This image comes from May 1st and a break from shooting towards Abbot Hall from across the causeway. I turned back to look at the ocean as the sun set and saw this simple composition with the sign post for the Veterans Memorial Causeway. The soft light reflecting on the calm water of the Atlantic Ocean seemed a perfect accent to the concrete and asphalt of the causeway.
I first saw the chestnut tree at Crocker Park in full bloom in 2016 and have tried to revisit each May to photograph the flowers on the tree as they serve to perfectly frame the view of Abbot Hall from this spot. On May 22nd, I visited Crocker Park hoping for a great sunset but the clouds didn't quite break as I expected and I was left looking for alternative shots. As luck would have it, the chestnut tree was in bloom and took up much of the frame in this composition to offset the muted sunset. I have a [...]
Maybe the last shot for now from the night of June 15th and the series of images I've shared over the past week.I had another keeper from a bit earlier that I really, really liked but not sure if the scenes (though varied by focal length, light and composition) might be getting a bit repetitive... Anyway, this was the last shot of the night at 8:28pm when the gold faded and soft purple afterglow took shape over Marblehead harbor. Hope you liked this peak into the many, many keepers that can come from a single night out in our incredibly [...]
And then, six minutes after shooting the benches at Crocker Park, this happened... I had taken the shot of the weathered benches and then turned my head to find that the clouds over Marblehead Neck were perfectly reflecting the gold sunset light. I didn't have time to swap to a wider lens so, instead, I made sure my tripod was perfectly level and then rotated the camera vertically to shoot this as a panoramic image. It took 16 images to capture the full scene from one end of the harbor to the other and I ended up with this perfect [...]
When I chose Crocker Park for my spot to capture the great light formed by storms to the north and south of us, I kept in mind that the actual sunset to the west might put on a nice show as well. As such, I kept running back up from near the float to check on the cloud cover towards Abbot Hall. While that area never 'popped', I spotted this arc of light behind the weathered benches at Crocker Park. I had never found a good composition for these benches before but here they seem to shine with the backlighting [...]
So this weekend, I had the chance to sit down and finish working on images from the night of June 15th when two storms split around Marblehead and created amazing light. Turns out I had come away with a very high 'keeper' total of 18 images (including two awesome panoramas). I had planned to share all of my keepers from this night to show how a change in lens, composition and/or light can transform a scene and make each shot new and different but 18 is a LOT of images from one night. I think I'll just share images this [...]
So shortly after taking yesterday's image at 7:27pm, I noticed these incredible blue clouds near the horizon that seem to be washing over Children's Island. I had my favorite landscape lens (a 24-105mm f/4) on the camera but couldn't quite get the reach I wanted to focus on the clouds so I did a quick change to my much longer 100-400mm lens. With that I zoomed in and composed a shot to highlight the blue clouds with boats moored near the mouth of the harbor. I couldn't help but play with the zoom and compositions and, when I zoomed out, [...]
Rather than share one or two shots from Tuesday night's fun outing and then save the rest in the 'to be published' folder, I thought it would be fun to take you through the hour spent at Crocker Park as the light developed. I cheated by showing one of my favorites from 8:07pm right off the bat but let's take a step back. I arrived at Crocker Park at 7:20pm and captured this shot at 7:27. I had chosen Crocker because the light seemed most promising to the north where a storm was crossing over Gloucester but another had just [...]
For a variety of reasons, I had not been out shooting in well over a month's time. As luck would have it, tonight ended up being an incredible opportunity to break that streak. After returning home from work, my wife and son came up with the idea of going to the Dolphin Yacht Club for dinner. We lucked out with an outdoor table and enjoyed Chef Jake's incredible meal while watching storm clouds form to the north and south as storms split around Marblehead. As I ate and watched the sky, I kept glancing at my watch and wondered if [...]
The restore finally finished after over 200 hours and it appears all images are back safe and sound and a new larger hard drive array. As a test run, I took a look at some recent images that were in my To Be Published folder and, with the recent rain, instantly gravitated to this one. It seems that spring really does set up perfect conditions for rainbow weather. And yet, all the elements need to come together with just the right break in the clouds at just the right time as on the evening of May 12th when I raced [...]