Along Rt 9 just north of the Kennebunk/Wells border. One of my favorite ponds in any season. OM Systems OMD EM5Mkiii with 12-45mm zoom at 46mm equivalent. In-camera HDR scene mode.
It was foggy down along the coast the past few days and the fall foliage, what we have so far, barely burned through. OM Systems OM-1 with 12-45mm zoom at 24mm equivalent. HDR Scene mode.
We have lost the sun this week as we move deeper into fall. We need the rain, so I am trying hard not to begrudge the light 🙂 You can see the sea mist coming up and inland at the end of this marshy isle where a little stream flows through. Highly atmospheric. Fallish indeed. Sony a6500 with 18mm equivalent ultrawide combo. HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Yesterday, after posting my pics, but before breakfast, I looked out the window at the new day to find that the fall colors were muted by fog. Great stuff! I grabbed my camera and drove down to the ponds along Route 9. Of course, by the time I got half way there it was raining hard enough to have to turn the wipers on. I reached the pond during a lull in the rain and did my best to keep the camera under the overhang of my hat. If l leaned forward from the waist and used the flip up LCD, I could keep it fairly dry. I love the muted colors of the trees in the fog and the way it thickens with distance, turning everything indistinct. Add the floating leaves and a few circles from falling rain, and it makes a classic autumn scene.
In-camera HDR. Sony Alpha NEX 5t. 16-50mm at 24mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
It rained overnight yesterday and we will to heavy coastal fog. Rain was predicted to start again by 9, so I got out early to the marsh and beach to try for some atmospheric for shots. I tried HDR, and prefer the exposure effects, but the wind was blowing a gale and any shot with flowers in the foreground had too much ghosting from the motion and multiple exposures to work. I had to resort to normal exposures and post processing for HDR effect.
I have hundreds of images of this marsh and this tree, but this foggy shot with the bright flowers will be a favorite.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. ISO 100 @ 1/160th @f8. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
On Sunday, it rained all day, sometimes hard, sometimes just a spattering, but always wet. There were aerial and coastal flood warnings from the National Weather Service office in Grey. But, at least in part, because I had only that morning written about finding the wonder in every season and every day, I forced myself to pick up my cameras and head out to see what I could see. If I can’t take my own good advice, well then it is not that good, is it? I took an umbrella, but the wind was blowing hard enough so that I knew I would mostly photograph what I could see from the car. I drove down to our local tidal marsh behind the dunes at the beach, and then down past the Rachel Carson NWR Headquarters to Laudholm Farm and the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, then back up the coast to sit at Mother’s Beach in Kennebunk and shoot gulls out the window of the car. I took a few scenics along the way, trying to capture the wet day/late winter/early spring atmosphere, and hoping for some interesting HDR effects.
This is along the road into Laudholm Farm, where it passes through a thick stand of second growth firs and pines. With the rain, the little brook that passes under the road in a culvert, was brim full. The wet leaves, blown in there from last year, the reflective water, the evergreens and patches of old snow, all framed against a background made soft by the water in the air…well, I liked it enough on the way in to pull over and get out of the car on the way back out, sheltering the camera for a couple of shots. HDR processing and some image tuning in Snapseed brings up the effect very nicely. Or that is what I think.
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f4.5. Processing as above.
It has been a good fall in Maine, despite a week of wind and rain at just the wrong time. We lost some of the early color so that when I returned from a week of travel I thought, from the evidence right around home, inside the tidal zone, that fall had passed me by. A photoprowl inland cured me of that misapprehension. Even 10 miles from the coast, the full color show is on.Â
This is Old Falls Pond, which some of you have already seen this week in another view. I photograph the pond in all seasons, but it is especially attractive in autumn. This view, with the bright bush in the foreground, the fog over the water, the wispy clouds and reflections, and the line of vivid foliage across the way makes a dynamic composition with a lot to look at.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday Thought. I have 100s of images of Old Falls Pond taken over the past 5 years. I have probably shared 10 or more just from various autumns. This view is only a variation on the theme…taken only moments and yards from other popular images…and yet I was so compelled to try the effect of the bright bush in the foreground that I actually went looking for it.
I don’t think I will ever tire of trying to capture the beauty of Old Falls Pond in fall. And I think that is a good thing. I think when I can no longer find beauty I am compelled to share in Old Falls Pond in its autumn splendor, when I stop looking for new angles and stop seeing the possibilities in new skies, then…well then something essential will have died in me. I don’t think that is going to happen.
It won’t happen because I fully intend to find and share the beauty of everyday, every season, everywhere I am. As I have said often in these Sunday posts, that is my act of worship…my homage to the Creator, the way I express my love, my gift back to the one who has gifted me with life…with eyes to see and a heart to feel and a mind to make sense of it all..with a spirit that can participate in the on-going act of living, loving, creation that is all we know and are.
So I expect you will see other views yet of Old Falls Pond in fall…for as long as I can get there. Happy Sunday!
Yesterday was one of those rainy, misty, foggy late fall days, when everything is wet, and the last colors of the season excel in depth, rather than brilliance. It brings out the colors of oak and elm and understory shrubs much better than a sunny day could, while the fog softens distance and keeps your eye in close.
Once the rain had stopped, I got out for a loop on the trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters down the road, just into Wells. I got there between banks of heavy fog, when the conditions were just right to capture the mood of the day.
Everything was still dripping wet, and any color burned against the foggy background.
With the fog-bound focus of my vision, details dominated, and foregrounds became the focus.
The maples with their sunlit brilliance had had their day…now the understory and oaks held sway.
I was experimenting with the Vivid setting on the Canon SX50HS, and, for this kind of day, it was perfect. It gave just enough extra emphasis to the colors so that I could produce an accurate visual effect in Lightroom…or maybe just do so with less processing.
All shots Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast. Vivid Color Space. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, with my hyper-real preset.
And for the Sunday Thought. Of course when fall comes we miss the high bright days of summer. Even in fall, the days we generally treasure, in New England, are the days of wide vistas, bright sun, blue skies with puffy white clouds, and the brilliant reds and oranges and yellows of the Maples. But a day like yesterday teaches that there is a different beauty in the fogs of later fall. There are fewer and less brilliant colors, but every color deepens and draws the eye, and smaller and more subtle details take on life.
It is good to remember that the same thing can happen in the spirit. We treasure the peek experiences…the days of wonderful light and high spiritual skies when we see the brilliance of truth spread round us as bright as autumn Maples. But there is something to be said for those days when a spiritual fog softens and deepens the light…forces us to look close and look deep, to see the patterns of truth and beauty in the foreground of our lives.
Those are good days too. I expect we just have to find our own “vivid” setting…which I suspect must be there, somewhere in our spiritual menus, for just such days. I found mine yesterday. I only hope I remember where it is the next time the fog rolls in.
Old Falls Pond is the only place near home where I have found Northern Leopard Frogs. I am certain they are other places in York County, but I have not seen them. On the other hand, I see at least one on every visit to Old Falls Pond…and generally right in the same area. This tiny fellow, the size of a quarter, was hopping toward the pond, across the trail, and paused only long enough for a few pics. While it is an interesting creature all around, I find it especially interesting that the dark stripe on the face runs through the eye. I think that might be unique.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. One of the things I really like about the Canon SX40HS is the ability to fill the frame with will small stuff from 5 feet. It makes shots like this possible with minimal disturbance of the subject.
I found the frog on the way in to the pond. On the way out, I almost walked on this equally tiny Toad, which I am pretty sure is just a small American Toad. I used the same technique to photograph it, but by the time I found the Toad, the sun had gone behind clouds, and the this fellow was far less cooperative…it rarely sat more than a split second before the next hop…so I popped up the flash on the SX40 to give me enough light to catch the fidgety Toad in mid hop if necessary.
Even so, the exposure was f5.8 @ 1/60th @ ISO 400.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Driving back from Machias to Bar Harbor a few weekends ago, doing transport duty for a daughter moving from college to summer job, we took Scenic Route 182 to cut the Schoodic Peninsula loop off Route 1. 182 is an official scenic route, so designated by the state of Maine. It travels up over the mountains (Maine mountains…so not very high by most standards) that make up the backbone of the peninsula, past several beautiful lakes. We stopped to take pictures even though it was a rainy, foggy day. This “lake” actually turned out to be the very head of Frenchman’s Bay, a long arm of the sea that separates Mt. Desert Island from the Schoodic Peninsula, up near Franklin Maine. As near as I can figure from the map and memory it is either Hog Bay or Egypt Bay. It was one of those “quick off the edge of the road on the wrong side because there is just room enough for the car and a great view, hop out and snap, and back in the car” things and I was not paying much attention to where we were on the actual road. Sometimes GPS tagging would be nice. 🙂
This is pulled back, wide angle version, to catch the ambiance of the low cloud rainy day, and the soft, somewhat indistinct, light.
1) 176mm equivalent field of view, f6.3 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160, 2) 23mm, f8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160.
Processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. 1) is cropped slightly for composition.