Two boys stare into oncoming waves while playing chicken with mother nature *Photos will continue but descriptions may be sparse until Sept 28 as I am studying for the Allergy and Immunology Board exam which we need to take every 10 years
From September 5th and my third trip to Devereux Beach to capture images of incredible waves. A lifeguard chair stands empty as huges waves come ashore meaning guards are off duty at Devereux Beach. *Photos will continue but descriptions may be sparse until Sept 28 as I am studying for the Allergy and Immunology Board exam which we need to take every 10 years
My first stop on Sunday was Riverhead Beach which offered a great location for scouting out the morning's sea smoke. While the temperatures of -10F meant that sea smoke would likely occur, the predicted winds of 20MPH made me nervous that any rising smoke would quickly disappear with the gusts of wind. As soon as I pulled into the lot at Riverhead, those fears disappeared and the beauty of sea smoke rising from Marblehead harbor greeted me. I quickly got out of the car and felt the arctic temperatures for the first time. I had dressed perfectly it turned out [...]
Today's image comes from December 21, 2012 and a trip to Castle Rock at the tail end of a storm. I can't recall the specifics of this storm but I still remember the power of the waves thrown towards the rocky shore of Marblehead Neck by the mighty sea. In this frame you can see the remnants of the last wave cascading down the large granite formations while another wave crests and approaches the shore. Castle Rock might be my favorite spot for storm watching and if a storm happens to hit peak power and high tide around sunset, so [...]
On August 4th, a strong thunderstorm passed over Marblehead and I ended up chasing the lightning around town trying to catch bolts from various locations. This image was taken from the beginning of the storm as the grey clouds formed and overtook the sky over Marblehead. I wasn't sure how to describe these impressive cloud formations but they seemed to form a churning sky over Marblehead Light so I stuck with that terminology. If someone has a better description, please let me know. Here are more images from this outing on August 4th:
To finish off this 'lightning week', here is an image from August 4th captured from Castle Rock. I was in the midst of a hiatus from sharing images of Marblehead and had been rediscovering the joy of capturing the beauty of this town. On this night, I was fortunate to capture a beautiful sunset as well as a lightning storm. I'll share the sunset photo on another day... This image is actually a composite including the five bolts you see from five different (sequential) exposures to make up the final lightning show. I'll leave it to you to decide if the [...]
While not the brightest bolt of lightning captured on this Saturday night at Preston Beach, I really liked the appearance of the forked bolt and its reflection in the wet sand. At this point in the evening (this was taken between Monday and Tuesday's captures), the sky took on a more dramatic and menacing appearance which added an extra dimension to the scene.
After capturing images from Preston Beach, I rechecked the radar on my iPhone and saw an approaching rain storm was nearly upon us. I quickly moved up to the top of the rock wall and positioned myself behind the old anchor for the last few shots. As the light had faded, I was able to leave the shutter open for much longer exposures and greatly increase my chance of capturing bolts of lightning. During this exposure, I managed to capture a cluster of bolts situated in the same location and placed perfectly in relation to the old anchor.
Continuing with 'lightning week' on Wednesdays in Marblehead - here is an image of the opposite viewpoint as yesterday's capture of twin lightning bolts. This image was taken 40 minutes after yesterday's as the storm moved across the horizon. The position of the lightning bolt makes it appear as if it just missed striking Ram Island.
On Saturday night, a lightning storm took shape over Boston at 6:30pm. I decided to head down to Preston Beach in the hopes of capturing some of the lightning bolts from a safe distance. The storm ended up being a very active one and, despite many, many missed shots, I came home with a handful of images of lightning striking over the Atlantic Ocean. In this image, you can see twin bolts at sunset. This was only a 0.4 second exposure which meant luck was firmly on my side in capturing the twin bolts. You can just make out the [...]