Lemon Aid for Photographers

 This weekend has been a workshop for bad weather photography

There should be no surprise that we are experiencing miserable weather this holiday weekend. This is New England and terrible weather is the population's curse and photographer's treat, but this weekend has been depressing even for those of us trying to keep the damp from our cameras. Fellow New England Photography Guild member Jim Block is even dealing with snow on the Lilacs. Crummy days are always good for getting caught up in the studio. With a show at Keene's Prime Roast Cafe and the Keene Art Walk all coming up next week, I have plenty to do, but I had to get out to try to see what I could do with, and in spite of, the weather.

Hubbard Brook Falls
Spring rains are always an obvious invitation to shoot our many waterfalls. In a few weeks the summer droughts will dry many of the

Hubbard Brook Falls

best cascades, so my first trip was to falling water. I was trying to decide where to go when I received a call from a photographer in Laconia New Hampshire asking about a image of the falls on Hubbard Brook in Chesterfield, New Hampshire. It is challenging to get to, and not freely open to the public, but it is a lovely spot when the water is high. The call made my decision and Nellie and I headed out. The falls on Hubbard Brook are actually a series of cascades and higher drops. The hike into the ravine involved bushwhacking down steep embankments, made trickier by the soaked ground, but as usual it was worth the terror. As I worked my way down along the brook, two things occurred to me. First the cold weather had swept the black flies from the forest. Second, if slipped, Nellie would be of no practical value in getting help, and I had no cell reception in the depths of the ravine. Through much care and considerable butt bouncing I made it down and out alive.

Sound of Thunder
The light was gone, but I still had one more capture to make. The night was fractured by a series of dramatic thunderstorms and I was able to record about 40 minutes of the action on my Zoom H2n field recorder. I have started to collect natural sounds as background for my slide shows. Check out the pasture melodies on my web site front page and the thunder storm on my Summer slide show. 

To the Dump
On Saturday I was able to excite Nellie with one of the few phrases she actually understands, "Want to go to Dump?" Dump, Walk and

Pasture Corner, Roads End Farm

Dinner, that's about it. The weather remained cold damp and blustery, but we still made our regular circle through Roads End Farm. The horses were way off in the back pasture, but the rain had freshened the spring leaves along the fields. By afternoon I had to get out of the house and went into Keene to plant myself with a cup of coffee at Brewbackers Cafe. Brewbackers is usually bustling, but for some reason I find it the perfect place to write. I settle in with my iPad and my own music selection and can usually get more done in an hour than in an afternoon with the distractions at home. 


Infrared in the Rain

Central Square Gazebo

 
 
As the afternoon progress the sky grew darker, but I had a plan and I had my Infrared camera. The great thing about infrared photography is that the images are not much affected by extremes of weather. Bright, impossibly contrasty, midday light ignites the infrared spectrum. The leaves shine and the sky stays black as ink. At the other end, dull flat light still comes through with good contrast between bright foliage and dark trunks and structures. I ended up spending time shooting around Keene's iconic Central Square. I have photographed the square countless time before, but Infrared provides a whole new perspective. 


Ladies Wildwood

Wildwood Depths

I was loosing light but there was one other place that I thought might do well with the soft light. Ladies Wildwood Park is a surprising treasure in the middle of Keene. In 1890 the park was created to protect a stately grove of trees from development. The original grove was leveled in the 1938 Hurricane, but it has been replace by ranks of tall White and Red Pines.

Infrared Park

The park is small but in the right spots you can feel enveloped by the forest. The challenged is to find the angles to look through the pines without catching glimpses of the surrounding houses and roads. The flat light was great to capture the brooding mood of the pines on a carpet of nearly iridescent green. Infrared also worked well, contrasting the bright ground cover with the towering dark pillars. Light gone. Time to go home. 







Remembering 

Today Nellie and I visited the flag bedecked Spofford Cemetery. Nellie wandered respectfully among the stones and then honored the fallen by doing her business off in the woods. I grabbed a couple of flower images in the soft light, but then disaster struck. The sun actually broke through.

 

Disappointing. Nothing to do but go home, edit images and write this article. My only consolation is that, this is New England, and the good weather can't last forever.

Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

Read More

The Angry Wet Sea

Last weekend Susan and I went to the Maine seacoast for a celebration of her birthday. I love photographing the coast. It's the one thing I miss by being in the center of New England, and I'm always looking for a reason to get back to the ocean. This weekend the food was great, the bed and breakfast was warm and friendly, and the weather absolutely SUCKED. I firmly believe that bad weather, generally, makes great photography, but this really challenged me to find interesting subjects and ways to shoot without getting my camera and myself completely soaked.

Cape Porpoise. Maine

We arrive in Kennebunkport late Friday afternoon and checked in to the Maine Stay Inn, which is a lovely B&B, with charming friendly owners. It hadn't begun to rain so we ran over to Cape Porpoise before it got dark. The Cape provides a nice contrast to the touristy bustle of Kennebunkport. It is a picturesque, working lobstering village with boats nestled in a protected cove and Goat Island Light marking the entrance. The condition were still cold, dark, and blustery so I concentrated on shooting the details of the traps and wharf. On the way back to town I noticed a lovely tree seen across a pasture with a base of wildflowers. I couldn't resist. Susan was very patient, almost as patient as Nellie. Thank god for crossword puzzles.

The next day the rain came down in a heavy drizzle only during the brief interludes between the prolonged assaults of gale blown deluge. We decided to head north along the coast, but

Paddy Creek Rain

 with the exception of a quick shot of Paddy Creek, it was just not possible to escape the car. I'm a firm believer in shooting in the rain, check out my blog article "Surviving the Wet", but this was crazy. With elaborate protection, I was able to keep most of the water off the camera, but there was no way to keep the lens dry in the swirling sheets of rain. We eventually ended up in Portland, where we had lunch with good friends, and where Susan could do some much deserved shopping. The evening turned out much better. Still pouring, but we had the chance to have dinner with Bob and Margie Dennis at Joshua's, a marvelous natural food restaurant in Wells. Bob is a great photographer who has become the go-to guy for images of the Kennebunkport area. He has a beautiful house on the water in Cape Porpoise and takes full advantage of his prime location. I got to know Bob through his work on Flickr, but his work is seen in many local stores, and in his books and calendars. It was great fun to pick Bob's brain about his region. He is well connected, but he still couldn't get me an invitation for tea with George and Barbara on Walker Point. My only frustration from the evening was my total failure to convince Bob to shoot in Raw!

Walker Point Surf

Sunday morning the rain had softened but the winds remained
strong. I just couldn't leave the coast without trying to get at least a few ocean pictures, and I knew that the surf would be impressive after all that wind.

St. Ann's Chapel and Rectory

We cruised along the shore from Kennebunkport to just past Walker Point. I got out several times in full rain gear and my camera in my Opt/Tech Rainsleeve.  Thank goodness for Gortex!  The wind was still howling, but I found that I could protect my lens, at least for a few shots, as long as I kept my back to the gale. I shot off bursts of exposures as the waves came crashing in and caught a few nice images. I have never been able to predict which waves are likely to produce the best show. Thankfully, with digital, I could waste tons of images to catch the occasional prize. 

 



North Branch River Rush

On the way home I had to check out the flowing water in a couple of my favorite locations, including North Branch River in Antrim and the Stone Arch Bridge in Surry. I even got a couple of shots of kayakers enjoying the rush on the North Branch.  This is considered some of the most challlenging white water in New Hampshire


 

Surry Stone Arch Bridge

All-in-all it was not the best weekend to be on the coast, but we still had a lovely time away. If we were home in the rain, I'm sure Susan would have proposed a long list of worthy indoor projects, so Maine was just fine!

Read More