Tuesday morning I had an appointment in Keene. After the appointment I did a bit of shopping and met my friend Al, a commercial photographer with a studio in Keene, for lunch.
On my way home, I stopped in Harrisville and pointed my camera obscura at the mill buildings.
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Yesterday afternoon, with broken and fast moving clouds (perfect for landscapes) and the temperature around 60 degrees F (downright tropical for mid-January and perfect for photographers) I headed out with the camera obscura and made the rounds of some of my favorite spots in Hancock.
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Wednesday, mid-afternoon, I thought that the clouds were breaking up. I hoped that maybe we would have a break in the cold, gray skies (and accompanying flat uninteresting light) that has characterized the past week. Alas, this was not to be. By the time I gathered up the camera and got out the door the gaps in the clouds were closing up and the snow showers began.
I persisted anyway and made a short drive around Antrim with my camera obscura.
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Last year (2019) ended on a slow note. Since we returned from our trip in October, I made exposures on only a handful of occasions.
Here are a few from December…
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It has been my habit at the end of each year to choose an ‘Adams Dozen’ of photos made during the year.
This is my ninth installment. The first iteration was 2011 and for the sake of organization, here is last year’s version. One can find the rest of the years by searching the blog for “Adams Dozen”.
Here is this year’s selection.:
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For those keeping count, my Lightroom catalog says that I made 9648 exposures in 2019 and that I processed 1643 (or 17%) of the photographs. This is about a thousand less total exposures and a couple of percent more processed than last year.
As we travel, I make photographs of random things that catch my eye.
Here are some of those photos from our recent trip…
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This trip was mainly about the landscape and it did not disappoint.
As much as possible, we stuck to local roads and hugged the coast beginning with coastal US1 from Brunswick to Calais, Maine. We spent time at Acadia National Park, both on Mount Desert Island and on the Schoodic Peninsula.
At Calais, we crossed the border into New Brunswick and followed the north shore of the Bay of Fundy. We spent time at the Bay of Fundy National Park. Eventually, arriving in Nova Scotia, we hugged its western coast and spent time at Cape Brenton Highlands National Park.
Turning back towards home, we explored the northern shore of Bras d’Or Lake on Cape Brenton Island and the eastern shore of mainland Nova Scotia. We turned north towards Turo before we got into Halifax (we like to avoid cities) and then turned westward at Turo to follow the coast again. Heading back into New Brunswick, we retraced our outward bound route down the coast and home. We were gone two days short of three weeks.
We could have stopped to photograph at many more places than we did… we would still be on the road if we had!
One subject that we ignored this trip were the wonderful little churches found in almost every village and hamlet we passed through. Many are perched scenically on a high point of land. One could spend an entire trip just photographing churches. Maybe someday I will!
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This afternoon I took a break from editing the photos I made on our recent trip and took a walk up the un-maintained section of Brimstone Corner Road.
As I started down the hill towards the Hancock border, I flushed a red-tailed hawk from the middle of the road maybe twenty or thirty feet in front of me.
Initially, the bird flew up to a perch in a tree at the edge of the road where it paused for only ten or fifteen seconds — long enough for me to see the chipmunk in its talons — before flying out of sight in the woods.
It must have just caught the prey since, despite a careful look, I did not find any evidence of chipmunk “pieces” on the road; not even a tuft of fur/
No photos… I was not carrying my camera. Besides, it all happened too fast for framing a photograph. Sometimes it is best to just watch.
Close encounters with animals usually only seen at a distance are always special.
Joan and I left on our more-or-less annual fall trip on the 9th of September and arrived back home last Friday evening (the 25th). As usual, we towed our teardrop camper and stayed mainly in parks; filling in with nights in commercial campgrounds when necessary.
This year we headed east and north… to Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We visited Acadia National Park, the Bay of Fundy National Park, Cape Brenton Highlands National Park and many points in between. As is our habit, we stayed off the highways and traveled mainly on the local roads, hugging the coast on this trip.
Thinking that this trip would be mostly about the landscape (and not about wildlife), I brought along my camera obscura in addition to my regular camera gear. This thought turned out to be true. Although we did spend time watching birds in a number of places and whales from shore at the Head Harbor Light on Campobello Island, NB the opportunities to make good wildlife photographs were few.
If one is going to photograph the landscape in this part of the world, one will eventually point your lens towards a lighthouse… or two… or three… or more! I certainly did!
My favorite lighthouse — not for its architecture, but for the people — was the Cape d’Or light in Advocate Harbor, NS. Cape d’Or is located at the head of the Bay of Fundy right where the bay splits into two “forks”. We arrived at this lighthouse one foggy morning shortly after breaking camp and parked at the end of the road.
Getting out of the car, the first thing we noticed was the noise of moving water. My thought was “this is going to be a good place to photograph crashing waves”. Heading steeply down the drive to the lighthouse proper, the noise of the water got louder but there was no surf to be found! The noise was caused by the Dory Rips, roiling currents caused by the tidal movement of water around the point. We had timed our visit perfectly to observe this phenomenon. By the time we left, a couple of hours later, the waters were quiet.
In addition to the lighthouse, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the keepers house was now a guesthouse and restaurant. When we arrived at the light, I began photographing mainly with the camera obscura. We seemed to be the only souls around although there was music gently wafting from the restaurant. After a few minutes, a fellow poked his head out of the door and shouted out to me asking if I was so-and-so. I said that I was not and continued to photograph.
When I was done, I headed into the restaurant to introduce myself. The fellow who shouted out was Darcy, the chef/proprietor. He said that there is a guy who looks like me (scary!) and sometimes photographs at Cape d’Or with a large format camera. Darcy was in the process of cleaning up after breakfast — the overnight guests had left shortly before we had arrived — and he offered us coffee and the last of the four-berry crisp leftover from the previous evening. We gladly accepted and spent some time chatting with Darcy and his girlfriend (whose name I don’t know but who is a medical student at the Univ. of Rochester).
As we went to leave, Darcy would accept no payment for the “leftovers” as he put it. (I’ll be sending him a few photographs!). On our way back up the hill to the parking lot, we met another couple on the way down. They would get no berry crisp… timing is everything!!!
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Joan has been very successful in growing peppers this summer. We have dozens, maybe hundreds, of them on our kitchen counter at the moment.
Joan is, as I write, cutting them up and putting them in the freezer. I gave a few of them a very temporary reprieve from the knife so that I could make some photographs.
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