MAINE - PHOTOWORKSHOP WITH AWAKE THE LIGHT

My very favorite of all my Maine images.

Taken on the Schoodic Peninsula

We just returned from a trip to Maine for a photo workshop with nationally renown photographer, Molly Isaacs and Mary Lindhjem, a wonderful wildlife photographer and instructor.  These two women are exceptional teachers.  They gave us lots of individual attention and we had a great workshop.

Unfortunately, although I was decked out in new rain gear and had even purchased rain gear for my camera, I am not a "let's go shoot in the rain" kind of person.  We had 3 days straight of rain with no promise of let up, so we cut our trip short by a day.  But I learned more about photography, and about my camera in that short week than I have in any other courses I've taken.  If you're interested in seeing their work, please visit Molly's and Mary's  blog at http://awakethelight.blogspot.com/.  They run photo workshops all over the country and it really is worth the trip.


We drove up with Dick doing the driving and me as navigator.  I had mapquest directions given to me by friends who were also going, a GPS, and an ATLAS.  I leave nothing to chance.  I figured that if I could find our way through Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, I could get us to Maine.  On the way up, we followed our friends, but going home we drove by ourselves...did I mention it was raining the whole way?  The original plan on the way home was to stop at every lobster stand we saw.  Unfortunately, it's difficult to eat lobster rolls outside in the rain.  The rolls get soggy.  So instead we stopped at a restaurant in Camden on the way home.

BASS HARBOR HEAD LIGHTHOUSE AT SUNSET

MORE BASS HARBOR HEAD LIGHTHOUSE

THE ROCKY COAST IN BASS HARBOR HEAD AT SUNSET

The little orange bits on the rocks are sunlight.

Hard to see in such a small image.  

The workshop began on Monday and was in Bar Harbor at Acadia National Forest.  We had a meeting in the late afternoon, then we all drove out to Bass Head Harbor for a gorgeous sunset, clambering over the rocks and boulders to get our spot for the show.  Then we all went to dinner at the Dockside Inn in town.

 NO SUNRISE IMAGES...SORRY

It's not that we weren't there!

We woke at 4:00 am Tuesday morning to get to the top of Cadillac Mountain for sunrise.  Like I said, I'm not a weather person and the cold is an issue in my life.  More than anything, I cannot stand to be cold.  We spent a fortune making sure we had lots of insulated clothing, Gortex jackets, smart wool socks and new hiking boots.  And layers...lots of layers.  At that hour in the morning the temps were in the low 40's.  When we got out of the car the winds were howling at what felt like about 60 mph.  I looked at Dick, Dick looked at me...we decided there is no picture worth traipsing in the dark over boulders the size of cars, with winds whipping at the top of a mountain.  I'm not into suffering for my art.  So we sat it out in the car, all the while watching a myriad of people come and go for a view of the sunset.  Most left before the sun actually rose due to the winds, I would suspect.  But I give them extra points for showing up at that hour.  Despite all the weather woes through the week we had a great time.  The other photographers were great, very friendly.  And Molly and Mary certainly made it worth our while, giving each of us individual attention and making us feel at east with what we didn't know.  There was no embarrassment at all.  We felt completely at ease.  And we learned so much.

SCHOODIC PENINSULA

BIRD BUTT

I thought this was his best side.

We spent the balance of the morning having breakfast at Jordan's Restaurant, the home of wonderful blueberry (Maine is to blueberries like Georgia is to peaches.)  pancakes, and then going out to shoot some more. 

SAW TONS OF SAILBOATS

BASS HARBOR HEAD LIGHTHOUSE FROM THE WATER

THERE'S A HOUSE NESTLED IN THE TREES OFF TO THE RIGHT.

If i had to live in Maine, it would be here.

BEAUTIFUL !

E -A - G - L - E - S - EAGLES!!!

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND FIND THE EAGLE.

It's there, honest.

LOBSTER BOATS ON THE WATER

 In the afternoon, we went on a fantastic cruise around Bar Harbor.  I don't know what the vessel was, but it reminded me of a very large lobster boat.  The captain was indeed a former lobsterman.  He filled us in on the life on the water regaling us with tales of the lobstermen and their territories.  We saw Atlantic Salmon fish farming on the water, an interesting pursuit.  And we saw loads of eagles, harbor seals, great gray seals, and cormorants.  No moose.  And more importantly, NO BEARS!!
After the cruise we shot the moonrise on the bay.

THIS IMAGE NEEDS A SAILBOAT.

Wednesday the rain started.  That kind of killed it for me.  We went for a drive to some little villages and got some great shots.  We also visited the Schoodic Peninsula.   Lots of rocky shots.    The autumn color was MAGNIFICENT and at it's peak...another plus.  I got some good shots, but my heart wasn't in it because of the weather.  It rained all day Wednesday. 

AND THE RAIN STARTED...

AND IT RAINED...

AND IT RAINED...

AND IT RAINED.

THOUGHT I'D TRY A B & W

ANOTHER LIGHTHOUSE

EACH LOBSTERMAN HAS HIS OWN COLORS.

Everyone knows each other's colors and territories.  If an interloper invades their territory, they will cut the buoy's right off the trap so that the trap is lost at the bottom of the sea.  The interloper soon learns where NOT to set his traps.  (Traps cost about $100 each.)

LITTLE VILLAGE BY THE SEA

TONS OF TRAPS

At $100  a pop!

On Thursday we went to Jordan's Pond in the park then had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant in Acadia.  I was starting to get really bummed by the weather at this point. That afternoon we had a critique of some of our work.  It was wonderful seeing what everyone had done.  There were some really talented people in our group.

RAIN ON JORDAN POND

MORE RAIN ON JORDAN POND

ANOTHER LITTLE VILLAGE STOP

CHARMING MAINE COLOR

SCHOONER CAPTAIN

Contemplating his navel?  No talking on his cell phone.  What else?

OLD TRADITIONAL LOBSTER TRAPS

No longer used.

HARBOR IN CAMDEN

Schooner traffic

Friday morning, after much deliberation, we decided to head for home via Route 1, following the coastline and visiting some of the little towns along the way.  We stopped in Camden for lunch and a little walkabout.

While we had a great time, we won't be scheduling any fall trips for awhile, unless it's to Arizona.  I'm really glad we went, though.  And now I have a wonderful winter wardrobe.  And more experience with the new Nikon.  Life is good!

LENS BABY CLASSES - CONTINUED

Well this has been a very difficult month, photographically speaking.  The Lens Baby is a very difficult lens to shoot with. LESSON 1 was posted a couple of weeks ago (see older posts).

LESSON 2 ...

was to have a little bend in the lens.  (Lens Baby is on a swivel and you can bend it to the area where you want the sweet spot [area in focus] ) I just could not find the sweet spot.  The instructor, said that I may need to adjust my diopter (camera eyepiece).  So I had to drag the book out and find out how to do that.  STILL...I did not get good results.

Rachael came for a sleepover, finally.  Now that she's 15 and has  Doug in her life, it's hard to find time for Nana and Poppop (oh, how I remember those days).  After taking her to tea (her favorite lunch), we went to Longwood Gardens to capture the summer color on display there. Rachael loves photography as much as I do and I thought it would be a good bonding experience to shoot together.  And so it was.

LONGWOOD GARDENS ( A farm purchased in 1906 by Pierre du Pont, who used as a place to entertain friends, creating new area gardens each year - now 1,077 acres with 20 indoor and 20 outdoor gardens, open theaters, water fountain shows fireworks, and a music venue.One of the greatest botannical gardens in all of America.)

It was over 100 degrees and we took a walk down to the Italian  Water Gardens - something to see, but not for a Lens Baby.  Then we walked up hill to the Conservatory to shoot.  I found this Hibiscus there.  Not much else on display.  Or we were too tired, thirsty and sweaty to care.  We all went home afterwards, plopped on the bed face down and let the ceiling fan dry our clothes. While lying there, Rach asked me what movie we were going to watch before bed ( a sleepover tradition).  I told her I thought since she's all grown up now, we'd watch a movie about a prostitute. The look on her face was priceless.  She said "Oooookkkaaaaaaaayyy!"  Like, my Nana has lost her mind, now.  The  movie, "Cannery Row", (Nick Nolte and Debra Winger).  .  If you haven't seen it, please, please, please watch it.  It is hilarious. So, we put our pillows at the foot of the bed and turned on our tummies to watch.  As the jazzy overture was playing, Rach asked me if I'd ever read "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck.   I got a smile on my face and told her that Cannery Row was written by Steinbeck, also.  Anyway we laughed and cried our way through the movie, even though we were both so tired and really wanted sleep badly.  It was just too good to turn off without seeing the end.   Sorry to digress, but we're building memories here, Folks.  Anyway...

Hibiscus

This is the only photo that was even close enough to post for week 2.  But still not a great one.

LESSON 3...

I did better this week.  The assignment was (1) to shoot one photo wide open, (2) then to try all the apertures and choose your best, (3) then to do a portrait.  

Well, you know how it is.  Because I'm having difficulty, I procrastinated.  I got my wide open shot outside the night before it was due.  I had to actually go and buy flowers so that I would have something to shoot.  Everything in our yard was in a non-blooming state and I refuse to invade the neighbors again.  So I bought some red roses and baby's breath at Trader Joe's Saturday night and got that one out of the way. 

Nice bookeh in the background. Shot at dusk outside. 

 That's the Lens Baby wide open.

 Sunday I went outside and played on the tripod with the different appertures.  Again, nothing to shoot, so I ended up in a pine tree.  

Really nice blur.  This one made me a happy camper.  One true sweet spot, then blur, lots of blur. 

Blur is a GOOD thing.  Who knew?

Then around 10:30 pm, after everyone was in bed, with 1.5 hours before deadline,  I needed a portrait shot.  Dick was in bed and didn't think it was fair to take a sleeping picture.  We are currently petless, so no help there.  No self portraits, puh-lease.  I ended up using Bette Midler as my model for the portrait.  Bette is my bear (curly red Mongolian lamb hair - hence the name).  I must say, she takes a great photo.

Dear sweet little Bette Midler.  I just love her hair.

Now I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.  

Off for Lesson 4.  

Speak with you soon.

THE LENS BABY

I am NOT the Lens Baby.  Just thought I'd get that right out there in case there was any question.

The Lens Baby is a new lens that I treated myself to this past spring because I'd been such a good, good girl.  I have yet to learn to use it.  It's quite difficult to find the "sweet spot" and make great photos, so I am taking a course on Lens Baby.

 In this past week I have taken over 90 shots.  Approximately 80 of which were not in focus.  For my assignment I had to turn in 3 photos that I really liked.  I was lucky enough to have had 3 photos I really liked.  So here they are...  If you double click on the photos they will enlarge.  Arrow back to get back to the page.

The Bee

The Butterfly Bush

Tiny Baby Pinecones

If you look closely, you can see the image around the "sweet spot" is blurred.  This is the intention.  

Since I needed some flowers, and everything in my yard is dead, I had to depend on the kindness of neighbors for my specimens.  I was in our next door neighbor's yard so many times I was beginning to feel like a stalker, so I drove to the next town to a friend's house for some of these.   

This is going to take some practice.  Maybe by the time the class is over, I'll be an expert of finding the "sweet spot".  Then again...

I got some really good comments on the first and third photos.  The second one, not so much.  I agree with the instructor, it has too much contrast and the dark background doesn't enable you to see the Lens Baby effect.  But I had 80 others that were from Blursville.  This is harder than it looks.  They all looked in focus on the camera, but as soon as they hit the computer - Blursville.  But I WILL MASTER THIS!!!  As God is my witness, I will find that "sweet spot" and run with it.

Gotta' run.  Next lesson is in.  I'm off to perfect my skills.  Yada, yada, yada....

HOW WE SUFFER FOR OUR ART!

TILGHMAN ISLAND, MD

After yesterday's disappointment on NOT sailing on the Kalmar Nyckel, we drove down to Tilghman Island to see what goes on there.  Apparently, nothing.  It is a sleepy little fishing village with a few B & B's and some restaurants thrown in for good measure.  Located 4 miles past St. Michael's, Tilghman is a great place for quiet.  We drove to the end of the island to Walnut Point and it was open seas as wide as far as the eye could see.  The Chesapeake and the Choptank River come together at the Point.  It was a beautiful spot.  A couple of guys bought the 58 acres on the Point and opened a B & B and a bird sanctuary.  We didn't see any birds, but they say there are osprey there now.  We saw deer all over the island, too.

WALNUT POINT

Lunch was at The Bridge Restaurant just over the Knapps Narrow drawbridge.  We sat on the water and had the best crab cake sandwich I've ever had.  No filler...just crab lumps.  And the flavor was incredible.  The waitress took great pride in the crabmeat.  She said it was her family's crabmeat.  They are crabbers.  I'd love to spend a day doing that sometime.  I'm going to look into finding a crabber who takes people out crabbing.  There's got to be someone out there who does that.  The waitress offered to take me chicken neckin', where you get a chicken neck, tie it to some string and just drop it in the water.  She claims it really works.  She invited another waitress to go out with us.  So I might just go chicken neckin' with the girls.  The people on Tilghman are the best!

KNAPPS NARROW 

SAILING...SAILING...

OK, so Friday we decided to take a half day and go sailing on the Kalmar Nyckel, a reproduction of a tall ship that brought the Swedes to America in the 1600's.  What is wrong with me?  Don't I EVER listen to the weather?  Sometimes I am staring at the screen as they do the weather and Dick will ask me what they said and I won't have a clue.  My mind is somewhere else.  Needless to say, Friday morning the sun was shining brightly and I smiled as I looked out the window.  However, a deluge of thunderstorms were predicted for Friday afternoon.  Sailing time was 2:00 pm.  We arrived at the dock at 1:30 and took some shots of the prep work the crew was doing, then at 2:00 the crew announced that due to the inclement weather, the sail would be canceled.

The Kalmar Nyckel

Jordan actually did some work on the Kalmar Nyckel's dingy when he was in high school, as a school project.  As you see, it has since been replaced (that was over 20 years ago) by a super fast pontoon rubber raft.  Real authentic. What's up with that?

We have rescheduled our sail and will report back soon.  This ship has so many original carvings on it it would be a shame to miss them.  It is a work or art, manned by a partially volunteer  crew.  Should be a fun sail, as we can get as involved as we'd like.  Well, Dick can heave ho as much as he'd like.  I'll be the volunteer papparazzi.

Be back soon.

SOUTHWEST COLLAGE

I've been messing with my photos from the southwest trip. I wanted to put some of them together in a collage.  Here are the results.  I think it will make a nice 16" gallery wrap.

SOUTHWEST MEMORIES

This represents Santa Fe, Taos, Monument Valley, 

Tlaquepaque, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon.

WHAT A GREAT MEMENTO OF OUR TRIP.

SANTA FE OR BUST...OR, THERE ARE NO DIRECT FLIGHTS TO ALBUQUERQUE...

SO...on Saturday, May 21st, after a 7. 5 hour flight, we arrived in Albuquerque and rented a car for our one hour drive to Santa Fe.
I was attending a four day photo class that started on Monday and we wanted to get into town early and do some things on our own.  We had dinner Saturday night at a little Mexican place near our hotel.  Authentic Mexican...Good stuff.

Sunday morning we drove out about 6 miles from the hotel into no man's land to HARRY'S ROADHOUSE, featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  It was superb.  We had scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cream cheese and crispy pieces of whole wheat toast.  YUMM!!!  The we drove downtown and explored...all day...wow...tired.  We decided to go back to Harry's for dinner,  a wise choice.  I had a steak cooked Mexican style that was to die for.  Are you catching a theme here? We will eventually grow to be pretty tired of Mexican.

Sunday night we met in Carol Leigh's room (our fearless leader) to discuss the game plan for Monday.  We would meet early in the breakfast room and gather our gear and get on the highway.  We were going into town in the morning, coming home after lunch, downloading our morning work, then going back into town for the evening light, then meeting in Carol's room to be critiqued on our morning work.

That's just how it went down.  Except, we had a Mexican lunch.  When I got back to the hotel to download, my computer told me I had no room left - it was full.  I didn't have time to figure out what I wanted to ditch.  Glad I brought my iPad2 with me.  Downloaded to that, but not in time to get critiqued.
Tomorrow's another day.

Early Morning Light and Shadow

Love the shadow on the wall

Again, a play of light 

Sante Fe Window

Santa Fe Window

I love the different levels of these buildings downtown.

Some old rustic doors

Santa Fe Window

An ad for a museum of art

This could be sharper, but I really liked the lighting.

Tuesday morning, up early to leave for Taos.  Along the way we stopped at a museum, Gasoline Alley.  Interesting stuff for photographers.  Lots of rusty stuff, gas pumps, wagon wheels, old cars, etc.  The weather was cloudy and a little drizzle now and then, but the temps were  cool, in the 70's.  Not much in Taos.  We stopped at a church then came home, after having lunch...Mexican.  Evening critique of both Santa Fe, downtown and Taos for me.  It went well.  I was pleased.

Taos Church - light and shadow

Taos - window with ristra

Gasoline Alley find - Rusty Packard

"24"  house number in Taos.  It was actually chrome, but I played with it in Photoshop.  Know anyone having a 24th birthday?  I have a feeling this will make a note card.

Wednesday, went to  some Indian national monument.  Can't remember the name.  Not my cuppa, but there were other things to amuse myself.  Then lunch, you guessed it...Mexican.  The afternoon trip was to the Turquoise Trail.  I wasn't feeling that great, so I begged off.  I think all the long rides were getting to me.  We found a seafood restaurant up the street from the hotel and had a lobster dinner.

Thursday morning, last day of class, breakfast at Harrys, then we went up to Canyon Road, the Artsy Fartsy area, with lots to see and photograph.  That was fun.  We were dismisssed a noon on Thursday.   Class was over.  I was so glad that I finally had a chance to meet Carol and her husband Chris.  I had taken a number of classes this past year from Carol and learned so much.  She a wonderful, warm person who is willing to share all she knows.  It was a great class.  Thanks for a great time, Carol

NOTECARD!!!!

GERANIUMS ON CANYON ROAD

WIREMAN

This was a sculpture of a man in wire and I shot it's shadow on a wall.

WIREMAN SWIMMING

I love photomontage.

THE STONE CROSS

CANYON ROAD DOORWAY

CANYON ROAD WINDOW WITH SHADOWS

RUSTIC CANYON ROAD ADOBE

ADOBE HOUSE ON CANYON ROAD

NOTECARD!!!

METAL SCULPTURE ON CANYON ROAD

NOTECARD!!

MORE OF SAME

HALF BENCH ON CANYON ROAD

Thursday afternoon, we missed lunch.  We went shopping downtown.  I had seen something I was contemplating getting all week.  Dick and I had lunch at the Coyote Cafe.  Coyote Cafe has been on my bucket list since the 80's.  We went home for a rest, then in the evening went back to town for dinner at the Pink Adobe, another place on my bucket list since the 80's. OUTSTANDING!!!  Got to knock two of them out in one day.  Marvelous.


OK, so now it's off for our 8 and a  half hour drive to Monument Valley, via Four Corners.  We're so up for it.  This has been a great trip so far.