On January 16th, rain fell after days of arctic cold and so, on the 17th, I headed over to Redd's Pond curious what the fallen rain had done to the frozen pond. As luck would have it, the effect was a perfect mirror unmarred by skates or snow. I don't think I've ever seen such a perfect mirror here before.
I hoped to have new landscapes or seascapes to share by now but, while I've had weekly photography outings in the past month and a half, they have been solely to capture my son and his teammates on the Marblehead Magician's freshman football team. Those moments have been a lot of fun to capture but I've been looking for opportunities to shoot new scenes of this town as well. I'm hoping to capture some blossoms as early as this Wednesday so stay tuned... In the meantime, here is one of my few new images from the winter that wasn't normal [...]
On the last day of January, I drove across the causeway hoping for a nice sunset. As I drove I noticed icicles along the causeway and then a surprising amount of ice present on both sides of the Neck. I continued onto Castle Rock and got out to find an impressive amount of ice along the rock face above the high tide mark. I took a few photos from the grassy area and then made my way (carefully) down to the beach below. The sunset wasn't bringing the light I had hoped so I focused instead on the beach and [...]
This might be the longest stretch that I have gone without taking a photo of Marblehead in almost ten years. I had influenza for the first time in my life and finally appreciated just how awful that virus can be. We all receive the vaccine annually and, while it is nowhere near 100% effective, my wife and daughter did not get the flu so that was a small win. It took longer than expected to recover from that illness and I had absolutely no interest in venturing out during the recent arctic blast so I was content with letting the [...]
Today's image comes from my 'to-be-posted' archives from January 11, 2015. Many of my favorite images of Redd's come from the month of January when the ice is typically perfect for skating and snow has not yet fallen to affect the surface. I had gone to Redd's on this afternoon to check on conditions and was delighter to find the ice bustling with activity. There were kids and adults skating across the small pond and a pickup hockey game was taking place as well. I decided to set up near the hockey goal and used a slow shutter speed to [...]
A Spring thaw is finally upon us with temps possibly hitting 60 degrees today. That thought put me in mind of this aerial image of Folger Point and Naugus Head taken in early January as arctic air froze the waters in Salem Harbor. At the time, I saw the broken ice near the coast as 'not yet frozen'. Now it seems to represent 'already thawed'. Funny how that works...
The night before a blizzard quite literally exploded over Marblehead, I went out hoping to capture the sight of a nearly frozen harbor. While Salem harbor had frozen over several days ago, Marblehead's own harbor seemed more stubborn in succumbing to the arctic blast. Earlier on this Wednesday, I had made it out to Riverhead Beach and flew my drone over the newly frozen parts of inner harbor and knew that at least part of our harbor had finally frozen. As sunset approached, I headed across the causeway trying to think of a new vantage point having shot from just [...]
On Tuesday night I decided to head out to Stramski Beach before sunset hoping to capture images of a frozen Salem harbor only to find picture perfect pancake ice all around me. I spent an hour exploring compositions including the Stramski pier and close ups of the ice. As the sun set and the temperature dipped to single digits, the sky lit up with a beautiful and incredibly long sunset. I shot frame after frame but was immediately drawn to this one with the pier and bare trees framing the scene and the pancake ice reflecting the colors of sunset. [...]
I have had this image of pond skating at Redd's in mind for years and was so thrilled to have finally captured it. In 2010, Vincent Laforet captured an aerial image of skaters at Rockefeller center from a helicopter and what struck me about the shot was the shadows telling the story of what each skater was doing. I considered hiring my own helicopter or plane for a similar image over Redds Pond but that held too many complications and variables. A few years ago, drones came on the market but the early ones had cameras better suited for video [...]
This was truly a frozen New Years Eve sunset as I braved an insanely cold wind coming off the frozen harbor to capture my last sunset of 2017. I decided to head out in part to capture the chunks of ice that had formed along this part of the harbor and hoped the clouds would break for a nice sunset to help say 'Goodnight 2017'. I started off shooting around 3:40pm and only lasted 10 minutes before the cold forced me to retreat into the car. Despite dressing warmly in multiple layers, the 20 mph winds (and -15F wind chills) [...]