Spencer Pond Memories. . .

Wow--Maya and I had such a good time visiting my mother's rental cabin on Spencer Pond last week! (The bullfrog above was our pal--he hung out by the edge of the water the whole time, catching mosquitoes and ribbiting mournfully every so often.)

Maya had a sailing lesson from Rufus:

She also did a lot of diving off the dock:

And of course, I did some night photography and early morning photography as well. This is a photo of sunset on Spencer Pond, on July 13, 2007: And below, is a picture of sunset on the 12th. I also got shots of the stars over Spencer Pond, which are kind of cool:

And this one:

I got a couple of nice images of the mist on the lake in the morning:
And this one was from the canoe ride we all took before breakfast:

We had some delicious dinners, played a lot of hands of Uno and scrabble one day because it rained, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves all around. (Ummm--Except for that spider that ran across my arm and book while I was lying in bed.) But other than that. . .
I'll leave you with one final image--this is how much fun we had:

Fruit Shoot!

Yesterday, I had a fruit shoot. Maya and I had walked up to the Rosemont Market for lunch and I bought some local strawberries and raspberries for dessert (actually, I really just wanted to take pictures of them, but I knew we'd all be happy with eating them later, too. . . I used my macro function and came up with these images, which I'm quite happy with:

I call this one Fruitiverse 1 and the one below it is Fruitiverse 2. . .

I also took a couple of pictures of other vegetables that I like, although not as much as the berries. Below, you'll find The Onion Family and Worth its weight in gold. Hope you like them!

Misty morning at the Portland Farmer's Market Ends in Insult!

Okay, so I just used the headline to grab your attention, but it did end with an insult. Read on to find out. . . This morning, Maya and I headed out to the farmer's market in Monument Square. I got a bunch of pictures I liked.

It was really misty and cool but there were tons of people buying strawberries, new potatoes, shelling peas and root vegetables.

When we were walking out to go back to our car, I saw this great big BEAR of a man with a really awesome dSLR of some sort slung carelessly around his neck and I pointed to my own camera and said, "Hey, looks like we're doing the same thing!" He took one look at my camera and sneeringly said, "Yeah, but I'm probably making more money. . ." What a wanker, right? I thought afterward that I probably could've gotten away with a snappy, "Yeah, but I'm probably having more FUN!' But of course I didn't say that. . .

I call this one: "Oh waiter, there's a bug in my salad!" Well, it was a fun morning anyhow, and we bought local!

Night Photography Expedition ends with Spider Attack!

I went out last night to have some fun with night photography after I put my daughter to bed (don't worry--dad was with her!) I drove about five minutes away to what I like to call Airport Bay, which overlooks the highway (I-95) and the Portland International Jetport runway. It was about 9:10 pm when I propped my camera up on top of my Honda CR-V on its little tripod and did about an 8 second exposure to get this jewel-toned shot. Not award-winning, I know, but I like the colors and the clarity of the water, and the way the car headlights on the highway made one long white line. Here's another from the same series below:

Like it? It's a bit simpler. . . Still not rocket-science though, I know. . . Next, I headed to one of Portland's historic districts, Stroudwater, to capture a shot of Stroudwater Bay. This is where the "King Pines" were loaded onto ships to go back to England and be made into masts for King George's boats back in Colonial days. I looked for ghosts, but only caught the lights of a plane trailing across the shot in the upper right hand corner. Check it out below: The first is the original, the second, the original lightened in Photoshop: I would've kept trying different shots if I hadn't noticed a gigantic WHITE spider crawling on my foot. That pretty much killed anymore excitement I had about getting "the perfect shot." And finally, today, I trotted back out to Stroudwater (once again only five minutes away) and took Infrared pictures of the falls with my Hoya R-72 filter. I like the one below the best:

Our trip to Moosehead Lake

We camped at Lily Bay State Park last weekend (June 29th to July 2nd, 2007.) This was the view from the edge of our campsite, #34W, just after sunset. It looks really peaceful, and I thought we were in for a lovely stay at that campsite--but the next two days were so windy and cold our tent blew down five times during the day! (Fortunately, never while we were in it.) I was really happy with this picture though. I put the camera on its mini-tripod on a rock a foot or so in the lake and set it for a 30 second exposure. The long exposure picked up the fading sunset light and made the lake look silky and smooth. Believe me, it was the last time it looked like this!
The next night, we drove down the Lily Bay Road to Kokadjo. There's a sign at the edge of town reading, "Kokadjo, Population: Not Many!" And it's true--if you blink too long, you're past the bulk of the town, which seems to consist of a general store and a few houses. Very cute. We drove a little beyond it and stopped at Lazy Tom Bog (above) near sunset. It, like the picture above, looks so peaceful and serene, and I am very happy with this picture, too. But what you can't see is the MILLIONS of black flies and mosquitoes buzzing around my head, which was covered with two hoods and cinched tight around my chin to keep them out! Maya was fishing below to the right, which you can't see in this picture, and she stood still and let the bugs eat her alive. The poor kid is still covered with red bites on her back, head and ankles! But she was thrilled to get to use her little fishing rod and we all watched the fish jumping out of the water to catch the black flies over and over.

On the way back from Kokadjo, we saw this moose calf, nestled by the side of the road, while its mother grazed and drank from a stream. We saw 9 moose throughout the trip, which was quite the thrill! We also saw pheasants, geese, ducks and a bunch of brown hares, that ran away every time we even looked at them.

The picture above is sunset the second night. As you can see, the water was MUCH choppier, and it was really cold out and of course, super windy!
This was the view of Moosehead Lake from a really ritzy neighborhood that was being built high up on a hill in Greenville, Maine, near Lily Bay State Park. It was a great vacation, cold, wind and all!