On Tuesday, March 17, the aurora borealis appeared in the sky over Marblehead, Massachusetts. I shared another image from this outing earlier in the day with a mix of green glow and purple spikes from the incredible light display. This image was captured five minutes earlier and shows a much broader and deeper green glow. I corrected the distortion in the lighthouse as it did not affect the aurora over Marblehead as in the other one.
It finally happened! I can't count how many times I have left the house late at night with the hope of capturing the aurora borealis over Marblehead Light. The northern lights occur when charged particles enter the Earth's atmosphere. On March 15, two coronal mass ejections sprouted from the Sun and headed towards Earth bringing with them a LOT of those charged particles. The strength of the aurora is measured in Kp values and, in Marblehead, we need to hit at least a Kp of 7 for any hope of seeing the northern lights. When the charged particles arrived on Earth [...]
There's no question that this Winter has been an incredible and soon an historic one with record amounts of snow and long durations of freezing temperatures. I've tried to capture some of the beauty that comes with the cold and snow and, when I first learned that a local artist had produced a sculpture in snow of an angel, I hurried to photograph it. Unfortunately I was too late (mother nature had destroyed her) but, for good or bad, more snow and continued cold meant that Jonathan Sherman had an opportunity to work on an even bigger piece. Starting with [...]
One last image to finish up an incredible year of capturing and sharing my images of Marblehead. I had noticed that the star on the Marblehead Trading Company crane seemed to line up awfully close to the top of Abbot Hall when I crossed the causeway and had made a note to try to return at sunset to capture this image. On Friday, December 27th, I got out of work early enough to drive straight to Devereux Beach, park in the lot and make my way along the causeway to this one spot where the crane seemed to be placing [...]
Hope no one is tired of fog yet - I was like a kid in a candy store when fog as thick and dense as I can remember seeing in town enveloped Marblehead in early December. I've shared two images thus far and wanted to add one more today taken at the end of State Street. I had been shooting up and down State when I decided to head to The Landing and a better angle on the star above. Each year, the crane belonging to Marblehead Trading Company is adorned with a brilliantly lit star that can be seen [...]
I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had gone out to Chandler Hovey park on Sunday at sunset hoping to catch the tail end of a large coronal mass ejection with promises of auroras in the night sky. I was fortunate that a nice sunset developed and, after capturing it, returned to the car to warm up (it was in the 30s but the wind was whipping across the water) and change to my wide angle lens. I then set up this composition and waited. The tricky part with stars is that the camera is able to capture much more [...]
On December 23rd, I headed out to Chandler Hovey Park to photography the lighthouse draped in its holiday best. I had just finished shooting the sunset at Devereux Beach both as fiery and smokey tendrils and had found a nice angle from which to shoot the lighthouse and old oil house. As I walked back to the car, I couldn't help but grab one more shot of the lighthouse at sunset. As the light was fading, this ended up as a 30-second exposure (thus qualifying it for Long Exposure Tuesday). If you look closely at the sky, you'll see a [...]
A new moon offers the best opportunity for star shots and one happened to fall on Christmas Eve in 2011. It was unseasonably warm (or at least not bitterly cold) and, after building a toy baby crib and grabbing some very last minute stocking stuffers, I headed over to Chandler Hovey Park. It's hard to appreciate just how dark it was when I set up to capture this image. I could just make out shapes and had to hope the focus was accurate. Each image took 30 seconds to capture and I had a few failed attempts before getting this [...]
With the unseasonably warm weather, I decided to pursue a new photographic avenue - shooting the stars. The most important aspects of shooting a sky filled with stars is to try to minimize light pollution and to shoot at least a few hours after sunset and before sunrise. It was with those thoughts in mind that I decided to head to Chandler Hovey Park at midnight on Christmas Eve. I set up near one of the benches (using it as cover from the stray lights at the park) and lined the lighthouse at the base of the photo with the [...]
Continuing with the 'Sometime Around Midnight' series, and returning to a personal favorite, here is the lifeguard chair at Devereux beach. I admit to a bit of an obsession with these chairs and had to include one in the midnight series. Again this was taken in the dark but the exposure took two minutes and thus was able to capture all available light. You can see the moon overhead and the stars streaking by. The yellow tint on the chair is from the lights on the causeway. The distant lights to the right are caused by the city of Boston [...]