The sea smoke was an incredible sight to behold on this arctic morning in Marblehead – going out in 7F (without the windshield) definitely paid off. When I first saw the projected temperatures of single digits for this morning, my first thought was that I would finally have a chance to replicate and improve upon my favorite image of sea smoke from 2012. That was the first year I had witnessed this phenomenon of arctic air over a relatively warm ocean creating billowing smoke on the water. With that vision in mind, I bundled up and headed to Fort Sewall early this morning.
I arrived at 6:40am and quickly walked the perimeter of Fort Sewall to find the best angle. The sea smoke was most prevalent around Chandler Hovey Park and Marblehead Rock and so I composed a tight shot to focus on the smoke coming off the water and accentuate the brilliant green beacon of Marblehead Light. It took several frames to capture the smoke and not have too much movement of the lens due to the building wind (and accompanying wind chill!). In the end, this was my favorite image with the sea smoke starting to catch the light of dawn and turn a golden hue.
I have two more images from this morning – a slightly wider view including the entirety of Marblehead Rock and another of Marblehead Neck as the sun began to illuminate the cloud layer. I’ll be sharing those in the days/weeks to come.