Posts in Category: ocean
Kennebunk Beaches over Rocks and Rose.
And on a stormy day too! This is the mouth of the Kennebunk River. Kennebunkport is out of the frame to the right. You see just the end of the jetty there. Then you see the Narragansett on Gouch’s point, with Lord’s Point beyond, and the great curve of the beaches at Wells and Ogunquit running away to the south. The rose and the rocks in the foreground are along Parson’s Way on Old Fort Point (west of St. Anne’s church).
I am having fun, as you may have noticed, with the extreme depth of field of the ZEISS 12mm Touit.
Sony NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet. Selective (brushed on) unsharp masking for the Rose in Photo Editor by dev.macgyver, also on the tablet.
Mullen over the Atlantic
The Forth of July in Kennebunkport Maine was one of those high drama days along the coast. Storms building in from the west. We took a stroll (actually my wife was strolling, I was photo-prowling) along what is called Parson’s Way…a narrow sea-side park that runs along the top of the rocks from the Colony Beach in Kennebunkport, around past St. Ann’s Church on its point, and out onto Cape Arundel as far as the overlook for the George Bush Estate behind locked gates and Secret Service guards on its own point. This shot is along the way. I could not resist the two stalks of Mullen, the bit of visible bench, the ocean bonsai and the clouds, with just a hint of reflection in the sea.
And again, the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens comes through with an image that would be very hard to capture with most other lenses. Sony NEX 5T in Superior Auto caught the exposure. Processing for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet completes the task. It is a challenging composition, but it works for me 🙂
Gloucester Dawn
Bass Rocks, Gloucester Massachusetts. Dawn. I spent parts of two days with a small group of German birders who had come to Gloucester looking for Snowy Owls and winter ducks. We were up and out at first light, before breakfast actually, and on the rocks beyond Bass Rocks looking for King Eider soon after. This view looks out north-east into the Gulf of Maine past Thacher Island’s Twin Lights. As it happens, the line of cloud along the front was passing out to sea, and we had a few hours of sunshine before the next front moved over us. (We did not find King Eider…but later in the morning and further north, north of Rockport, we did find a nice pod of Harlequin Ducks…which made my German friends happy! For me the sunrise was enough.)
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. Sunset/sunrise mode. ISO 200 @ 1/100th @ f16. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Ah the Winter Shore
We are expecting 8-12 inches of fresh snow, and up to a quarter inch of ice, in the next 24 hours, so I went out yesterday while the sun was shining on a short photo-prowl. The light has changed over the past week. There is more warmth in the sun, and it does interesting things with the snow. Here, where the wind off the sea has thined and sculpted what was about 4 inches of fresh snow on Monday, the contrast with the warm tones of the exposed rock makes a striking composition. The clouds over the sea complete the picture. I walked out along Gouch’s point through drifts in my winter Crocs to get the shot, but it was worth a slightly damp ride home.
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/250th @ f16. Processed in Snapseed for HDR effect on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Fine tuned in Photo Editor by dev.macgyver.
Drama at Wood Island Light
In a normal year, especially in winter, I rarely get to East Point Santuary in Biddeford Pool. In fact, whole winters have passed (maybe even the occasional whole year) when I have not gotten to East Point. It isn’t that far: about 30 minutes by back roads from the house. This winter I have been there just about once a week. It is the chance, no, the likelihood, of Snowy Owls that makes the difference, of course, but I find that I am photographing Wood Island Light and the sea around the Point on every trip as well.
Yesterday I featured the waves off Fortunes Rocks, which is just across the bay formed by the Pool and the Point from where this shot was taken. The same heavy seas. The same winter light catching the green in the water. The same wind blowing the sea plumes back. And it was only on Sunday that I posted a similar view of the Light over snow drifts. Still, when you add the view of the Light to the drama of the heavy seas, it makes an irresistible image. Or that is what I think 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. ISO 100 @ 1/1500th @ f6.1. 95mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Wood Island Light over Snow Drifts. Happy Sunday!
This shot is from just a week ago, on my Sunday photo-prowl which turned into an Owl-prowl when I decided to go looking for Snowy Owls. East Point in Biddeford Pool is, when there are Owls in for the winter, always a likely place…with significantly more sightings than anywhere else on the southern coast of Maine. They are often there, even in winters when they are rare in the US, and in this irruption year, birders have found as many a 10 in a day there. There were three this Sunday along what they call Mile Stretch, all clinging to chimney pots. I featured one in Monday’s post. There is, however, no Owl in this image. I was just fascinated by the way the wind had sculpted the snow drifts along the top of the drop off the edge of East Point to the stoney beach below. I also featured a close-up of the wind sculpting early last week. 🙂
For this shot I used 218mm equivalent field of view on the zoom…medium telephoto…to compress the drift and the lighthouse, while keeping both in focus. The Lighthouse is close to 3/4 of a mile (according to Google Maps) across the Saco River channel. ISO 100 @ 1/1500th @ f5.3. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday Thought: On the way back from my trip to office in Virginia, which was sandwiched in between the photo above and my Friday travel day, I was seated on the plane next to a youngish priest, returning to his parish in Augusta from a visit with his brother’s family where his brother is working in Rome. We got talking about what we each did, and when I told him that I work with the birding community, the conversation turned to why people watch birds, and that, of course, lead to my often shared theme of how birds exemplify the creator’s delight in color and form and texture and sound and the vividness of life in general. The young priest agreed that God, in creation, is neither reticent or circumspect, and lamented the fact that more of that sense of outrageous life has not gotten expressed in the church. I pointed out that, at one time, it had…certainly in Italy, where he had just been, and where he studied, in both the visual arts and music. It is in the ornamentation of the cathedral and the music of Vivaldi, certainly. He agreed and wondered where it had gone. What happened to the impulse to share in the creator’s creation by creating beautiful, outrageously vivid works that point the heart to God? When did the church become a social movement, a charitable movement, even, though he shuddered a bit when he said it, a political movement?
It is still there of course…that impulse to wild beauty…it has just moved, largely, and sadly, outside the walls of the Catholic Church…though we both agreed that it is always trying to break back in…always coming up between the paving stones, so to speak, and attempting to flourish once more between the walls. I mean, it is part of the God we worship…part of our inheritance as children of God and people of faith. Wild beauty is born in us with Christ. It is not like any amount of officious administration, any amount of what he called “religiosity”, can suppress it for long.
And it is not like we do not see it all around us every day, even with our eyes half open. It is here in this image…in the way the wind sculpted the snow. Oh I know there is a physics behind it…but that is like saying there is chemistry behind paint or mechanics behind dance…the artistry of those drifts can not be denighed. Or that’s what I think…and I am bold enough to say that the architect of the Wood Island Light was infected by it, and the principals of the Nature Conservancy as well, when they put aside East Point as a sanctuary to preserve, among other things, this view…a view of the wild, outrageous beauty that God and man has made on the coast of Maine.
So, Happy Sunday. There is always hope!
Artic Vortex?
In Maine we missed the Artic Vortex. I had to go to Virginia to experience record setting lows 🙂 It was 5 above zero here night before last, and they put the schools on 2 hour delay. Still, before the Artic Vortex made the news, we Mainers had several nights of below zero weather…-17 drgrees…which corresponded to the astronomical high tide and 12 inches of fresh snowfall. What you see here is the result of sea spray freezing on the blocks of granite that make up the seawall by Strawberry Island and Great Head in Kennebunk Maine. It is not exactly an uncommon sight in Southern Maine, but we can go several winters without the combination of wind and intense cold that make it possible.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. ISO 100 @ 1/1000th @ f4. 23mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Wood Island Light
When I went looking for Snowy Owls last Monday, one of the places I checked was East Point Sanctuary in Biddeford Pool. The day before 9 Owls had been reported in and around the Pool, and East Point is generally good for at least one or two in an irruption year like this. If they are not on the Point itself, they are often on the small island in the channel between the Point and Wood Island…there was one there on this day…or on Wood Island itself, often on the ridge line of the Lighthouse. The wind had come up by the time I got to the point, and the Winter afternoon light across the sea was beautiful. There is always a particularly wild feel to the ocean off East Point. Here I have put Wood Island Light in the frame with the clouds over Casco Bay behind it.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. ISO 100 @ 1/750th @ f4. 112mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Suspended Animation
Along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, these dock/boat hoists are common. The tides are shallow and it is easy to simply lift the boats out of the water. This day everyone on the coast was watching the weather carefully as, out over that deceptively calm horizon, a Gulf hurricane was brewing. In fact two hours later when we drove back by this spot, the owner of this boat was on the steep shore frantically trying to lift the boat almost straight up on to its trailer for transport inland and away from the storm.
What attracts me here is the light over the water and the way it plays around the dock, the boat on its hoist, and the bird house. Then too, there is a tension in the suspended boat that matches the day.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
The Long View: Happy Sunday!
I took my scooter down to the beach in the early evening yesterday, mostly to feel the cooling wind of my passage at the end of yet another day of oppressive heat and humidity. We don’t get many of those in Southern Maine, not enough to justify the cost of an air-conditioner certainly, so when we do get them, all we can do is sort of suffer through with window fans, iced drinks…and occasional scooter rides when things just get too drippy.
Turns out the sky over the ocean and the marshes was spectacular. I puttered about from place to likely place, cooling myself in the rides, and took a lot of pictures. 🙂
This is the view last night out to sea from one of our semi-private beaches. I like the low angle. It was taken with my Samsung Smart Camera WB250F, which, unfortunately, does not have an articulated LCD. What it has is an excellent, no-tripod-needed, in-camera HDR, which was called for here. I am learning, for the the low shots, to shoot more or less blind, and straighten in software later 🙂 Rich Tone mode. 24mm equivalent field of view. Recorded exif for the three shot sequence was f3.2 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
And for the Sunday thought: I was also having, yesterday, a Facebook conversation with a young friend, the son of an old friend, about choosing a place to live. I gave him several suggestions from among the places I have lived and visited, but then he specified that he needs the ocean. “Being able to look out over the water from the beach and not to be able to see the other side, is something that I really need. I need that sense of curiosity and the sense of greatness that the power of the ocean displays.”
Today’s image is, in fact, the view he grew up with. The family moved inland while he was still young, but his grandparents still have a house on this beach, and I am sure he looked out on this sea often enough each summer so the view became part of the essence of his soul.
I, on the other hand, grew up in hills. My father and mother built a house on the shoulder of a high hill in rural New York State. The view that shaped me was pasture and woodland stretching away in folds to the horizon. We never got to the ocean at all. When we wanted, as people will, whether they can articulate the need as such, a wider horizon, the mystery and the wonder of the long view, we would drive up, or hike up one of our green mountains. For me, the view from a bare hill top, or even more, the view from a stony mountain top, especially under a spectacular sky, has the same power as the view out over the sea does for my friend. It might be more “homey” and even more “homely” but it is still full of power and glory.
I did not come to the sea, really, until I was a young man, and then we lived by the ocean just long enough for me to miss the view when we moved far inland to the desert mountains of the Southwest. I am, after all, back by the sea. And yet, I found that same mystery and wonder in the desert. Oh I have never seen a real desert, with sand dunes or stony flats running on to the eye-level horizon, but I found that sense of power and grandeur in the intensely living desert of the American Southwest, always with its mountain islands rising to the sky in every direction. And the view from the tops of those mountains! There was a wonder.
And then, too, while we lived in New Mexico, we spent time in the Rocky Mountains of Southwest Colorado each summer, camping and hiking. I defy anyone to climb even a 10,000 foot, wildflower infested, peak in High Peaks area of Colorado and not feel the awe of that long view!
More recently I discovered the far views of the Potholes and Prairies region of North Dakota. Such skies. Such an expanse of land. And I have, on a few trips there, learned to love the gentle vistas of England…from the hills and lakes of mid-lands to the mountains and lakes of the Lake District, to the rolling expanse of the Dales, to the grandeur that is Scotland, Skye, and the Hebrides.
And last year I was totally blown away by the awesome skies over the somehow miniature, certainly manicured, and always canal cut, landscapes of Holland.
And, come to think of it, I have felt exactly the same wonder and awe standing in a redwood grove where I could not see 1000 feet in any direction or the sky at all…where all the power and majesty was in the size and age of the life around me, where the long view was not spacial but temporal.
And waterfalls…falling water…rapids even…the eternal rush is always enough to take my breath away.
So what does it come down to? I need to live in a place where I can feel the awe of the long view, the energy of what is wild and wide and beyond my control, certainly, but I have come to realize that the awe is not in the place, but in me. If I never again saw the view out over the ocean on a day with a great sky, I would miss it, but it would not stop me from finding the awe of the place I was in. And I realize in writing this that I am about due for high mountain experience. I miss the mountains! But that will not stop me from scootering down to the beach on a hot day to find the awe that lives out over the ocean and the marshes. Today, since the mountains are too far, I will go find a waterfall, and maybe some dragonflies, and a deep dark forest.
Those are well within the reach of my scooter…and they will do for the awe of the day!