Photography 101 Class at South Portland Community Center!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be teaching Photography 101 at South Portland Community Center again this winter!  It's coming right up, starting Tuesday, January 29th and running through March 12th.  You'll not only be learning how to take a better picture with anything from your cell phone to a dSLR, but we'll be talking about the various apps and websites from flickr and 500px to Instagram where you can showcase your new talents!  It doesn't matter if you've never taken a picture in your life; just bring whatever form of camera you have and be prepared to have a lot of fun as we experiment and learn about taking a great picture!  Click on this link to bring you to the South Portland Activity Registration Page and then you should find my class, Photography 101 on page 3.

If you can think of anyone who might be interested in taking this class who is in the area, please forward this post to them.  It doesn't matter if you aren't a South Portland resident.

Hope to see some of you at the class!

Best wishes, Cindy

Northern New England Journey Magazine

This shot has been seen a couple of places--first, in Portland Magazine's April 2011 issue.  I really liked
Bob Witkowski's creative use of a kayaker on Congress Street!

And now, a one-and-a-half page spread in Northern New England Journey Magazine--a AAA publication.  I'm really happy with having all three of these images in this semi-national magazine!

This is the original photo--an HDR of three shots taken while traffic was going through the intersection one way or another.

Sunrise at Bug Light

Bug Light Sunrise

 

This morning, I woke up early (5:30am) to go and photograph sunrise at Bug Light with my friend Felice Boucher.  On the way over to South Portland, the sky looked distinctly underwhelming, frankly, and I thought that I would have a good time chatting with Felice but that it would probably be a non-sunrise, which sometimes happens. . . 

Instead, by the time we got to Bug Light, the colors in the sky had gone from blah to WOW!  It was also 50 degrees out--very warm for November in Maine, so it was such an enjoyable thing to be out photographing in the balmy morning air. 

These are my three favorite shots of the morning.  The last one looks like a panorama, but is actually a "croporama", made from one shot of the Portland Skyline with my ultra-wide lens and then cropped in vertically on the top and the bottom.  You can see all of these shots in my Lighthouse Gallery

It's almost always worth it, crawling out of bed to see the sunrise, and today was one of the best I've seen in a long time.

Thanks for looking!

Winslow Homer Studio

Shot of Winslow Homer's deck view, in this month's Portland Magazine.

Winslow Homer studio exterior on a beautiful summer day.

Another view of the studio exterior.

Winslow Homer Living Room.

 

 

Stairs leading to both the bathroom (on the right) and the studio (to the left) .

 Would you be inspired by this view while taking a bath?  I know I would!

One of the views from Homer's studio area.  I like the architectural detail here.

"Oh what a friend change can be when it chooses." --Winslow Homer quote on the wall.

View from the Cliff Path right in front of the Homer property. 

Another view of the bathroom, and it's lovely view, looking down the short hallway.

And last but not least, Winslow Homer often signed his own windows.  Maybe certain paintings were done looking out these windows?  I would love to know more about this.  You can sort of read his name here. 

I had the good fortune to photograph Winslow Homer's beautiful, austere art studio on Prout's Neck in Scarborough, Maine, back in July.  I had so much fun deciding on angles and wondering what paintings might have been painted out of which windows back in his day.  It is a lovely, well-kept building with all kinds of interesting architectural details.

The first picture is a scan of the heading for the blurb about the studio in this month's issue of Portland Magazine.

You can see all of these pictures on my website. Have you ever been to Homer's studio?  If so, have an interesting story to relate?  Or are you a Homer fan?  I'd love to hear from you! 

Common Ground Fair 2012

Sights from 2012's Common Ground Fair

My family and I went to The Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine two Sundays ago and had a great time.  The drive is always beautiful, winding through fields of corn and farmland.  We hadn't been in several years, so it was great to see people out, enjoying the beautiful weather at the fairgrounds.  Since we were there last, they added a farmers' market.  The smells of good, organic food floated everywhere, the sounds of children laughing and playing, yarn and whole fleeces for sale, Alpacas, oxen, draft horses, chickens and other farm animals on display, great music being played in various places, all made for a wonderful experience. 

If you went this year, leave a comment and tell me about your great experiences.  Happy Autumn everyone!

New Acadia National Park Gallery

Bernard Harbor near sunset

Last week, I camped on Mount Desert Island with my family and managed to not only have a great time, but capture a bunch of shots I'm very happy with.  We spent time at Sand Beach, and hiked Gorham Mountain, which has spectacular views of the Park Loop Road and Sand Beach.  We took a whale watch, but unfortunately didn't see any whales.  We visited Jordan Pond and Bubble Pond and of course did the requisite touring around Bar Harbor and had lunch at Epi's, where we used to eat when we lived in Bar Harbor as a young couple. 

I've made a new gallery of my favorite Acadia shots that you can visit on my website.

I hope you'll take a minute to visit and let me know what you think.  If you've been to the Acadia area, I'd love to hear what you like doing best there.  Feel free to leave a comment here or on my website! 

Best wishes,

Cindy

Dunegrass Sunset, Ferry Beach, Maine

Dungrass Sunset

Fishing at sun set, Ferry Beach

Fishing Boat at sunset, Ferry Beach

Sunset Boys at Ferry Beach

A couple of weeks ago, I hadn't had the camera in my hands for, well, a couple of weeks.  That is always very disconcerting to me, so seeing that it was a pretty early evening in July, I raced out to Ferry Beach in Scarborough.  The top picture of the dunegrass was my favorite shot of the evening, but it was just a beautiful early evening: balmy, soft air, quiet on the beach despite lots of people out enjoying the water, air and sun, seagulls wheeling around, a man fishing in hip-deep water, small boys playing in the sand.

 It's always amazing to me that I can drive a short 15 minutes and be at a place this beautiful, like Ferry Beach.  And there are so many places like it within short driving distances from my house.  It's nights like that that make me feel so lucky to live in Maine. 

You can see these photos and many more of Ferry Beach here.

Moonrise Over Portland Harbor: Explored on flickr

Moonrise Over Portland Harbor

I took this photo a couple of months ago behind Harbor Fish Market, in the Old Port and I don't know why, but I hadn't posted it anywhere yet, even on my website. Yesterday, it was explored on flickr, which is always exciting, because it brings a lot of traffic and a lot of people look at my blog and website. 

You can see it on Explore here.

But this tranquil shot belies what REALLY happened that night: when I got there, there were two drunk guys, listening to classic rock on a crappy radio out of a shopping cart and quietly slurring back and forth to each other. 

As I stood there with my camera, tripod and entire kit, a foot away from the water, they suddenly got in a fight over one of the guy's cell phone, and started rolling around on the cobblestones three feet behind me, shouting obscenities and punching each other! I thought, "it's only a matter of time before they knock me right into the water, along with all my gear!" and I got mad, because I couldn't even walk by them because they were rolling around so much.

For some stupid reason, I just yelled at them in my sternest "Mom voice": "Both of you STOP IT RIGHT NOW! I am trying to take a picture and you're fighting over a cell phone behind me? GET UP!" And they both looked really shocked and shame-faced, believe it or not, instead of whipping out a knife or a gun to kill me, and said they were sorry! 

I suddenly realized what I had done, grabbed my stuff, and marched off towards Harbor Fish Market, where a guy who was having a smoke out there, complimented me with a, "Way to GO, Mama!" lol!

When I went back afterwards, hoping it would all be okay, one of the guys had run off, and the other one apologized profusely to me! Too funny. . . But I WAS lucky that I got the right two drunks, who just happened to be scared by "Principal Cindy."

If you're interested in purchasing this image, you can do so at fine art america.

Stars Over Sebago Lake

On Saturday night, I spent the night at a camp on Sebago Lake.  I was lucky enough to experience clear skies and capture a couple of pictures of the sailboats at rest on the beach under the stars.  You can see these and many other Maine landscape images in my Maine Landscapes Gallery.

Lots of my New Work at Kennedy Studios and Portland Head Light Gift Shop

Starry Portland Head Light is up for sale, matted at the Portland Head Light Gift Shop.  Plus, in addition to all the older work shown there, I have all kinds of new matted work for sale at Kennedy Studios on Exchange Street in Portland.  Stop by and see it and let me know what you think.  It's a great gallery.  They are really friendly and helpful and do an incredible job with matting/framing.  Below, you'll find some of the other images I have there: