abby and Tim Morgan hadn't told me. (I'm from Southern California, where the word "snow" has a different meaning.)
If I've mis-identified anyone in the pictures, please let me know.
Kent Rasmussen
(If the images are slow to come up, press your computer's reset key--F5 on PCs.)
Mark Twain welcoming conference attendees in the college library building.
Elmira College campus in May.
Meier Hall, the wonderful air-conditioned dormitory, in May.
Discussion after Mark Dawidziak, Hugh Davis, Tom Reigstad, and Debra Cochran's session.
Kevin Mac Donnell on his "Mark Twain" pen name discovery.
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