In 2012, I was fortunate to witness and capture sea smoke on what was easily the coldest day of that year. Since first seeing the incredible beauty of smoke rising off the ocean at dawn, I have sought to capture it again. I went out a number of times in 2013 but the conditions were never right for sea smoke to develop. In January 2014, I photographed backlit sea smoke as the sun rose behind Tinker’s Island. With all prior attempts, I had hoped to see sea smoke rising within Marblehead Harbor. I’m not exactly sure what conditions favor the development of sea smoke within that space but I had envisioned the smoke on the water with Abbot Hall standing in the distance.
On Thursday, January 8, Marblehead was blasted by an arctic cold the likes of which I had not felt in my time here. The temperature this morning was -4F throughout my one hour photo shoot and that does not take into account the wind chill that likely pushed it below -20F. As I drove across the causeway to Marblehead Neck, I saw sea smoke to my right at Devereux Beach but then looked to the left and saw wisps of it inside Marblehead Harbor!
The next hour included stops at Castle Rock (twice), Chandler Hovey Park and along Foster Street. Despite numerous layers, I was forced to limit each outing to 10-15 minutes due to the bitter cold. I arrived home but had no time to work on the photos before heading to work. As soon as I returned, I scrolled through the images I had captured and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this one.
This image was captured at 7:07am (10 minutes before sunrise) as the morning sky transitioned from the blue hour with purple hues just above the horizon. I had composed this image to include Abbot Hall as well as St. Michaels Steeple and that of Grace Community Church. The sea smoke rising off Marblehead Harbor was picture perfect and froze this incredible moment of freezing cold but impossible beauty.
Lots more to come in the weeks ahead…