Views of the natural environment & climate change
So far this spring the weather hasn’t met my minimum requirements too often for cycling (wind <25 mph, no rain, and temp 50º F +). However, two days ago I did have an opportunity to begin some hill training. Here’s a shot from the Promenade looking across Casco Bay with Fort Gorgeous; and Little Diamond (left), Peaks (center), and House (right) Islands in the background.
After getting up at 5 AM to get to the 6 AM senior roundup at the market, it was good to actually go out the door for a second time in one day. Wow! It was 
still a bit on the crisp side at 50°F, but I took the bike into the Old Port area (Once the shelter in place restrictions are lifted I’ll start traveling to the various environmental vistas around Maine.). The streets, of course, are still pretty empty, making cycling safer. I took a photo on one of the piers. Unfortunately, I set the camera’s ISO to 
automatic. Most of the time this works fine at 1/125 @ f/8, but today I was set at 1/60 and the ISO couldn’t go low enough to compensate. The clouds blew out as a result (looks kind of interesting though).
I still have a long way to go to reach last year’s conditioning. My goal is to enter Casco Bay Cycling Club’s century ride in September. I do intense aerobic work on these city rides, but I need the anaerobic, endurance workouts. But these will have to wait for the club’s group rides to restart.
If you’re a cyclist training for an event, let me know what you’re doing for training.
Yesterday we had 35+ MPH winds so I went to Webster Park on Lake Ontario to photograph more ice. Everything from the parking lot down to the shore
was iced, due to freezing rain and refreezing. So I strapped on my gear, including my micro-cleets, and boldly walked down to the pier. I had to use my foot to punch through the snow to set up my tripod. The gusts were so strong at times I made sure I always held on to the tripod to avoid having it blown over, and to
dampen vibration during shooting. I selected locations where I was at least partly shielded from wind with a good view of the pier. I took a total of 12 shots from three angles.
The first photo shows the pier completely under ice (taken slightly to the left of the pier). The second photo (taken slightly from the right) shows the same pier during a nor’easter last fall. Fresh water 
freezes far more readily than salt water so it doesn’t take much cold to enable the waves to build high ice walls on the lake’s leeward shore lines. The trick is to wait for that split second when a large wave breaks. Had I been using my digital camera that can shoot 10 frames per second this would have been much easier.
To get the third photo I walked a short way along the shore to the right of the pier looking for an opening free of branches. Resetting the tripod and camera 
while wearing gloves is always a challenge. This day I was wearing gloves with openings for the forefinger and thumb (and hand warmers in my pockets to rewarm them).
I had to climb up the hill to get into place for the fourth photo. The wind was horrific. Fortunately, I was able to find a large tree close to where I needed to be to partially shield me and the camera.
I took all these photos with my 35mm camera with a circular polarizing filter on a 135mm lens. Since I was shooting Tri-X 400 film, the filter enabled me to shoot at slower shutter speeds to get a little blur on the breaking waves.
Unlike shallow Lake Erie, Ontario is deep so it only freezes around the edges. While this works for surfers (yup, winter is the best time since that’s when the waves are the highest) we get lake effect (snow) all winter long when the wind is blowing on shore (i.e., off the lake). Those areas most exposed to on shore wind get the most snow. Watertown, at the east end of the lake gets the most, about 300+ inches per year!
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A friend and I went to Taughannock Falls and Watkins Glen State Parks yesterday. It was a beautiful day with blue skies and somewhat brisk at eight degrees Farenheit. These parks are known for their deep gorges carved out by water, along with their waterfalls.
These gorges are paralleled with paths cut into the stone ledge, most of which were closed, due to ice. The first photo shows one of these falls where you can see the dramatic build-up of ice (followed by a summer view), including an ice dome at the base.
We walked along a path overlooking the gorge where we found a relatively clear view of the gorge, showing the stream emptying into the southern end of Cayuga Lake, shown in the photo, below. The photo on the right shows chunks of ice, covered with snow, illustrating that this shoot was all about ice.
Since we could not get to most places in this park, we drove twenty miles to Watkins Glen to see if we would have any opportunities to walk along the gorge. Unfortunately, most were closed. However, the Gorge Trail was open where there were some overlooks and paths that were relatively safe (as I write this the following day, NY Parks closed this trail, due to poor conditions). Although there was bright sun, it was low in the sky so most of the gorge was shaded in the afternoon. I took the two following photos from one of the bridges crossing the gorge. I took the first with my lens set to 15mm and the second of the same scene set at 38mm. However, I changed how I processed the second photo to show a more abstract version.
Intense cold and slippery surfaces make this type of photography a bit dangerous. Proper layered clothing and extreme caution near edges and ledges are critical for personal safety. I will place a few more ice photos from this shoot in my on-line gallery in the near future.
The weather around the finger lakes has been pretty mild so far, with temperatures mostly in the thirties and some forties with little precipitation. However, this might change with the anticipated coming of the polar vortex. One struck last year and produced three consecutive nor’easters along the east coast.
I traveled around the finger lakes in December where there were light patches of snow scattered about the countryside. Here are some of my highlight photos.
Here on the north coast the weather can get pretty rough. Remember the Edmund Fitzgerald (it sank on Lake Superior)? Well, Ontario is a pretty rough place when the wind blows from the northeast. Last week a nor’easter swept up the east coast and we were on its northwestern side. Even so, we had winds up to 35 MPH with about an inch of rain.
So I decided to suit-up in my rain gear and go out for a shoot at the Webster Pier in the park of the same name. With my 35mm camera loaded with Ilford 3200 B&W film under a camera hood I ventured out, keeping the lens pointed down, then shooting mostly downwind to keep the lens dry (I still had droplets on the lens). That day the water was churning but the waves were only about 3 or 4 feet high. With the more powerful winter storms waves can be from 6 to 9 feet (great for winter surfing)!
When I arrived the wind was “only” blowing at about 25 MPH; there were several die-hard fisherman trying their luck, with one pair out on the pier. However, after about an hour the winds strengthened to around 35 MPH and they left; I was really being buffeted during this period, making it difficult to compose my shots and keep my lens dry.
People love living near the water, but during storms things can get really dicey. 
Many had their properties at least partially flooded last year. You can see how close some homes are to the shore in the last photo.
If you have any storm shots from the Great Lakes, we would all love to see them!
I am not back on the water, just thinking about it. Some of the best water in my opinion is off the Maine coast, as we see here with a sailboat sailing into a fog bank in Portland harbor. Living on the North Coast (i.e., Lake Ontario) is nice but it just cannot compare to the salt water coasts. The tides, the salty air, and, oh yeah, those “back door” cold fronts that so often create widespread fog. Ahh, “when that fog horn blows . . . .”
There is nothing like a storm breaking waves over the rocks. The sound of the
crashing waves is relaxing. Actually, nice weather or stormy weather (hurricanes aside) by the sea affect most people quite pleasantly, which is why coastal property is so expensive. Here is a brief take of one stormy day on Peaks Island in the photograph to the right.
Something went horribly wrong in this next photograph on the left. It looks like the film was scratched. None of the other frames on the roll have these scratches so I am a bit perplexed. Seeing these, I decided to process the photo with a somewhat austere look, hoping to bring some new aesthetic to the photo. I am not sure it worked.
Late one afternoon, as cumulus clouds were building, I took this last shot as a small boat was on its way back from, well, who knows where?
I will be back at Peaks next year for more of these great Down East* scenes.
*The phrase derives from sailing terminology: sailors from western ports (e.g., Boston) sailed downwind (summer prevailing winds are from the southwest) toward the east to reach Maine and the Maritime provinces.
A friend invited me out on his sail boat this week-end. After leaving our slip we headed out the Genesee to the open lake. On our way out we saw a photo shoot taking place on the breakwater to our left (err, port). There was little wind so we had to motor about half of the time. The lake was smooth, it was warm, and the colors were great!
Given our low winter temperatures and the lake’s fresh water, you might not recognize this breakwater in the dead of winter as strong winds produce crashing waves and spray that make the above look like an extended block of ice.
Realizing that I have been the purveyor of bleak news in several of my recent posts, it is time to return to the positive aspects of our environment. Actually, most of us, most of the time, miss it–even when we are out in it. We are focused on our cell phones or talking with each other as we walk the trails, not fully taking in our surroundings. Native people, in contrast, are/were alert to sounds, animal behavior, subtle changes in weather and so forth. Animals are also more aware than us, even when it comes to impending earthquakes and tsunamis. During several major disasters they left for safer grounds, probably because they were aware of ground vibrations. We rarely feel these because we are so preoccupied with modern life.
I took the photos here during a couple of hot days this past July using Fuji Pro400 film. When walking with the camera (usually alone) I am looking all around and listening. When I discover a potential shot I think a bit about it (at least in those cases where my subject is not moving) and move around it, taking shots from different angles and/or exposures. You have to take several shots. If you take just one with what you think was a good composition at the time, you will likely be disappointed when you see the result.
So here is the “best” of what I saw on those hot summer days.
I am never sure what is better, taking photos or being out in nature. I suppose it is both.
Whereas I see Massachusetts’ coast as gentile, Maine’s coast can only be characterized as rugged. In addition to my usual landscape work, I am experimenting more with fine art and abstract work, with some of these meager attempts included here.
I might also add that this film set represents my first time doing my own film development, after which I scan the negatives and import them into Lightroom for post-processing. I took a course on developing black & white film two years ago, but it wasn’t until I returned from this trip that a friend of mine (a former Kodak chemist) gave me a refresher and loaned me his equipment. Unfortunately, I lost about 25 images due to improperly winding the unexposed film on the developing reel (that, of course, needs to be done in the darkroom).
You can see more of Maine’s coast in my photobook, Exploring Maine’s Coast, available online and at Sherman’s Books of Maine .
