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For several days I had been watching different weather reports and was hoping that Hurricane Earl would hit along the New England coast.  I wasn't hoping for any damage, mind you.  I just wanted to be able to get out with my camera and take pictures of some dramatic skies and large waves.  As the weekend drew closer, Earl was on track to hit Nantucket and the outer cape.  I didn't think that law enforcement would allow me to get down to any of the beaches I had in mind to go to on the Cape if the storm hit as hard as was being predicted.  I decided to contact a photographer friend to see if he was interested in heading either to a location in New Hampshire or Maine.  He was ready to go chase the storm and we decided on Cape Elizabeth, Maine, home of Portland Head Lighthouse.

 

I left my house at 4am to head out on the trip.  It was cloudy at home but dry.  Within 5 minutes I was in a downpour.  It actually stopped raining as I got closer to the ocean.  I was expecting to find more rain, but I was glad it had stopped since I don't need water in the camera.  We arrived at Cape Elizabeth somewhere around 7am and started taking the standard photo that everyone else takes.  There should be a sign on the fence that says "insert tripod legs here."  I don't have a problem with getting the "standard" shot, but I also want something different; something that not everyone else can say they have in their photo collection.  The easiest way to take care of that was to hop the fence and head down the rocks.  It wasn't like we had to watch out for some huge waves that were being kicked up by the storm.  Hurricane Earl had turned into Tropical Storm Earl overnight and had moved on up the coast toward Nova Scotia.  We were on the back end of the storm and only got to see some of the clouds.  Thank goodness for high tide that morning, otherwise the photography would have been okay at best.

 

Since the waves weren't very big, I decided to try some long exposures.  Not only did I use my polarizer, but I stacked a couple of ND filters so that I could get a 15 second shot.  The waves that were coming in with the high tide were smoothed out because of the lack of light coming into the lens.  I really liked the effect and ended up with some really good shots.  Since they were shots taken from hopping the fence, there is only one other person who has the same shots as me from that morning.

 

When we finished our shots from this side of the lighthouse, we headed to the other side so that we could get some shots facing south.  On the way there, a gentleman  stopped up to show us some shots from a storm earlier in the year.  He was able to capture some of the huge waves we had hoped for.  After seeing those photos, and taking some good ones ourselves, we decided that we're going to go to this location again for some storm photos.  In the words of Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, hopefully next time we'll see some "tasty waves."

 

Until next time.

 

Glen Taylor

9/6/10

It had been awhile since I have been able to get out with my camera and get some nature shots.  With the long weekend I decided to take advantage of an early morning and head to Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.  I arrived a little after 5am to get the sunrise hitting the mountainside.  The view with Gilson Pond in the foreground is beautiful, but there were no reflections today due to a small breeze causing ripples on the water.

 

For those who haven't heard of Mount Monadnock, it's one of the most climbed mountains in the world.  It's not a huge mountain, only 3,165 feet above sea level, but it has many great trails along with views to all of the New England states.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Until next time.

 

Glen

5/31/10

When I was in high school I really wanted to live in Manhattan.  I thought it would be great to have some sort of business related job in the big city, getting to see all of the lights of Times Square, and never running out of things to do in the "city that never sleeps".  My how things have changed.  I have no interest in that lifestyle these days.

 

I have a great home in a wonderful neighborhood.  I'm fortunate enough to have a nice sized lot with woods out back.  In fact, some of my wife's family tell us that we live in the sticks.  I'm not exactly in the country, but it's far from being Manhattan...and I love it that way.

 

Over the past week I've been outside doing yardwork and noticed some wildflowers growing in the brush, underneath some trees.  Well, one of the pictures is definitely a wildflower.  The first photo is of a Pink Lady Slipper.  We have several of these growing on our property.  I'm not so sure of the name of the flowers in the second photo.  For all I know, they might be part of a flowering weed.  Even so, they sure do look nice.

 

 

 

While you might be able to find some wildflowers somewhere in Manhattan, I'm fortunate enough to have these as my backyard beauties.

 

Until next time.

 

Glen

 

5/23/10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As nature/landscape photographers, we've seen a lot of photographs from magazines, posters, postcards, etc...and thought, "I'd love to take that photo and add it to my collection."  Some examples might include places like Schwabacher Landing, Moulton Barn, and Maroon Bells.  The problem is you end up with the same photograph that you can find a million times over on the internet.  Don't get me wrong, I'd love to visit any of these places and take the same photos, but I'd try to add a new twist to the photo I take to make it my own.  I want to have my own photographic style.

I check out what other outdoor photographers are doing on some photo websites and see if there is something I might be able to emulate, rather than just blatantly copy.

 

There is a photographer from Canada that takes some amazing night photos and one of his photos in particular really caught my eye.  The photo was a time lapse shot with cloud movement.  I wanted to try this for myself and the result is the photo shown here.  While I enjoy taking photos like this, I didn't want it to define my style, so what I did was try to figure out how I could incorporate this into other shots that I take.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided that I wanted to try and have some time lapse cloud shots during the middle of the day.  I had to do a little research on the equipment I'd need, plus there was trial and error.  In the end, I was able to get what I was looking for.  This photo was an approximate 25 second exposure during a sunny afternoon.  While it isn't the best photo, it does have the cloud movement I was looking for.  I've got other ideas in mind for this technique and locations where I think it will work so that I can try to improve the outcome.  Ultimately I was able to take a style that someone else was using and try something a little bit different in an attempt to make it my own.

 

Until next time.

 

Glen

 

May 11, 2020