Our streak of great weather ended and the rain has taken over at my Acadia Photography Workshop. We spent yesterday afternoon and this morning in the classroom, talking about light and looking at some of the photos we have made so far. It is always fun to look at photos made by everyone in the workshop, we are all at the same places but invariably come away with different images. Again, people had their own vision and saw things I didn’t. It was fun looking at what we had created so far.
This afternoon we braved the light rain and went down along Somes fjord and had lunch in the cute village of Northeast Harbor. We stopped along the fjord where we made some fun photos of the gray day and shot around the marina in Northeast Harbor. I saw a lone tree isolated against the foggy shore and loved the way it stuck out.
When we left Northeast Harbor we stopped at the beautiful Asticou Gardens, even though there was still mist falling. I’ve seen the garden looking much better but there is always something to shoot there. I focused on some raindrops that lined up on a leaf. It can be tricky to get all the drops in focus, so I moved my tripod so I could get the most possible the same distance away from my lens so they would all be in focus. I worked on the drops for quite a while and came out of the rain with a photo that I really like.
I like macro photography, getting up close and taking a different look at things. Today was my second macro photography workshop this month and it was a lot of fun, as usual.
I start off with a presentation and then set up five studio situations that anyone can do it at home. It is a great way to keep the skills sharp and have fun when you don’t feel like going out and fighting the weather.
Today is my favorite day of the year to shoot sunrise, the sun rises at its latest time of the year since tomorrow we switch back off Daylight Savings Time. So today’s 7:30 sunrise becomes 6:30 tomorrow. I can handle getting out before 7:30, but 6:30 is always more of a challenge.
Even though I spent a lot of time in Vermont chasing fall foliage, I thought I would catch the end of the New Jersey version since the forecast was for clear skies this morning.
I walked around looking for unique patterns and great color before the sun hit, since I knew the frost would last only minutes once sunlight covered it. I found an area that had leaves from many different trees and the colors were really nice. I set up my tripod waiting for the sunlight to come over. I was looking for nice colors and found plenty of them and shot until the frost melted off.
As I was out early this morning getting some shots from the last blast of fall foliage, I was trying to shoot the sunlight coming through a leaf hanging on a tree. There was a very slight breeze but it was just enough to make getting a sharp photo near impossible. When I got home I noticed lots of colorful leaves in my yard, so I decided to backlight them.
I picked up some nice leaves and placed them on a glass table on my deck. I pulled out a small, portable flash, put it on a little light stand and stuck it under the table. I had my 100mm macro lens on my camera so I added an extension tube so I could get even more magnified shots. With the camera on a tripod, I shot straight down on the leaves, set the flash on full power and let it blast through the leaves. I had to guess at exposure but after a few shots I figured it out.
I was out in my favorite location in Pomfret, VT, looking for foliage photos and looking at a small set of birch trees. A single fallen yellow maple leaf had landed on the trees and provided a nice splash of color against the white bark.
During my days as a news photographer, I always noticed that the photographer who got away from the pack and wasn’t standing around chatting with the other photographers was usually the one with the best photos at the end of the day. I’m noticing that with our meetups too. Now some people are there to meet other photographers and get photo tips, which is great. But some are there to make the best photos they can and that person is rarely bunched up with the others.
