Posts in Category: clouds
getting surreal at Laudholm Farms
As I have said a few times before, it is being a very strange fall here in southern Maine. Still no frost in the third week of October, and the trees are struggling with the change…exposed trees, alone in the field, or on the edge of the forest are turning late and we are not getting the reds of a normal year…and inside the forest many leaves are just turning brown and falling. Still you find scenes like this one…taken into the sun as patches of sun and shadow raced across the field, spotlighting the colors. The sky was so intense I had to tone it down to keep the image from looking too surreal. iPhone SE with Sirui 18mm ultra-wide lens. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Best of autumn in Kennebunk
Of course, this time of year, I have my eye out for great autumn shots…places where the color is at its best and well displayed. I was in the passenger seat of our car (a rare position for me to be) when we crossed the marsh at the edge of Kennebunk Lower Village, in leaf-peeper traffic at its best (or worst), and glimpsed this scene out the widow as we passed. It was overcast with a dull grey sky, so I could let the scene pass, but I would remember. I immediately began to plot how to get there safely on Indigenous People/Columbus Day Monday, when better skies were predicted, on my eTrike, without getting myself run over by a leaf peeper. By 11am the next morning the sky was promising and I got the trike out and took my chances…going the long way around to approach from the right side of the road, and avoid as much traffic as I could…as well as the stretch of horrible trike road on Rt. 9 coming into Lower Village. When I got there I found that there was enough of a shoulder on the bridge over the marsh so I could safely park my trike for the photos. I took many views of this with slightly different compositions, and picked this one as the best of the non-panoramic set. I might post the panorama another day. Anyway. This is a classic southern Maine autumn landscape. iPhone SE with Sirui 18mm ultra-wide lens. Apple Camera app with Smart HDR engaged. Processed in Apple Photos.
Nature Phonography: All contrails lead to Portland
The atmosphere yesterday must have been ideal for the formation of contrails. This was taken from our local beach at the mouth of the Mousam River, and all those contrails point to Portland, Maine, away there, not so far, over the horizon. I know some landscape photographers hate contrails, and I know all about the chemtrails conspiracy theory (or as much as I want to know…I got educated by (or at least “due to”) folks who commented on past contrail containing landscapes). But sometimes the “flaws” in a photo are actually what the photo is about. Case in point. iPhone SE with Sirui 18mm wide angle lens. Standard Apple Camera app. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Wood Island Light
Wood Island Light guards the entrance to Saco Bay and the Saco River. This shot is from the East Point Sanctuary in Biddeford Pool where I was looking for Snowy Owls just before our Nor-easter. No owls, but a classic winter’s day photograph of the light. Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. Program mode with auto HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. Nominal exposure: ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Brooding on winter…
Something a bit different from my backyard birds today. 🙂 We are expecting our first real snow tonight, but for yesterday the landscape was just huddling under a brooding sky, waiting on winter to decide to come. That tree out there has had, some years, a Snowy Owl, and I always start checking it every trip to the beach along about now. Not yet. Maybe not at all this year. Still waiting on that decision as well. Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. Program mode with auto HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. Nominal exposure: ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th. -.3 EV.
Running ahead of the storm
Mousam River at Rt. 9 in Kennebunk, Maine, USA. — I was out for an exercise and pick-up-my-prescriptions ride on my ebike, running ahead of the storm front that came through, and I had to stop on the Rt. 9 bridge over the Mousam River to capture the scene. Powerful sky 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. Program mode with Auto HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Sky over the Kennebunk Plains
Yesterday they promised heavy thunderstorms with big hail in the afternoon, and when it did not materialize I headed out on my ebike to look for sky. In the coastal plain of York County, that means either the beach or the Kennebunk Plains. The Kennebunk Plains, as I have mentioned in the past, is a sand plain…one of the few undeveloped habitats of its kind in New England. It was kept open in the past by wildfire…and is now maintained by controlled burns. The Nature Conservancy owns part of it and the whole of it is managed as a Wildlife Management Area by the state…to protect several endangered birds, reptiles, and flowers. And because it is open, you get to see the sky in all its glory. This is a “sweep panorama” from the Sony a6500 with my ultra wide lens set up. Sweep panorama is a mode that allows you to swing the camera around the horizon and take one long continuous photo…the camera actually takes dozens of individual photos and stitches them together in-camera. This is about 180 degrees of land and sky. I held the camera in portrait mode, vertically, to take in more sky. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos for an HDR effect.
Reflections in a flood tide…
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, Wells Maine.
This week’s Supermoon (the last for this year) caused exceptionally high tides all along the coast here in southern Maine. This is Branch Brook at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells Maine, a good mile inland from the sea. All about color and clouds and reflections.
Sony RX10iii at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/1000th @ f4 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Safe Harbor
Cape Porpoise Harbor, Cape Porpoise Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus
Yesterday was one of those gray fall days in Maine along the coast. Just enough rain falling to dampen, skies heavy overhead, sea agitated…almost angry on the rocky shore. And yet, it was day to enjoy…a day of joy in being alive. In Cape Porpoise the lobster boats were mostly anchored, and the dock was quiet, under the eye of the lighthouse on Goat Island. We ate the excellent clam chowder at the Chowder House, and watched Eiders catching crabs, and Gulls stealing them. The sign on the wall announced the end of the season and begged our patience since all the summer help was gone back to college and school. We were warm on the inside and the outside by the time we left, with a the deep quiet of the end of season day settling in us, still at our centers as the boats floating the harbor…anchored by our faith in a loving creator and wrapped in the light, of the fellowship of Christ. Our safe harbor, our guiding light, no matter what comes in wind and rain, or how the waves beat against the shore…no matter the end of seasons, or even the end of days. We know where our harbor lies…we know the light within and look at the world of weather and change with generous eyes.
Happy Sunday! May you know safe harbor today.
Nubble in the sun with Gulls
Nubble Light, Cape Neddick, Maine
I had to drive to the bus terminal in Portsmouth on Tuesday to pick up a daughter coming in for her sister’s wedding this weekend, and, since it was a nice day, and since she has not spent much time in Maine over the past few years, we took the scenic route home and stopped at Nubble Light. I had been there just the week before, but not in the afternoon when the light is on the face of the buildings and the gulls are soaring around the island. 🙂
Sony RX10iii. In-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom.