Tag Archives: Road Trip

Lighthouses Galore!

Hendricks Head Lighthouse on Hendricks Harbor. Viewed from Dogfish Head Beach near Southport, Maine

Tired of lighthouse photos yet?  Not me!

When I started thinking about photographing the Maine coast, naturally the first thing I thought of was lighthouses.  In anticipation of a day just like today, I purchased a variable neutral density filter.  Today was my first chance to really try it out.  It seems to work best on cloudy days and with long-ish lenses.  It makes a mess on my wide-angle 10-24 lens except at the most gentle settings, darkening the corners dramatically.  Works pretty well on the longer end of the 16-80 but works really well on the 55-200.  I got a little buffeting from the gusty winds but a 3.5 second exposure like this one worked pretty well.  I processed it using the Classic Chrome profile in Lightroom instead of my usual Velvia-based preset.  I think it shows the raw power of the wind and surf.

We were very glad to have been on the water yesterday and on land today!  Gusty winds and rough seas would have made for an unpleasant journey today!

Postcard From Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse near Bristol, Maine. Seen from a coastal cruise with Capt. Fish out of Boothbay Harbor.

Kathy & I made a last minute choice to book a coastal cruise with Capt. Fish out of Boothbay Harbor.  The cruise took us past 3 lighthouses, including this one on Pemaquid Point. It is another one of the many iconic lighthouses along the Maine coast.  I think today we’re going to drive there and see the other side of it!

Postcard From Portland Head Lighthouse, Maine

Portland Head Lighthouse on Cape Elizabeth near Portland, Maine

It’s pretty easy to make a decent composition of this lighthouse, but hard to get it without people, especially during the day.  I decided to not try climbing on the rocks, although I did see a number of foolish souls slipping and sliding around, perilously close to the water’s edge.  Not for this guy!

A Whale Of A Tale

Humpback Whale seen on our Whale Watch Cruise with Cape Ann Whale Watch in Gloucester, Massachusetts

Kathy and I took a whale watch cruise this afternoon out of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  We love seeing the big whales in person and were not disappointed with this trip.  I have a tough time taking good photos on cruises like this, because there are so many people jockeying for position whenever a whale is spotted.  I much prefer the smaller, more intimate vessels, but they are tougher to come buy and usually much more expensive.  We did see some whales, and I got a few photos.  Although I did decide to spring the $20 to but the photos from our naturalist/photographer on board!

Postcard From Rockport, Massachusetts

Motif #1 at Rockport Harbor, Rockport, Massachusetts

I set the alarm for an early exploration of Rockport.  It seems that in order to walk around town in the morning here it is a requirement to have at least one dog.  I guess that’s what you do in the winter if you don’t drink whiskey. 😉

Motif #1, located on Bradley Wharf in the harbor town of Rockport, Massachusetts, is a replica of a former fishing shack well known to students of art and art history as “the most often-painted building in America.” The original structure was built in 1840 and destroyed in the Blizzard of 1978, but an exact replica was constructed that same year.

Postcard From Provincetown, Massachusetts (Updated)

Provincetown Marina, Provincetown, Massachusetts

I wasn’t able to determine the significance of the photographs on the side of this building but will do more research when I get home.

Update 9/19/21:

Thanks to my lovely and talented research assistant, I was able to gather the following description:

“They Also Faced The Sea” installation was designed to keep the spirit and the presence of Portuguese culture alive by Ewa Nogiec, artist, publisher of iamprovincetown.com and owner of Gallery Ehva, and Norma Holt, photographer.

The installation of five larger-than-life black and white photographs of Provincetown women of Portuguese descent, mounted on a building at the end of Fisherman’s Wharf in Provincetown Harbor, is conceived as a tribute to the Portuguese community and its fishing heritage.

Norma Holt’s photographs from Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum collection of Almeda Segura, Eva Silva, Mary Jason, Bea Cabral and Frances Raymond, are meant to represent all of the women of Provincetown who over the years have been the backbone of this vital fishing village. They came from a long line of hard-working people, immigrating mostly from the Azores and mainland Portugal. Their families fished the waters off Cape Cod for over 200 years, built a major fish packing and distribution industry and made an important contribution to the history and culture of Provincetown.

Portuguese women faced the sea in many ways: as mothers, wives, sisters, friends and family of fishermen, as cooks, laundresses, nurses, teachers and telephone operators. They kept the culture alive, sang the songs, danced the dances, buried the dead, gave birth, cooked and kept the church at the center of their lives. Above all, they were resilient through good times and bad, their strength and courage easily matching and supporting that of their male seafaring counterparts.

More information can be found here: https://www.iamprovincetown.com/PortugueseWomen/

There is a large Portuguese population in Provincetown, and this artwork commemorates the contribution of the Portuguese women to the seafaring history of the area.