April Ocean: Kennebunk/Kennebunkport. Happy Sunday!

We did not see any sun until yesterday evening, and the temperatures hovered in the mid-40s, but I still had to get out on my new scooter for at least a short photo prowl. I mean, that is what the scooter is for! Long-johns and a fleece vest under a windproof jacket, and my winterized scooter helmet and gloves kept me barely warm enough…as long as I kept my speed down 🙂

Both the ocean and the sky were gray, as only a grey day in April can be, but full of subtle drama. I tried a few in-camera HDR shots to see if I could catch the feeling. With a bit of extra processing in Lightroom this image comes close. We are looking out over Gouch’s Beach and the beach front summer cottages of Kennebunk and, across the Kennebunk river, the Colony Hotel and the first of the summer mansions on Old Fort point in Kennebunkport.

Though HDR with water is always a problem (the three exposures never quite overlap because the water moves), it works here. If you look carefully you will see three separate surf lines where the water meets the sand.

Canon SX50HS. In-camera HDR Mode. 24mm equivalent field of view. Recorded exif: f5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom with my hyper-real preset, and then tweaked for black clipping point and contrast.

And for the Sunday Thought: What with the new scooter and all, I have a bad case of spring fever. It is generally my April mood. I am ready for the wildflowers and dragonflies of late May and early June (this is Maine after all), and we are still stuck with melting snow piles in the parking lots and maple buds still not fully open to flowers. Generally I am gone two weeks in April, to the more mild, and further advanced (but no warmer) spring of Northern California, and then to the riot of spring in Northern Florida around St. Augustine. I am a little sad this year that two events are the same week…and I was forced to choose Northern California. I will miss spring in St. Augustine!

On the other hand, perhaps it is for the best. Coming back to April in Southern Maine from Florida was always a shock, and probably made my spring fever worse instead of better. I am about to find out.

Of course, I know the cure for my spring impatience. It is the same cure that cures so many ills. Presence. Note that I said “presence” not “patience.”  I need to be more present to the moment, to each moment of every day. I need to make myself totally available to whatever is happening now! and not be always living a week or a month or a season ahead of myself. God is in the now. Always completely invested in the now. Or so I have come to believe. We can not experience awe in some future that has not happened yet. Awe is the appropriate response to right now, where God is. And, of course, that is the feeling I was trying to catch in the grey clouds over and grey ocean under Kennebunk.

 

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