Posts in Category: autumn
Cape Porpoise Chowder House: Happy Sunday!
Cape Porpoise Harbor, Cape Porpoise Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus.
I went out yesterday in search of falling water and fallen leaves. I wanted to photograph the small falls along the Batson River in Emmon’s Preserve with the autumn accumulation of leaves covering the rocks and lining the water channels. I did that, and some of the pics will be featured in today’s Love of landscape (on Facebook and Google+). However, since I was out that way, and the sun was breaking through high clouds in interesting ways, I decided to swing out to Cape Porpoise to see how the harbor looked. I knew it might be chancy getting a parking place on the Cape on a Saturday morning, but slid into the last place in the public parking. The cloud bank off-shore was blocking direct sun on the harbor, but since I was parked I decided to wait it out. I could see sun on the point to the south, and on the water behind the lighthouse, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the clouds slid far enough out to sea for the harbor and the foliage behind it to be in full sun.
When the couple in the corner of the image brought their cups of chowder out on the deck that just about decided it, but then the sun finally broke though and I hustled over to get this shot. Okay! Then I did go into the Chowder House for my bowl, brought it out to the deck, and sat and enjoyed the play of the light over the water, the boats, the village and the autumn colors behind.
While I was eating and watching, a group of three people joined me on the deck. Two were sporting cameras. I overheard the third say, “It is so pretty. Thank you for forcing me to play tourist in my own town today. I never get out here.” I assume she was showing off the sights to weekend visitors in her home. And I thought, there it is. We need to play tourist in our own towns. We need to visit the lighthouse and the harbor at Cape Porpoise often. We need to sit in the autumn sun (or summer, or spring) on the deck of the Chowder House, eating some of the best clam chowder I have ever had, and enjoying the play of light on the harbor and the village. We need to turn a generous eye on the places where we live…as though they were new to us…as though we were just visiting. What wonders we might find.
I have had the privilege these past few years to do just that. To be out as often as I like and really enjoy the place where I live. To play tourist in my own town…and to share much of what I find with a growing group of friends. When you turn a generous eye on the place where you live you find that it is, indeed, full of light…full of wonder…full of joy. What a gift! What a God! Happy Sunday!
Fall Fog!
Fernald Brook Pond, Kennebunk ME
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.
Off Mount Agamenticus. Happy Columbus Day!
Mount Agamenticus facing north.
Mount Agamenticus, at a majestic 692 feet, would be barely a hill anywhere but on the southern coastal plain of Maine. In fact, it would take 5 Mt. As, stacked, to meet the British standard for a mountain, and Britain is not known for its tall mountains. Still, sitting where it is, with its far flung toes in the sea on one side, and the relative flat of the coastal plain all around it, it provides impressive views. On a clear day you can see Boston to the south, the coast from the Isles of Sholes off Portsmouth New Hampshire as far north as Cape Elizabeth, and the Presidential Range, including Mt. Washington, far to the north and west. I, along with several hundred other folks, was inspired to brave Route 1 Columbus Day weekend traffic and the twisty drive up the mountain to see what fall was looking like from Mt. A. When I left the mountain at about 11, there were cars circling the parking lot looking for a space. Two things to note in the sweep panorama above. 1) we do not have a lot of maples in Maine, and therefore not a lot of color, compared to, say, Vermont, and 2) southern Maine, the most populated area of the state, anywhere in-land from the coast, looks pretty much like unbroken forest as far as the eye can see. It is almost, even on Columbus Day, as though Columbus had never sailed…or that is the way it looks from the majestic heights of Mount Agamenticus (ignoring, of course, the parking lot). 🙂
Sony Alpha NEX 5t with 16-50mm zoom. Sweep panorama. Processed in Lightroom.
Fall Fatigue? Happy Sunday!
Along Route 9 in Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous then your whole being is full of light.” Jesus
Are you getting tired of fall color yet? Buck up! In Maine we have two fall color seasons. Right now the color is mostly maple and a little birch. Just about when the last maple leaves fall to the ground, the oaks will turn a brief red, and than shade to deep cooper. We have weeks to go 🙂 This is a favorite stop for photography. While I was there, for 10 minutes on a Saturday morning, at least 3 other cars stopped. They did not all have out of state plates either. This pond is not on the main route through southern Maine. You have to know it is there, or have taken the scenic route to Kennebunkport from Wells. Once you see it during any decent fall, though, you will very likely be back for more! I check back often (it is only a few miles from the front door) just to see the changes in color day to day and what the sky is doing. What is happening here is a narrow front passing through, pushing out a film of cloud ahead of it. I like this scene best with clouds in the sky to balance the landscape. I have toyed with the placement of that single tall pine on the right. For this shot, I angled the camera up to get the full height in…sometimes I keep the shot level and lop the top of the pine off…that keeps the angles more natural…but then you have to deal with the truncated pine. Dilemma. The color is the star of the show anyway. I will probably go back a few more times this week, so you may see other pine variations…and certainly the color will change, as trees loose their leaves and others turn. And I can always hope for new skies.
The generous eye…the eye that sees the light and beauty…the spirit…in everything and everyone, can look at the same scene day after day and always find something new. No such thing as fall fatigue. You can never have too much fall color, anymore than you can have too much beauty. We are full of light in the way a bucket under a flowing tap is full, water splashing over the edge and always making room for more. If I catch a splash and share it in this image…well, that is just what I do. That is generosity in my eye. Praise be to the Creator, the one light, infinitely generous. Happy Sunday!
Reflected Glory
Fernald Brook Pond, Route 9, Kennebunk ME
If I live to be a hundred (and we stay in Maine) I imagine I will still be visiting this pond every fall to see what the color looks like in reflection. Sheltered as the pond is, it has to be blowing a gale before anything disturbs the mirror of the surface. This still autumn afternoon the trees are, if anything, even more brilliant in the polarized reflection in the pond.
Sony Alpha NEX 5t in-camera HDR. Nominal exposure 1/200th @ ISO 100 @ f9. Processed in Lightroom.
Fishing Old Falls Pond
Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River, West Kennebunk ME
Yes, fall is coming on strong now here in southern Maine. I drove out to the Kennebunk Plains and Day Brook Pond yesterday, and then around to Old Falls and Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River. There was a friendly fisherman at Old Falls Pond and I asked if I could include him in the view. He makes it a classic calendar or magazine cover shot. Maybe on the Post, painted by Norman Rockwell. 🙂
Sony Alpha NEX 5t with 16-50mm zoom @ 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f9. Processed in Lightroom.
Pretty Little Mule Deer
Mule Deer: Bosque del Apache NWR
When you manage the landscape for birds, of course manage the landscape for all kinds of wildlife. At Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge they manage for the Snow Geese and Cranes, but the refuge is also home to a sizable herd of elk, coyote, mountain lion, and lots and lots of Mule Deer. The Mule Deer is the counterpart to our Eastern White-tailed Deer, and is in all ways similar except one. Mule Deer are relativity easy to see in their habitat. White-tailed Deer, in most places, are very elusive. This young deer was a cross a dyke from the tour road, and even given that it feels safe on the refuge where hunting is at least predictable, it was still remarkably unconcerned with our presence in our cars just a stones-throw away. 🙂
Sony HX400V. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
White-tailed Curiosity
White-tailed Deer
I got out early only one morning in Cape May, but that morning I was early enough to catch the White-tailed Deer still browsing along the boardwalk behind the Hawk Watch Platform at Lighthouse State Park. They have been clearing non-native brush and created a small opening on one side of the boardwalk. A doe and two fawns, of different ages, were feeding there. The deer at the State Park are well used to humans on the boardwalk. I stood there in the open watching them continue to feed, unconcerned. In fact, the younger of the two fawns stopped feeding long enough to come over to the boardwalk for a closer look at me. He got close enough so that I could have petted his nose. 🙂
It as really early and the light under the dense canopy was dim enough so that even at ISO 1600 I had to dial the shutter speed down to dangerously low levels, but I managed a few acceptable shots. Sony HX400V at 560 mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/160th @ ISO 1600 @ f6.3. Processed in Snapseed.
Wide on the Little for Wednesday
Sweep panorama near the mouth of the Little River on Laudholm Beach
On Sunday my photoprowl featured heavy skies over the October landscape. This is a sweep panorama taken just back from the mouth of the Little River where it crosses Laudholm Beach. I like these tall/wide shots, taken with the camera in portrait orientation. Of course this shot is all about the lowering sky, the sweep of the sand, and the curve of the water. The hint of color in the distant trees is an added highlight.
Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
October Marsh
Little River Marsh, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
When October sends a gloomy day…you take gloomy day pictures. There is still a beauty to be had. The sky broods. The colors burn like late embers. I seem to be stuck in cliche mode, but you get the gist. This is from the observation deck on the boradwalk trail at the Well National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm in Wells, Maine.
Sony HX400V in-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.