Best Time To Be At The Beach.......

This is what I did on my birthday last week.

No Photo But.....

I haven’t taken many photos this summer but I went kayaking on Merrymeeting Bay while I was on vacation back in June. I brought my video camera with me and got the video edited and posted to Youtube the other day. Check it out here: Kayaking on Merrymeeting Bay.

Patiently Waiting...

My bearded irises are in full bloom right now and they attract some interesting visitors.

Night Time Sentry....

I came up with the idea to shoot this image last year but before I did I saw a photo like it on someone else's website. I didn't want it to seem like I was copying an unoriginal idea so I never took the photograph. This year I reconsidered because even though it's the same subect, everyone has there own way of seeing things. Last Monday after work I drove to Land's End to take the picture. This is a blend of two images, one with the lens focused at infinity for the milkyway and the second focused on the statue. For the statue I used live view and zoomed in on the head and by lighting it up with my flashlight I was able to see to get a sharp focus. Both exposures were 30 seconds at f2.8, there's a building right behind me and behind the building there was a street light providing enough ambient light to illuminate the statue.

Splish Splash....

One Of My Favorite Places...

Sabattus River is one of my favorite places to photograph. It doesn't matter how many times I go there I always find something new to take a picture of.

Complimentary Colors...

I took this photo yesterday in my flower garden.

Shine On....

The moon rising over the Cribwork Bridge in Harpswell. This bridge was built in 1927 and is the only one of its kind in the world, the gaps in the stones allow for the ebb and flow of the tides.

Spring Blossom....

Last weekend I took a walk on the Papermill Trail in Lisbon Falls and discovered huge masses of trout lilies but they were unopened. I went back on Wednesday morning thinking they may have started blooming, but again, nothing but buds. The weather has been cool and rainy all week so maybe that has something to do with it. I'll check them out this weekend to see if they're progressed any further. I did find this marsh marigold in bloom.

Unexpected Snow....

Tuesday morning we had an unexpected snow storm enter the area so I went out and took some images of my snow covered daffodils. The snow had melted by the next day.

Happy Earth Day!

From the Past...

I have thousands and thousands of photographs that either sit on a hard drive or are in a filing cabinet in slide form. A very small percentage have seen the light of day, I decided to change that. Recently I've started working on a 30 year retrospective book project and I've been going through my archives, here is one the photos I found taken on Fuji Velvia film. I used to be obsessed with macro photography but in recent years I've strayed away from that, I think it's about time to go back to my roots.

Something Different...

A couple of weeks ago Google announced they were making the Nik software suite free to download. You can't beat free so I downloaded the software and here is one of the first images I processed using Silver Fx Pro. This image was made by opening up Silver Fx and just playing around with it. There are a lot of how to videos on Youtube that cover the use of all the different aspects of the Nik suite, I plan on watching some so I can take full advantage of the program.

Clouds on The Move.......

This image shows why I wasn't able to get a clear photograph of the milkyway during my last visit to Popham, which would've been behind me. This is facing west and the glow on the horizon are the lights of Cape Elizabeth and Portland. Even though they're miles away the long exposure really makes them show up, the 30 second exposure also causes the clouds to streak as they head east.

A Little Later, Fire on The Coast....

This image was taken a little while after the photo I posted last week.

Pre Sunrise on The Coast...

Here’s another example of when sometimes plans don’t go according to plan. Last Sunday I drove to Popham Beach for 3 AM hoping to get photos of the milkyway over Fox Island. Well, despite clear skies when I left the house there was a thin cloud cover at the coast. I did spend a couple of hours photographing the night sky because stars were still visible, I just couldn’t clearly see the milkyway. It was almost 5 AM when I decided to call it quits on the stars but figured there might be some potential for a good sunrise. The clock sprung ahead that morning so the sun was not due to rise until almost 7 AM. I went back to the car to kill some time, I wanted to be back on the beach by 6 because on the coast, the sky starts to brighten at least an hour before the sun actually gets above the horizon (nautical twilight). This is the first image I took after walking back to the beach. It was still very dark and I could see no color in the sky with the naked eye. I exposed for 30 seconds at f/8, ISO 400 figuring I'd get a blue hour type of image but this is what showed up on my display after exposure. I knew then I made the right decision to hang around and my guess for a good sunrise was correct. I spent the next hour taking photos of the sky as it really lit up, this is one of those times where I was glad I decided to hang around.

First Spring Flower...

Most folks don't really think of the pussywillow as a flower but that's what it is and usually the first one to appear in late winter. This was taken after a night of rain.

One More From Pemaquid Point...

Here's one more image from my first trip to Pemaquid Lighthouse. I got lucky and a shooting star went through the photo during exposure.

One Scene, Two Ways...

Here's a shot of the Nezinscot River done in color and black and white.

Pemaquid Revisited....

After looking at my photos from Pemaquid last week, I wasn't totally satisfied, I knew I could do better. I thought about it all week and envisioned the type of photograph I wanted to take. My original plan was to go early Sunday morning but the below zero temps kinda put a damper on that so I decided to go Monday morning. Well, the temps didn't warm up at all but the sky conditions were right for the image I wanted. I have two apps on my iPad, Sky Walk and The Photographer's Ephemeris that show all the features of the night sky and where they'll be at certain times of the day and times of the year. Normally the milkyway is photographed during the new moon because moon light will wash out the stars. This particular day the quarter moon set at 12:30 AM so I knew there wouldn't be that extra light to deal with. My two apps showed the milkyway would rise shortly before 4 AM and this time of year it's low in the sky in the east, just above the horizon. I got up at 2:30 AM and hit the road, it was 10 below zero F. This is one of the images I took, It's a combination of 5 five photos combined in Photoshop to make the panorama. Monday morning was the first time I had a battery stop working because of the cold, luckily I had just bought a spare so I was able to exchange it and keep on clicking. By the time I got home shortly before 7 AM the temp had dropped to 15 below, I'm so glad I had hand warmers. It's hard to make out in this picture, but the sub zero temperatures created plenty of sea smoke. The base exposure for the combined images was 30 secs. at F2.8 and ISO 3200. The camera sees more stars in the sky then you can with your naked eye.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse.....

Back in the 80's and 90's when I was active in the local camera club, one of the rules for entering a nature competition was the photograph could not show the "hand of man." Any photo with something man made in it would not qualify in the nature competition category, even cultivated garden flowers would be a no no. With the blog name being Maine Nature Photos, I've tried to stick to those guidelines when posting photos but this isn't a competition so I don't need to stick to strict rules. A good example is today's photo, a man made object in a natural setting, it may not qualify in a nature competition but I still think it's appealing. Pemaquid Point is one of the iconic, and oft photographed lighthouses in Maine, but this was actually the first time I ever photographed it.

Staying With the Bird Theme for Now....

The Maine state bird is very photogenic.

Baby Got Back Two....

This baby loon is getting a nice protected ride on its mothers back.

Another Backyard Bird...

This female Downy woodpecker came to visit my suet feeder but landed on a nearby tree before going to the suet.

3 Seconds to React....

This is my favorite photo I took in 2015. I made it last February and didn't post it till now because I saved it as one of my calendar exclusives. The two chickadees posed together on this fallen deer antler for maybe three seconds before the top one flew off.

Acadia Sunset....

Here’s another from last autumns Acadia trip. The first evening there I was photographing by Thunder Hole but I really didn’t like the photos I was getting, the sky was kind of gray and there were a lot of people milling about. I packed up my gear and headed out on The Loop road. I hadn’t driven for 10 minutes when I noticed the sky starting to light up. I pulled off into the first turn off which happened to be Otter Point, by this time the sky was on fire. I hurried and got the camera gear back out and rushed down the trail from the parking lot to the actual point. When I got everything set up and started taking photographs this was the only color left in the sky. Lesson learned, get to a place early and stick it out.

Solitude Can Be Found......

Acadia National Park can be a very busy place during the fall, making this image was the only time I had the whole area to myself. It shows that it is possible to find solitude in one of the busiest national parks in the country, you just need to find the right spot and the right time of day.This is The Bubbles and Jordan Pond. I was hoping to get a picture of the milky way over The Bubbles but it happened to be straight overhead going from left to right. This photograph is a combination of two, the sky and foreground are seperate exposures. The sky was f2.8 for 30 seconds at ISO 3200 and the foreground was a ten minute exposure at ISO 1600. It was very breezy on this particular evening, causing ripples in the water, so the stars were not reflected on the pond surface.