Last week I went to another one of those small coastal reserves and shot these photos with my macro lens. Although it was only around 3:00 PM, the sun had already disappeared below a nearby hill to the west. Winter is soon to encroach upon us.
I particularly like the ephemeral leaf on the “eternal” rock. The former inhabitants of the mollusk shells were likely eaten by those hungry sea birds. Then again, mollusks are tasty. Nature is a tough neighborhood–eat or be eaten.
The surf was up with the approach of a PM southeaster. I went to a few beaches but, alas, no surfers. I guess gusts to 50 MPH deterred them. There were, nevertheless, a couple of people and a group of hunkered-down gulls.
Although the storm peaked the night after my Prelude post, it was still going the following day (wind was between 25 & 30 MPH) when these photos were taken. Still, southern Maine wasn’t hit as hard as Boston and New York that saw wind speeds up to 60 MPH. Each shot was taken 0.1 seconds apart. You can view all of my selected wave shots at my on-line gallery.
The definition goes like this: An eastern North American storm that usually develops between the Georgia and New Jersey latitudes, progressing northeastward and typified by potentially violent northeast winds: most frequent and intense from September through April; nor’easters can develop within a hundred miles of the east coast and commonly bring heavy rain or snow and coastal damage. We’re looking at 30 – 40 MPH winds and maybe two inches of rain, tomorrow. This storm was fed by the jet stream that brought the remnants from that big Pacific storm that dumped up to a foot of rain in some parts of California.
Since winds today were already about 25 MPH off Cape Elizabeth I decided to go to Crescent Beach and photograph the waves during the incoming tide. Wave heights today were about 4 -5 feet. The water temperature was about 57 F. If that seems too cold for swimming just wait awhile. The Gulf of Maine is heating at 5 times the rate of the oceans due to changes in currents, precipitated by climate change. As a result, sharks are moving in and lobsters are moving out.
Tomorrow I plan to venture out around noon when wave heights are expected to be around 11 feet. In the meantime here are a few shots from today.
Update: It turns out that sails for ocean-going ships will be coming back, though far different than those of those fast clipper ships. See the New York Times.
Looking at my shoot of Boston’s tall ships in 1980 (I took these with a Yashica TL-Electro SLR, which I still have, using Kodak reversal film) got me to thinking about ways of cutting back on petroleum. As I have
Boston, Tall Ships
The Juan Sebastian Elcano, 1980
discussed in earlier posts, climate change is not the only reason for cutting back on petroleum. Although we have plenty of oil now, scientists have noted that petroleum and other natural reserves will be in shorter supply and increasingly expensive over the coming decade, forward.
One solution for ocean ships would be new designs using both solar and wind power (with solar panels embedded in their sails). Although these ships would need larger crews, and could not be as large as current ocean-going ships, they could be larger than their 19th century clipper counterparts. Though this is not economically viable now, it will be as oil depletes, leading us to what I call neo-industrialization (a period of scaled back production using mostly/only-renewable resources).
I will talk more about this in a later post. In the meantime, perhaps you would share your own ideas on this topic.
You will find three of my recent photographs at my on-line gallery. I shot these with my medium format Mamiya film camera using Kodak Tri-X film, so they are a bit grainy. You can identify this camera’s shots because they are nearly always in square format (unless I crop them off square). I always use a tripod when I’m shooting land- waterscapes for better composition, and sharpness or long exposures.
I develop my black and white films, then I scan them, and process them using Adobe Lightroom.
A couple of days ago I was getting some exercise walking through Portland’s Evergreen Cemetery. There, I found this interesting group of ponds featuring everything from dragonflies and frogs to an Egret. I showed up the next day with my medium format, film camera and a tripod and photographed.
I shot two rolls of fine grain film using f/16 @ 1/8 – 1/30″. I must say, the Egret and the ducks were pretty cooperative and very comfortable around people. Although there were several people there, no one was feeding them. Here’s one shot of the Egret which I titled, Egret.
Evergreen Cemetery duck pond
You can see more of these photos at my online gallery (I show only 5 of what I see as the best photographs).
Coastal fog makes for great photographs. Sometimes it covers a large geographical area. Other times it’s very isolated. This was one of those days. Behind me and to my left it was clear with a blue sky. It’s all dependent on temperature and relative humidity. When the two meet at the dew point, fog forms (well, sometimes).
Here, I used a 10 stop neutral density filter with a 50 second exposure @ f/13 using 120 Ilford 100 film.
The waves beat against the unyielding rocks. Yet, given enough time, the water wins.
Maine’s coastal rocks are the result of plate tectonics and glaciation. They formed from layers of underground silt subjected to heat and pressure. When the North Atlantic plate rammed the North American plate these rocks were pushed to the surface. Glaciers then added their finishing touches.
I went to South Portland yesterday with my medium format film camera to
ND 10X Filter
ND 10X filter: blurred people figures on left
photograph with my 10X neutral density filter, allowing only 1/10th of the light through. This enables long exposures giving you that smooth water and sky effect, when conditions are right. People can walk right across your view and they don’t register on the film. Cool!
Here are a couple of my shots. You can see more of my waterscapes at my online gallery.
Stephen Fielding Images 