This was taken on a wonderful overcast day in Brooksville, Maine on some land recently donated to the Blue Hill Heritage Trust.
Unfortunately, I mistakingly left my tripod at home, and this image was handheld ISO 800 for 1/30 second at f/10.
Super Wedding
A former physics student of mine (Tony Lucchese) and his fiance (Sarah LaFore) hired me to photograph their wedding. They met on the theatrical stage and staged a superhero themed wedding in which Tony was Superman, and Sarah was Wonder Woman. The wedding party consisted of various super heroes and amazons. This photo is from the rehearsal the day before the actual wedding, but I liked the dramatic lighting. You can read more about the wedding at Tony and Sarah’s wedding blog at http://super-wedding.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
Sunset Paddle
I took a short sunset paddle tonight in Frenchman Bay. I’ve never photographed while paddling, but I decided to try to get over my inhibition about mixing salt water with photography. I’m still nervous while attempting to photograph while paddling—even though it was calm when I went out. I’m constantly paranoid I am going to drop the camera or capsize as compose a photo.
Little Cranberry Island
Here are a few photos from a day trip to Little Cranberry Island, Maine. On the south shore of the island, there is an amazing 2 km long beach littered with small smoothed stones polished from many tidal cycles.
The Bubbles
The view of the bubbles from the south end of Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park. A great place to end a hike—they have fantastic tea and popovers, and kids can run around on the lawn and rumpus. This photo was taken with a Canon G10 on a tripod while I stood in the middle of the pond to get this perspective.
Starfish
At low tide, there are hundreds of these starfish on the barnacle encrusted rocks in Hancock, Maine. I’ve read (in a book by Thorton W. Burgess) that a single arm of a starfish can re-grow an entire new starfish. How does that happen? Wouldn’t that mean that the starfish’s arm has to first grow a new stomach so that it can gather food for what must be a pretty seriously energy intensive re-building process?
Fort Knox, ME
I’m a little delinquent on updates, even though I’ve been shooting almost every day for the last few weeks. This photo is from inside Fort Knox in Prospect, Maine. Since I didn’t have much time (the “three F’s” again!), I handheld this at ISO 1600. I could spend hours back here with a tripod making photos someday…
Daisies
Are the daisies out early this year in Maine? In any case, they are all over in the fields now, and I spent a good 45 minutes looking through the viewfinder till this composition struck me as pleasing.
Waiting for Pizza
While waiting to pick up pizza, I took a quick drive along Blue Hill Bay, and made this image of a rowboat tied up in the bay.
The three f’s of Photography
A few weeks ago, I visited the two Maine Huts that the August MaineSight workshop will be located at. I had the good fortune to meet John and Cindy Orcutt, who were caretaking at the Flagstaff Lake Hut. John is an Architect (and excellent Photographer!) and Cindy is a Landscape Architect, and together, they designed the Flagstaff lake hut and its grounds. John gave me a personal tour of the good photographic spots in and around Flagstaff Lake. John and Cindy also told be about a funny but true aphorism they called the “three f’s of Photography”.
These are the three things (that begin with the letter ‘f’) that get in the way of outdoor photographers: Food, Family, and Friends. As nature photographers, we want to be outside when there is the best light—sunrise and sunset—and this is usually around the time we want to eat some food: breakfast and dinner. Getting up early, means that if your family is along, taking care of kids also interferes—or at least means that your spouse has to be willing to take over that role. And friends, well, they want to stay up and visit with us, and you’ve got to go to sleep early to get up before sunrise.
Fortunately, sunrise is pretty darn early in Maine at this time of the year, and breakfast doesn’t really interfere. Here’s a photograph I snuck at 6 am this past weekend when my family was up visiting family and friends in Blue Hill, Maine:
