Epic Sunrise...

Popham Beach Stae Park.

Reid State Park Milky Way....

Here's an image from a while back taken at Reid State Park. It's a blend of two separate images. The sky taken at f2.8, 30 seconds and the foreground taken at f2.8 and an 8 minute exposure. The foreground and background were then blended in Photoshop.

Harpswell, ME.....

I recently photographed the lobsterman statue at Lands End, Harpswell. This time of year the Milky Way aligns with the city of Portland and the city lights wash out the galactic center. This is a single exposure of thirty seconds and I was lucky enough to catch two shooting stars in that time.

Lone Tree.....

The moon rises in Georgetown, ME on the last day of July.

Miss Angie II.....

Here's another boat photo from the coastal trip I took earlier this summer. These boats were in Lubec and like the other posts from this trip I also uploaded a video to Youtube that can be seen by clicking this link: Coastal Trip pt. 3.

Here's another image from the coastal trip I took earlier this summer. It was taken in Stonington, Maine at sunset. As I've mentioned before, I took a lot of video of the trip and I even filmed the sequence where I took this photo. You can check out the whole video here on Youtube.

Here's another photo from the multi-day road trip up the coast of Maine I recently took with my friend Mike, photography being our main purpose. The lighting during the day was very harsh and contrasty which makes photography tricky but a lot of times an image will look good in black and white under these conditions. That's what I opted for with this photo. This is Grindstone Point in Winter Harbor. At the time we didn't know where we were but I looked it up after the fact. The hill in the distance is Acadia National Park. I also shot a lot of video and if interested you can check it out here: on Youtube

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

This is what I did on my birthday last week.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stretched Out....

This image was taken at Reid State Park. I created the panorama by combining four images together in Photoshop. In this case I took the photos horizontally but I should've had the camera in a vertical orientation, that way more of the foreground would've been included. That's how you get better, trial and error.

Aptly Named.....

Here's another Acadia photo taken at sunrise on Boulder Beach. The name is informal, you won't find it on any maps but this beach has turned into an iconic spot for photographers and it's way "over" photographed now. The morning I was there, there were 5 others. One of the photographers I follow on Facebook was there the following week and said there were two dozen photographers on the beach. I would've left. I remember my first visit in the 90's I had the whole area to myself for hours. Oh, the good old days. The one thing I had forgotten was how small the beach actually is, most folks photograph it with wide angle lenses giving the illusion of a much larger area. I just can't imagine two dozen photographers in that small space.

Fellow Photographers...

This past week I spent three days in Acadia National Park, I had been there before but it had been nearly 20 years. the purpose of the visit was to get new images for my upcoming calendar. The park offers a wide variey of photo subjects, from forests to mountain views to sea side cliffs and everything in between. On Tuesday I went to Otter Point to photograph the sunset and the crashing waves, hurricane Joaquin was far out to sea but was causing some very high surf. I took a lot of images of the waves crashing against the rocks, some of which I'll post at a later date. At one point I turned around and saw some fellow photographers taking pictures of the sunset from a different vantage point. I thought the three folks and the unique cloud above would make for a nice compostion and this the photo I came away with.

Another Milky Way Attempt...

My last trip to Reid State Park to photograph the Milky Way did not produce any Milky Way shots. I went back at the beginning of the month to attempt it again. At this time of year the Milky Way doesn't appear over the Atlantic like back in June and July, it's more west, although if I was at the same spot as the last Reid post it would've been over the beach. However it was clearer the night I was there and I think the lights of Portland would've been an issue. The trees in the background of this image helped block the lights because I was down low looking up. This image is a combination of two. The milky way was exposed at ISO 3200, f2.8 for 30 seconds focused at infinity. For the foreground I focused on the rocks in the front and exposed that at ISO 1600, f2.8 for 6 minutes.