Last Wednesday proved to be quite the outing and it began with a trip to Chandler Hovey Park in the hopes of capturing an oncoming storm. Before that storm would arrive, I spotted huge cumulus clouds behind Marblehead Light and grabbed this shot of the lighthouse backed by the intricate detail and patterns. The oncoming storm was a bust but the sunset more than made up for it.
I have had another image from this photoshoot hanging in my home office since I captured it on June 7, 2016. That image features the whole of the lighthouse reflected in the collected pool of water along the path leading to the iron structure. This one was taken 5 minutes later and I decided to change my position to better capture the beautiful sky behind Marblehead Light while choosing to reflect the tree rather than the lighthouse.
Last shot from last Wednesday's sunset and, as the title says, it really did feel like I was milking the sunset for all it was worth... I captured images of the setting sun from along the water's edge and then headed back up the ramp to find one last cloud reflecting the light of the setting sun. I quickly set up and composed this image capturing that cloud over Marblehead Light with its lights just visible behind the Corinthian Yacht Club and more than a few boats having found their moorings for the summer.
I went out twice this past week to capture the moonrise and ended up getting skunked by cloud cover both times. I waited over an hour on Friday night but the moon refused to show and I headed home empty handed. Luckily, I still have 40 images of moonrises and moonsets in Marblehead that have not been published yet and pulled this one of a larger than life moon from a forgotten shoot in February 2020. The moon appears huge thanks to the use of a 400mm focal length which served to flatten the distance between foreground and background and [...]
"If God put the rainbows right in the clouds themselves, each one of us in the direst and dullest and most dreaded and dreary moments can see a possibility of hope. Each one of us has the chance to be a rainbow in somebody’s cloud." - Maya Angelou Image captured June 23, 2012
One final image of May days in Marblehead - this one comes from an aerial shoot high above Redd's Pond. I captured a few images of the sailboats in Redd's early on but then flew up to 400 feet for this shot featuring the juxtaposition of big boats in the harbor and those little boats in the pond.
One more from Sunday's outing which started off at the State Street Landing where I spotted this young man fishing off the dock. Despite no one around, he had a mask around his face which was really nice to see. I got lucky with this frame to capture the line sailing over the Neck while a boat (yacht?) named Murphy's Law made its way out of the harbor.
Sometimes as I go through my 'to be posted' archive, I come across an image and wonder why it didn't make the cut initially. In this case, I looked back and found that I had been playing with reflections of the lighthouse in a puddle of water from a recent rain and then later was treated to an even nicer sunset sky. B0th of those images were shared shortly after this outing on July 18, 2017 but this one stayed back. Looking at it now, all of the elements of summer nights in Marblehead seem to be perfectly captured in [...]
In 2015, strong solar storms allowed Marbleheaders to view the aurora borealis on two occasions - March and June. This is my last image from the earlier outing on March 17, 2015 that I had yet to share. With the sun having since diminished the frequency and severity of storms, I'm not sure that we'll have a chance to view these purple and green colors again for a while. *Note - the colors were not visible to the naked eye but required a long (25 second) exposure by the camera sensor
A few days ago, I saw that a group of volunteers climbed Marblehead Light to adorn it with holiday lights a bit earlier than the usual Fourth of July weekend. The move was meant to offer a bit of light to those sheltering in place as we all wait for the coronavirus pandemic to pass. With the lighthouse normally lit only twice a year, I've had few opportunities to capture a moonrise against the light of the moon and thus made a point of heading down to Front Street this evening to capture the view. Unfortunately, clouds blocked the moonrise [...]