Check out my new Smugmug site!

This is one of my latest posters--I took it at the Camden Windjammer Weekend with Maya and my father last Saturday--it's a longboat that belonged to one of the Windjammers.

I finally took the plunge and have gotten a new photo viewing site! You can visit it here: http://www.cfwphotography.smugmug.com/ . I'm very happy with it and think it is a wonderful tool.

Also--you can now view my Pentax photo gallery by clicking on this link below:

Hope this posting finds you all well and enjoying the latter part of summer. Cheers, Cindy

Dawn Journey aboard a Lobster Boat

This morning, I got up at 5:30 to meet the Ready Brothers on Hobson's Wharf in Portland's Old Port area so I could photograph them hauling traps for Maine Food & Lifestyle Magazine (www.mainefoodandlifestyle.com) . The Ready Brothers, Brendan and John, own Catch a Piece of Maine (www.catchapieceofmaine.com) , a really cool lobstering business that has managed to use the unique angle of videoblogging about their work as well as taking regular photos and sending video emails to their regular clients.

While I waited for them to be ready, I took this picture of a rowboat tied to the dock--I liked its reflection in the mirror-smooth water.

After I climbed down a scary, vertical metal ladder to the boat, we headed off!

We headed out of Portland Harbor and one of the first beautiful sights was Spring Point Light:

And then we came to Portland Headlight--my first view of it from the ocean ever!

And then, Brendan and John hauled and set some traps:

And:
How about THAT view from your office?! Although, I'm sure Winter, spent harvesting lobsters on an open boat isn't nearly as much fun. . .And then it was time to set some traps:

And: All too soon we were headed back to the "real" world of being a mother and a hypnotherapist--my eight year old was waiting at home and I had a client at 10, so I had to say goodbye. It was so much fun! Thanks Brendan and John!

And thank you all for looking!

Cumulus Congestus Clouds

Also known as: The Clouded Kingdom. Here they are, since I removed the passports I made for Callie and Maya.


It really looks like a place you could get to, doesn't it?

A Walk at Capisic Pond

On Monday, August 4th, I took a walk with my daughter, Maya, her best friend Callie, and of course my trusty Pentax K10D. Maya and Callie had a grand time, picking wild blackberries and eating them.

We saw some beautiful Jewelweed bushes and they popped some of the seedpods--the pods, when touched, fly apart as if they are held together by springs.
They pretended that they were princesses in the magical Cloud Kingdom they were looking at as we walked back. The clouds were literally gorgeous. Maya wants me to print out one of the photos and make them Cloud Kingdom Passports, which I think I have done, but have removed from the post. There were these incredible clouds they called the Cloud Covered Kingdom. They're quite happy with them and I'm going to have them printed up somewhere so they can each have one. Membership to an elite kingdom. . . Isn't that we all wish for?

A Walking Tour of Castine, Maine

Last week, my mother, my daughter and I walked around historic Castine, ME before having lunch at a great little place oddly called "Bah's Bakehouse."
One of the first things that caught my eye, was this rusty old bike, recycled as a planter box:

Across the street from that, this formal garden, complete with a Native American sculpture by famous Maine sculptor, Jud Hartman:

A little ways up the street from that was the Pentagoet Inn:

And then we walked onto another street and found the Castine Yacht Club:

It wasn't a very pretty day unfortunately, but the view must be just incredible when it's sunny. I loved this shady sideyard with a view of Castine Harbor, too:

Thanks for looking as always! Cheers, Cindy

I made the cover of Portland Magazine!

I'm so excited because my image, Reflection, made the cover of Portland Magazine this month (August 2008!) I also have a landscape-oriented lighthouse image gracing the heading of their big article, Maine Classics of the 21st Century!

A Visit to the Boothbay Harbor Region, Saturday

Painted Ladies, I think. . .

Mom and I went to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor, Maine on Saturday, July 12, 2008. First, we had a trip to a wonderful pottery school called Watershed, in Edgecomb, where we attended a benefit lunch called salad days, where you could buy an amazing handmade plate by an artist and then have a delicious, homecooked and put together buffet lunch of salads and side dishes.

The two butterflies above were the only butterflies I saw all day at the gardens, which was strange, considering I was surrounded by flowers all day!

There was an English Cottage-style garden, which was really cheery. . .
There was also a beautiful water garden, where I saw these amazingly deep-pink water lilies. I could hear frogs croaking and leaping around, but I never saw one because there were these two little girls who were trying to catch them!
I also loved the fairy house woods, where I found this lovely little rock sculpture sitting on a boulder with the nicely blurred background of the evergreens.
And just as I was lining up the shot to take this beautiful clump of lavender, this bumblebee ambled in and landed on one of the flowers.

A lot of fun and it was a beautiful day besides--just the right temperature. Cheers, Cindy

Fireworks and a weekend on Sebago Lake. . .

We had a great time on 4th of July, watching the fireworks with my cousin and her family. I set up my tripod and used my Pentax 50-200 mm zoom at 200 mm. I set up the focus before it got entirely dark and set the camera on manual focus so I wouldn't lose it. Then when the fireworks started, I tried a few different exposure times, but settled on the best being 8 seconds at f/11, ISO 100. I have wanted to try photographing fireworks for a while, but rain always interceded before this year!

The next day, we went to my cousin's family's camp on Sebago lake and I got a few nice pictures, my favorite being this one, which was taken about 30 minutes after sunset.

This is Maya and her cousin, embracing the beautiful sunset:
And here, at last, is the sunset itself, zoomed up on at 200 mm, looking out across St. Eiboh's Cove to the opposite shore:
I hope everyone else had a lovely fourth of July weekend!

My work on Terrell Lester's new gallery website!!

Well, I am so excited to announce that I have an entire page on Terrell Lester's new gallery website! I will be having a show of 16 of my images runnning from July 25th to August 7th of this year. You can visit the new site by clicking on this link: http://thelestergalleryllc.com/artists.html
and then either clicking on Exhibits or Artists, scrolling down to my name (Cynthia Farr-Weinfeld) and clicking on it, which will bring you right to my page, along with an opportunity to read my "fascinating" biography! Thanks for looking and hope you're all having a happy summer! --Cindy

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Fogged in, Bernard, Maine, Mt. Desert Island. . . .

Jon and I went camping in Acadia National Park from the 20th to the 23rd of June. As you'll see from most of my pictures, the weather didn't exactly cooperate, but I photographically made the best of it, although many of the 450+ shots I took were out of focus due to the incredibly heavy fog we experienced. But it was really comfortable for hiking and walking around, which was nice, and for sleeping.

The Black Boat, Bernard, Maine, Mt. Desert Island. . .

We camped at Smuggler's Den Campground (http://www.smugglersdencampground.com/main.html) in Southwest Harbor, on the right side of the island, if you're looking at the map. It's nice if you're looking to be away from the hustle and bustle of Bar Harbor, which can be kind of honky tonk, albeit fun!

Main Street, Bar Harbor, with streaming car headlights and people milling around stores. . .

The first day, we set up our tent and then headed out to Bass Harbor, to see the beautiful Bass Harbor Headlight. This is one of the most-often photographed lighthouses in America, but you generally see sunrise views of it because of its East-facing nature. Of course, there was no sun in evidence, so I focused more on the beauty of the pink granite rocks, leaving the lighthouse shrouded in fog in the background:

We spent the Summer Solstice Sunset on Cadillac Mountain:
And one of the rare times we had sun, we went to Jordan Pond. In the distance, across the pond, is a view of the twin mountains called "the bubbles."

And after that, since it was still sunny, we headed to the Asticou Inn's famous Thuja Azalea Garden, which is a traditional Japanese Garden. This is a little zen nook I liked, but it was too bright a day for good photos of anything but dappled shade:
I got a couple of interesting shots in Bar Harbor--this is the historic resort, the Bar Harbor Motor Inn, which sits right on the Shore Path, a lovely place to take a walk and see the huge mansions from Bar Harbor's glory days in the late 1800s and early 1900s:
And we raced out early (4:00 am) one of the last mornings we were there to capture "sunrise" in Bar Harbor, because a magazine, Maine Food & Lifestyle, had expressed interest in a couple of shots of Bar Harbor from me. This is about the best of what I got, as you can see!
So I was really only very happy with one photo (the blue lobster bots at the beginning of the post) but we had a wonderful vacation together and got to revisit our old haunts, as we lived there together back in 1991 when we were getting to know each other as a young couple. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I certainly enjoyed taking them!