Epic Trip To Maine (Day 13) - 2 October 2011 (Updated 10 Oct 11)
Cadillac Mountain At Sunrise - Acadia National Park, Me
Unfortunately, I got going a little later than planned this morning. And, because of the previous night spent on Cadillac Mountain and not scouting any locations, I really didn't have a clue where I was going in the morning. So, I simply got up, brushed my teeth, fired up the bike, and got going.
My plan was simply to go until I saw something interesting and then decide to stop.
I stopped at one location with a nice meadow and a cool cloud in the background just prior to sunrise. I don't think any of those image will make prime-time. So, I missed the color of sunrise. I felt kind of bad as if I fumbled the ball--to use football terminology. After that I got to simply riding around the one-way loop around Acadia NP.
This is what I saw between the trees, Cadillac Mountain covered by a cloud. Then, I spied a meadow, then I found access with convenient parking just big enough for a bike.
I got into the meadow wearing my motorcycle boots. Good thing because it was very wet in there. And shot a few pano's of which I like this a lot.
After that I spent the rest of the morning riding the one-way loop and returned to my camp-site to figure out my next step.
Wyeth Gallery Corner - Rockland, Me
You see, the plan was to depart this day and start heading back to Michigan. Remember how I lost a day because I kind of forgot about Wisconsin causing me to arrive a day later to my sis' house? Well, I still needed to get to Illinois on time because I had to for work. That meant I needed to lose a day in Maine--my one of two days.
Well, that idea went out the window when I missed the morning sunrise. And, there was so many potential images for the coming evening and subsequent morning, I just had to have another shot. So, I stayed.
Which was a great plan through paying the $30 bucks for my camp site when the other couple waiting in the Camp site registration area got the day's weather report... Rain. While this morning was fantastic, beyond fantastic, the afternoon was going to be rainy.
Oh well, plan already made, time to stay with it.
The plan was to go down to Rockland and revisit the Farnsworth Art Museum that specializes in Andrew Wyeth art among other things. Then, return in time for exploring and sunset.
Farnsworth Museum - Rockland, Me
That was a great plan right up until the rain really started to fall. While Rockland was very interesting including the special exhibit related to the Christina's World house in nearby Cushing becoming a National Historic Site, it wasn't much on nature photography. What you see here are little vignettes of the grounds around the museum.
Farnsworth Museum - Rockland, Me
Motivated or inspired by Wyeth's work, I kind of worked images that might not normally be primary subjects. The goal here was to shoot and make art of the infrastructure supporting the museum grounds. You see, so much of Wyeth's work is about the subtleness of life and it's surroundings. Simple things in high detail were their own art pieces. That's what I tried to capture here.
Farnsworth Museum - Rockland, Me
Fortunately for me, one of the showcase exhibits was by Paul Caponigro--one of America's premier living landscape photographers. He's from the generation following Ansel Adams and Weston. And, what I gleaned from his art was simple compositions and focus on the energy from the objects. It's hard to explain that here. I might write an article what I mean by that.
Anyway, the result were a few attempts such as these two that kind of show part of the museum grounds
Desert Island Campgrounds - Mt Desert, Me
This is unquestionably one of the most amazing campsites I've ever been to. Not only are the tent locations amazing--see the platform--the shore side of the campsites are pretty freakin amazing. Sure, it's not all beaches and volleyball like you might see if you were at a campsite touting it's waterfront camp grounds. It's a different but awesome kind of look. Personally, I like this much better in that there is a lot of character and not that much volleyball at these kind of places.
Oh, not 10 yards to the right you're in the forest as in you can't see the forest and might get lost is so dense kind of forest.
Bike In Forest - Mt Desert Island, Me
Of course, no set of images would be right without a bike image--I think you've heard this before. I like this because the trees simply tower well over the bike. It is but a small feature in this huge forest.
Rain - Bar Harbor, Me
Okay, the plan was to shoot the evening after scouting and then shoot the morning at some iconic location. That was the plan until it no kidding started to rain and rain really really hard. That meant the end of the evening shoot and a big o' maybe on the morning shoot.
As a fall-back I shot a bunch of images around downtown Bar Harbor. Even for the off season, it was busy. I can only imagine what the high season looks like.
Crosswalk - Bar Harbor, Me
Of course, like everywhere else, I get looks when I park the bike. Not sure what I wrote that here with this image of the crosswalk. So you know, when I park the bike and walk around, I still have my bike stuff, sans helmet with me. In this case, with the rain falling, I'm wearing all my gear including jacket, and a rain hat. Kind of a fireman looking outfit walking around casually shooting images. I kind of stick out and it's hard to be incognito.
City Street - Bar Harbor, Me
These images of downtown Bar Harbor are all experiments. In this case, I'm using a longer shutter speed and panning the camera to make it look like I'm speeding by. I'm not really. My feet are firmly planted on the ground while I pan the camera with a long shutter speed. You see the image is really of the camera moving by instead of the photographer--i.e. you're truly.
Car Lights - Bar Harbor, Me
Even though traffic was substantially down, there still was enough to make into images. This image was made totally by surprise. I just shot down the alley with my camera not really knowing what I was shooting then saw the review on the camera. The light reflection and slight blurriness were all just cool. I tried to repeat this through several other images but wasn't able to match this, the first image.
When the first image is your best image, you kind of start wondering why put so much effort into it. I think the first image is only the best image because of all the practice you had on other images previously.