City Living

I got out quite a bit this month.

I made far more compositions than I could reasonably get through culling, let alone editing.

Perhaps projects for next year, as I was very much aiming to capture autumn scenes.

I visited this particular spot a bunch of times over a roughly two-week period.

Prospect Park is one of the few places offering a commanding view of the city below that isn’t on private property.

Word nerds will appreciate why prospect is an apt name for this public site.

There’s probably some colonialism embedded in it as well. Especially given the massive statue of Roger Williams with outstretched palm out of frame to my left.

As you might expect, I captured some rather varied visual stories due to changes in weather conditions.

I personally got a real sense for how different the foliage looked from one day to the next as trees shed their leaves.

The top of the tree at right but closest to center is nearly bare in places here.

Whereas its crown and highest reaching limbs still had bright leaves just four days prior.

Although on that previous occasion I was treated to a far more vibrant scene that really sells the autumn vibe, the 1 or 2 PM sun gave a rather harsh cast, resulting in a washed-out sky in camera.

I also visited this spot on the second night of the geomagnetic storm that produced strong auroras up and down the east coast this November.

Sadly, it was a bust in my area due to heavy cloud cover. People reported seeing the northern lights just 24 miles away from me. Boston got better looks as well.

I should have gone out the first night, which overperformed.

However, I was already in bed and couldn’t be bothered to bundle up.

I know better now.

I like that this scene shows off not only my city’s compact skyline and surrounding rooftops but also the small patches of “greenery” that have been kept despite urbanization.

Very cozy even though we’re now regularly seeing temps dip into the low 30s and high 20s overnight.

I was telling folks whom I shared phone photos with that it feels like home here.

That’s possibly the first time I’ve thought of Providence that way since moving over a year ago.

I’m challenged to make cityscape compositions.

While Rhode Island’s capital isn’t the first city I’ve lived in, I’ve spent the majority of my life in places that are perhaps best described as suburban bordering on rural.

I think my recent efforts at capturing city vistas bode well.

Autumn Musings

Bash Bish Falls State Park, MA

(I began this entry last weekend and couldn’t finish until this morning.)

I’m currently hiding from my friend’s cats.

Not because I don’t like them.

I’ve always had an affinity for these mysterious and worshipful beings. And they for me.

Cats will instinctively rub the length of their bodies around part of me. Even when I’ve only just met them.

They’ll nuzzle their head against my arms or chest. Plop right in my lap and dare me to move.

I’m thinking of a particular moment more than a decade ago at a friend’s house back in graduate school when the latter happened. And it’s not the only such occurrence.

They’ll see if I’ll feed them, or they’ll investigate whatever I’ve brought with me. Not necessarily just the foodstuff either.

Last night, I had one of my said friend Josh’s cats crooning deep within its soul within seconds of scratching behind their ears.

I was joking with Josh while we were out this AM distributing door knockers for upcoming local elections that I have animal magnetism.

Sadly, I’m also quite allergic to our feline sisters and brethren.

It’s annoying for me and everyone involved.

I’ve had a particularly bad reaction to the cats on this visit.

I’ve probably gone through half a box of tissues. My eyes have been so red and puffy that I didn’t attempt to put my contacts in today.

I think perhaps it’s a combination of a few things. In particular, I suspect that being on doxycycline may be aggravating my normally not-so-great symptoms.

Google thinks I may be on to something there.

Josh feels quite badly about it and has been going out of his way to minimize how much I am around the clowder.

I also knew this could be an issue before visiting, so we’ve kept the cats out of the attic, where I am currently ensconced while Josh takes care of more campaign related duties.

I managed to get some photography in early this month.

A few weekends ago I did an overnight at Burlingame State Park in southern Rhode Island and was treated to an unexpected, delicious misty sunrise.

I was in the Berkshires this past Friday afternoon through Sunday morning.

While there, I hit up Mt. Greylock, the highest elevation in Massachusetts, and Bash Bish Falls State Park on the border of The Bay State and New York.

I made these impromptu trips hoping to catch some peak autumn colors.

It’s not been an optimal year for leaf peeping in New England. The window for glimpsing the brightest foliage has been rather narrow due to very dry conditions.

Some people have absolutely captured bold and bright colors.

I would say that although it’s not been the best autumn in terms of dazzling colors, it’s also not been as bad as I was anticipating.

And I’ve made enough decent compositions despite conditions that it’s hard to choose one for this month’s blog post.

I’m going with one from the falls.

I did see the most vibrant colors out of the places I’ve visited there. But it’s not just about that.

Rather, that was the one place where I did not hurry myself and instead set up my shots with intention.

Resisting the impulse to move from one thing to the next has felt especially difficult of late.

I’m not just talking about photography here.

Some days it’s a real fight to not get swept away by the endless news cycle, the constant dopamine hits and waves of gloom if not outright despair I feel as I scroll past emotionally charged headlines and content.

I’m not suggesting we look away and pretend all the ugliness unfolding in real time isn’t happening.

Because it is, and we must bear witness.

The relentless onslaught of information we consume—not always by choice—also far exceeds what we limited beings can cope with.

I’ll end with these thoughts.

I was telling Josh that I’ve recently been questioning what exactly it is I am doing as a landscape photographer.

Am I just sharing scenes of the natural world?

What do I actually know about these places I visit?

What are the political sensibilities of the people whose businesses I am spending my money at when I grab a quick drive thru meal, book an overnight stay, and so on?

Am I, in essence, tacitly endorsing a value system that I wholly disagree with each time I press the shutter button?   

Josh countered that photography is intimately bound up with my identity.

I’ll leave some of the thornier, unresolved queries I have aside for now (and some of them are solvable; e.g., this man-made notion that anyone actually owns the land, as if the land gives a shit).

The point I do want to leave you with is one I’ve made before.

However much is going on around us and to us day in and day out, we must find it in ourselves to slow down.

I’d argue that slowing down, much like finding joy in what too often feels like a cruel and unforgiving world, is an act of resistance. A primal one even.

It seems a bit inane to wrap this up by saying, get out in nature and be more intentional about how and where you spend your time.

But yeah, do more of that. Especially because the powers that be don’t want us to get out in the world, feel joy, be inspired, or dare to hope.

Into a Bright World

I returned to Newport over the weekend to hike the entirety of the Cliff Walk.

I’ve been a number of times since moving to Rhode Island.

Up to now, however, I had only trekked the very short part that goes from Easton’s Beach to Forty Steps.

I arrived shortly before 8 AM. There were locals out and about, but I had good stretches of time to myself to take things in and scout for compositions.

A lot occurred to me as I made my way along the snaking paths, some of it paved and some of it scrambles over boulders, with warning signs that these stretches required agility and balance and to turn back if in doubt.

I thought this was a very funny way for the city to say that it couldn’t be bothered to make said boulder scrambles safer and that we regular people are on our own.

A stark contrast to the towering mansions with well-maintained acreage for the privately wealthy to enjoy in safety.

To be fair, there are ample railings along stretches of the walk. I never felt truly in danger.

And tourists can visit some of the famous estates lining the coast (entering from the Bellevue Avenue side).

But I eventually put all my gear away so that I could traverse some of the less hospitable areas as I got closer to the end of the land without risking damage to my camera and lens.

There’s also a bit of irony in the lengths that land holders will go to in order to keep people out.

Ugly fencing lines a good number of if not most of the properties.

Kind of feels like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, in my view.

And of course at its root this practice of fencing off the now marred view of the sea stems from a desire to possess those views and a fear of the those of us who don’t possess them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I ended up photographing a lot of these barriers. Which brings me to today’s share.

The idea that boring a tunnel underneath an estate was an expensive way to get Cliff Walkers from point A to point B occurred to me.

It partly feels like walking through industrial pipe. Or doing something rather abnormal and resigning oneself to the reality of the world.

But also, it gave me the impression of being birthed.

I played around a lot in post to try to capture that second mood.

The initial exposure is on the dark side in the tunnel.

I made this darker still and muted the metal ribs. And went even heavier on this in the bottom two thirds, with the floor being the darkest value.

I also brightened up the area just outside the opening, leaving the view of the ocean and sky farther away closer to the original brightness.

Kind of like so that your vision resolves the farther you look into the distance while remaining vague and indistinct closer to the back of the frame.

I think I’m going to revisit this spot and photograph this idea again.

Not because I don’t think this is a good composition.

It is.

I also think I can do better.

I didn’t want to obstruct the passage and so shot hand held.

I plan next time to take my light tripod and create something dreamier.

Not too worried about anyone taking that idea up and beating me to the chase.

It’s still not going to be the same photo as mine, as the water and conditions will never be the same for two people making that kind of composition, assuming I and they aren’t doing so at the exact same time.

Twenty Years and Eight Feet High

Narragansett, RI

I didn’t find time to get out and photograph in July.

I’ve been making up for lost time this August and have taken several trips at the weekends to coastal Massachusetts and Maine.

I’ve also hit up some spots closer to home that I’ve visited before.

Not gonna lie: I rather like living within forty minutes of beaches, traffic permitting. I grew up in New Jersey and spent a good chunk of my adult life there, though much farther away from the shore.

Strolling along the ocean with camera gear in hand and on my back is definitely my vibe.

I headed down to Narragansett early in the evening yesterday to see if I could capture the remnants of Hurricane Erin’s wake as it continues its track north and east out to sea.

I can confidently say that these were the roughest waves I’ve seen in person. A bit mind boggling considering that the storm has lost much of its strength and is at least 200 miles off shore.

Although I didn’t let these larger breakers stop me altogether, I kept a healthy distance from the water’s edge.

Even then, the ocean came in pretty close at times. And a lot of the beach that I’m normally able to move around on was inundated.

There are signs posted everywhere asking visitors to be wary of rip currents and forbidding swimming.

I’m guessing at the height of the surf crashing against the boulder in the center of frame in the title to today’s blog post.

The waves grew a lot stronger as the late afternoon moved towards evening and high tide approached. By then, though, my camera battery had died, and I was forced to continue with just my phone’s camera.

We’re coming up on the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina just under a week from today.

I was in my second year of graduate school when it struck the Gulf Coast, devastating not just New Orleans and the surrounding areas of southeastern Louisiana but also parts of Mississippi.

I was far safer than the people who desperately pleaded for help on the top of the Super Dome. I did not walk the 70 some miles from NOLA to Baton Rouge as many did.

The worst I suffered was loss of power in the heat of summer.

I wasn’t in any serious danger at any point yesterday either.

I did fear for some people who I thought weren’t taking the warnings seriously and yelled at them to get away from the sea wall.

Today’s share freezes in time the inspiring power of the ocean for us to contemplate.

It’s easy to stand in awe, as I did while pressing my camera shutter more times than I usually do trying to get the perfect moment of sea spray meeting rock.

It’s also a reminder of the ocean’s sometimes dreadful dominion. It can easily take away all that we hold dear. Without pity or remorse.

Reflection

I’m gonna make today’s write up quick.

This is from a day trip to Newport at the beginning of May. Savvy folks will instantly recognize where I’m at.

I was working pretty hard to capture both the reflection of the building out of frame and the patterns in the sand while the rather gentle tide that morning came in and out.

The full photo captures quite a lot more.

That entire scene wasn’t working at all for me. I was going to give up and share something else.

Shout out to my friend Iggy, who suggested that I try eliminating everything above the rocks.

This tighter crop is much more pleasing, as it puts the furrows in the sand front and center.

The water also transforms the manmade structure into almost an abstract. Nature making art, you might say.

I hope to get out more in July than I was able this month.

Until next time!

Haunting

We’re just five months away from the best holiday of the year!

I’m already plotting a trip to Witch City between now and then.

In the meantime, I recently visited Sheffield Island Lighthouse off the coast of Norwalk, CT.

According to popular magazine Conde Nast Traveler, it is one of two places in the Nutmeg State that have made national news as places where visitors have reported paranormal activity.

The other is Mark Twain’s home in Hartford.

Urban legend tells that an apparition of a woman in white can sometimes be seen. Also, tourists have caught the scent of cigar smoke in the home’s billiard’s room.

A bit too predictable on the latter spectral events, perhaps, but nonetheless a powerful way to evoke what we know of the man while he was among the living.

Built in 1868, Sheffield Island Lighthouse gives off somewhat forlorn vibes.

I was lucky enough to visit on a day where the cloud cover overshadowed the weathered stone structure, adding a mysterious quality to the composition I ended up selecting for this month’s post.

The island itself has seen its share of hardship.

Not pictured are the ruins of a newer house that sustained heavy damage in one storm or another. An old wreck and various detritus are also strewn across the southern end of the island near the beach.

This makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the sleek skyline of NYC some 47 miles away that I also tried to capture on my visit.

As far as hauntings go, the story runs that an archaeologist heard “strange chanting music” as well as a foghorn on their trip to the lighthouse.

I have found nothing else out about this, and Conde Naste seems to be the only available source with these small details.

Fascinating how sometimes four or five words are all it takes to capture our imagination!

The photo is the very first one I took upon arrival. The skies cleared up a bit during the hour and a half or so that our tour was on site.

I didn’t actually go in the lighthouse. For whatever reason, the interior didn’t interest me.

I did, however, imagine what life on the very small island might have been like in the mid-nineteenth century. And what might be in store for me during an overnight.

I envisioned reading books by candlelight and cooking a simple but rewarding meal for myself over a woodfire stove. A decidedly quiet, natural sojourn.

Truth be told, I’m more likely to be haunted by my regrets in life.

I am very pleased indeed at how the photo came out. I did very little to bring out what was already there in post. I purposely underexposed a little when I took the photo and had to brighten up some details like the pine tree’s limbs.

At the same time, I accentuated the uppermost clouds a touch to help enhance the mood.

I’ll end by asking those of you reading what captures your imagination, whether in the sense of a haunting or another mood that doesn’t fail to strike you.

S Curve

Looking towards Mount Mansfield, Stowe, VT.

A pretty crazy month at work. I’ve been off the last few days.

I had big dreams of what I’d do with my downtime. But I’ve pretty much just recuperated at home.

I’m not at all complaining about that. Sometimes slowing down and staying put can be the best thing after going full tilt for a long stretch.

I recently made the move to a mirrorless camera system. The short story here is that newer camera bodies are considerably lighter and more compact, so I can save some weight and space when I’m out.

The older I get, the more important a minimalist loadout becomes to me.

I also reasoned that camera equipment will soon be unaffordable in the US, so I opted to buy now.

I’ve tested the gear out to make sure it works correctly, and I’ve customized the camera’s numerous features, including what most of the buttons do.

But other than a quick visit to a beach that didn’t wow me and an outing or two where I played around with close ups of the flora here in town, I haven’t photographed anything with intent.

All this to say that this month’s share isn’t a recent composition but rather a scene I captured in Vermont back in October.

I WAS wowed by just about everything I saw on that trip. I took something like 300 photos combined on my now older camera and now older phone (I’ve since upgraded to this year’s Samsung Galaxy) in the 36 hours or so that I got to spend there.

I ended up being disappointed with many of the images I took the time to set up for.

That might have more to do with how excited I was to be in Stowe during peak leaf peeping season than anything else.

Much in the same way that I talked about at the start of this write up, I had grandiose visions of the epic landscape photos I would come away with.

One particular element of the landscape genre that I am constantly on the lookout for is an S bend to frame the composition around.

This is exactly what it sounds like. You’ll not infrequently see it in scenes of a winding road in autumn. Absolutely magical.

I’ve all but given up on finding a workable version of that when I’m exploring.

Anywhere I’ve been here in the US at least, there will invariably be power lines marring the shot.

So the other option is to find a bend in a river.

Still hard to locate and then capture, especially if you’re unable to get to a good vantage point, for instance, because the land with the best view is privately owned.

Luckily I was able to make this one work despite those kinds of challenges. It was a very hazy early morning after almost nothing but rain the day before.

There’s just a touch of alpenglow brushing the top of Mt. Mansfield in the background.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get out more in the coming weeks as New England finally warms up after a rather chilly and windy start to spring.

Smarch Weather

Portland Headlight. Canon 5D Mark IV. F/8.0 1/125 ISO100 50mm

Spring has finally arrived here in New England!

You wouldn’t know it, though.

Temps are still hovering in the low to mid 50s for the most part. With a decidedly unpleasant chill from the humidity, periods of rain, and strong breezes.

I had some unexpected time off early this month. I booked a night in Portland in the middle of the week so I could visit Cape Elizabeth the following morning.

I’ve photographed iconic Portland Headlight multiple times over the last eight years. A composition from my first outing there back in 2017 graces my home page.

As I recall, that was a quite calm summer day, with mainly clear skies.

On this occasion, I was hoping that the expected gusts of up to 40 mph would create some dramatic waves crashing into the rocks below the light house.

I did see one or two decent sized waves of maybe 8 or 9 feet.

Sadly, my camera kept shutting down in the sub-freezing morning temps. Almost always right when the best action was unfolding against the shoreline.

I suspect that my camera battery drained a lot faster than normal in those conditions. I eventually put a fresh one in and had no issues after that.

I also think I should have visited at high tide later in the day instead of in the morning.

And I’ve since learned that there’s a website that provides surf forecasts for coastal Maine that I can monitor to get a bead on days where things might go off the rails.

On the plus side, I had the light house entirely to myself for the something-like 2.5 hours I spent photographing.

I played around an awful lot and took both long exposures and faster compositions.

Honestly, I get a bit bored standing around at the tripod. I think that I managed about an hour of that in this instance. Once I packed the tripod back up in its bag, I didn’t use it again.

I also captured scenes from the right, left, and nearly dead on. And I used three different lenses to change up how prominent the light house is in the scene.

I took photos with numb fingers and shaking hands on my phone, too. I firmly believe that the best camera is the one you have handy, and phone photography is extraordinarily good today.

There were still patches of snow on the ground, which I captured in some of the images I came away with.

Also lots of thick ice on the path on the left-hand side of the complex. After testing that for a minute or so—there were guard rails I could grab onto—I deemed it unsafe to continue down to one of the well-worn vantage points.

Regardless, I came away with a good number of captures that I very much like.

The photo I’ve selected—with help from a good friend to narrow things down—is one of the last I took before packing it in.

Upon reflection, I’m noticing a change in my aesthetic over the last couple of months.

The compositions that are speaking to me most are those that are close in. Kind of the opposite of what you’d expect in landscape photography!

I think photos like this work well because they drop you right into the scene. You could be there with me and immediately understand why I’m taking the photo in that spot.

Photo details are in the caption.

Door of Mysteries

It’s been quite the first winter in New England.

Temps dropping into the single digits at times. Lots of wind. A fair amount of snow.

Most of that has melted as of this week.

And we’re seeing mid 40s to low 50s during the day.

A stark contrast from just two weeks ago or thereabouts when we had our last significant accumulation.

I’ve been forcing myself to get out and photograph more lately.

February’s composition was a lovely find on one of these excursions.

I frequently take Church Street home on my walks. It’s a narrowish road that, you guessed it, runs past one of the many places of worship in my city.

Without doing more homework, I’m guessing this was one of the first church’s built here, as there are a ton more that are far grander.

I don’t give this particular scene much thought most days. I prefer the view on the other side.

But I was quickly captivated by the stark contrast between red door and frozen ground on this occasion in the early morning hours.

I also rather like the line of snow framing the stone archway.

I took photos right then and there on my phone, and I rather liked the results.

But I also wanted to get something on my dedicated camera and returned to the spot later in the day.

I thought that the light would be soft enough by then, but I was mistaken. Lots of bright sun causing the tree out of frame in the church yard to cast a strong shadows on the door.

There was a decent amount of cloud cover, however, so I managed to grab some frames that didn’t include the silhouette of tree limbs.

I feel like there could be quite a lot going on behind the weathered door. It screams keep out.

Or perhaps only a chosen few get to glimpse what lays on the other side.

Red is such a powerful color. It tends to dominate scenes. And it can evoke a lot of different feelings.

Passion, of course. Warmth.

Also aggression. Violence. And so on.

I wonder what this arresting scene conjures for different people.

Transition

My first share of 2025.

Full disclosure: I captured this on a rather misty morning at Block Island back in October of last year.

I simply couldn’t fit the composition in among the 12 spots I’ve allotted myself to share.

I’ve also not been able to get out and photograph since the year began, for a myriad of reasons.

So I’m glad I had this one (and others, in fact) in hand to put out into the world.

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts how much I hate feeling the sand between my toes.

I hope you can feel the grittiness in the foreground of this scene as much as I do.

I think there’s a striking contrast between that and the swirling ocean. With the rocks nicely dividing the two areas of the photo.

The rocks also add a bit of mystery and drama. They’re not entirely visible. Rather, they jut out of the tide as it moves to shore and recedes again.

A Little Bit of Lagniappe

The title for this month’s post is possibly redundant.

Lagniappe, a word with roots in South American Spanish and French, is often translated to mean a little something extra.

So you could argue that I’m saying a little bit of a little gift or something along those lines.

No matter.

My first holiday season in Rhode Island came with snow.

Not a whole lot, mind. Just enough to cover the ground well and coat tree branches, the many wreaths hanging on doors of homes and businesses, and so on.

The icing on the cake to the five months I’ve spent here, indeed.

Naturally I had to go out and photograph while the winter storm was upon us. And I wasn’t the only one enjoying the atmospherics.

One young woman—possibly an art student on her way to or from class—brightly told me while I was moving from one scene to the next that it was a lovely day for photography.

I saw another person later that evening out with their camera. I briefly chatted with him as I was setting up for a shot.

I ended up taking more photos with my phone than I did with my camera.

That’s often the case for me these days.

On this occasion, I decided I’d go through the process of unpacking my gear, positioning my tripod, and all that only when I saw a scene that I thought required it.

Doing so kept my gear relatively dry.

And it gave me more time to take in the weather and scenery.

While the snow wasn’t particularly heavy, it was thick enough to allow me to play around with long exposure.

I’ve seen other photographers use falling snow to great effect in their winter compositions.

Here’s my take on that genre in an urban setting.

Please feel free to comment on the image.

I’ll briefly reflect on what the year has been like photography wise before closing this blog post out.

I think that choosing to share something once a month has mostly been the right choice for me. My free time has been extremely limited over the past two months in particular.

The downside is that I ended up with more photos that I thought were worth sharing than I could post.

There are ways around that, of course.

I can put some of them in my galleries at my website and have done that once or twice already.

I’ll end by saying that I’ve been around long enough to know and appreciate that this time of year means many different things to different people. And that it might not be a happy time for whatever reason.

Nevertheless, I hope that you’ve had moments of peace, joy, quiet contemplation, gentleness, or something more buoyant than burdensome.

I look forward to sharing more photography with you in 2025.

Into the dark

Autumn at Block Island

I’m going to keep this post quite brief.

If your heart and mind have been burdened the way mine have this turbulent season, I hope that this scene of autumn color overlooking the end edge of Block Island brightens them a little, even if only for a fleeting moment.

The Romance of Twilight

Y’all, the spooky season is just about upon us.

Houses and public buildings look quite festive, and I’m here for it.

Also chillier weather at times, which I’m decidedly not here for. But that’s what I get for moving to New England.

And truth be told, I feel like for the most part it’s been eerily warm. It hit 70 something this afternoon. A record…

October has had its highlights and low points. I’m going to skip over the latter in this post. In the grand scheme of things, they don’t matter too much.

I got to travel quite a bit around New England early on in the month, and that’s a privilege that brings me joy.

I’ll be sharing something from those adventures. Hopefully next blog post in November.

I’m also going to “skip ahead” past a couple of outings.

This brings me to today’s composition, which I made back in the third week of September.

We haven’t been getting much rain here since that weekend.

In fact, the region is having trouble with brush fires on account of it being so dry.

That day, though, delicious rain bathed the area up until about 4 PM before stopping.

This created intriguing atmospherics all over the city, with patches of water pooling on the pavement that I wanted to take advantage of.

I scanned everywhere for what I was after: the soft glow of faux gas lights shimmering on the ground.

Finding an ideal spot was exceedingly difficult, even in the historic district very close to where I reside. Cars, powerlines, garbage cans, mail boxes, and numerous other distractions were typically present everywhere.

I also still didn’t have a 50mm lens that evening (spoiler alert: I do now!). I’m not sure that mattered in the end given the previous statement. But I nonetheless found myself wishing I had that in my kit.

In any event, I used my 85mm once I settled on a place after walking for maybe 1.5 miles or so. This allowed me to cut out much of what I thought would take away from the scene I was envisioning.

I adore what I was able to produce, and I excitedly shared the photo privately with some friends after I had completed post-processing on the best ones.

Many thanks to Heather, a good friend who has been a fierce supporter of my work over the last eight or nine years (!). She described the feeling the image evokes so eloquently when she told me, “you captured the romance of twilight.”

Hence the title of this blog post AND of the composition.

Heather is a talented artist herself, so her compliment means all the more to me.

Not gonna lie: I’ve become a little obsessed with the kind of dreamy reflections and warm highlights you see all the way through this one. Since that magical September evening, I’ve yearned for similar conditions each time I go out.

And I’ve had capturing that whimsical shimmer in the back of my mind in places where before I might not have stopped to look for it.

I got at least one on a beach in coastal New Hampshire one misty morning whilst driving and traipsing around the region.

Not sure if that one will be my next share. But it’s a strong possibility.

The peace of the ancestors be upon us all tomorrow as the veil thins and we harvest the bounty of our labor. Until next time.

National Seashores

Great Beach Hill

September flew by, y’all.

I mentioned in my last post that I’m working on adding a newsletter section to my website.

I’ve made decent progress on that.

If you check my home page, you’ll see a subscription section at the very bottom where you can sign up.

I did basic tests (e.g., I signed up myself) and added bits like a customized confirmation email that goes to your inbox, which gives you complete control over whether you want to join up or not.

However, the newsletter itself isn’t quite ready to go live.

The short story is that there are a bunch of different things under the hood to make communicating with subscribers work that I don’t have sorted out just yet.

I managed to get out a few times to compose photos over the last 30 days.

As a result, I’m a few sessions “behind” on sharing my work.

I don’t consider that a bad thing.

For one, I feel really good about dialing back going through the selecting-and-editing-and-writing-a-blog process to once a month.

Also, having a couple of images in my pocket, so to speak, gives me breathing room for times when I won’t be able to get out for whatever reason (I’m slightly shivering at the thought of what winter in New England might be like).

One of the places I visited this month to photograph is Cape Cod National Seashore.

This is a sprawling park system covering a 40 mile area with no less than six beaches to take in.

After a quick stop at the main visitor’s center, I gassed up and headed to Great Island in Wellfleet.

From there, I walked something like two miles to Great Beach Hill.

The trail between these two points meanders through marsh and woodland.

I also had the option of visiting the remains of a tavern that mariners during colonial times used between whaling trips.

The trail is sporadically marked, and I questioned whether I was still going the right way more than once.

And I imagined what it might have been like for early settlers traveling through what felt like a pretty isolated area to me.

I joked with friends that the path, well away from civilization even today, would have been perfect for highwaymen to lay in wait, murder unsuspecting travelers, loot them for valuables, and dump their bodies in the salt marshes.

Great Beach Hill gave off very windswept vibes.

I used that to my advantage a few times as I was composing scenes, as I wanted to hint at the wind blowing through the long grasses on the hill.

I took the photo I’m sharing towards the end of the outing.

I didn’t see any highwaymen on the long jaunt back to my car.

But I did note that my 60L camera bag is just too much for me to deal with on these kinds of outings where I need to hike several miles each way to remote locations.

I have since downsized to a 35L bag.

My back is a lot happier, and the bag will still hold everything I need to bring with me while distributing the weight better.

I also saw one far younger guy who was making his way barefoot along the rough trail with his girlfriend to the beach.

Just the type of equal parts bravado and foolhardiness that highwaymen would likely notice.

New Shoreham

I’ve haven’t shared any photos on my website since mid June.

There’s a pretty big reason for that.

I moved to Rhode Island in July.

I’d been wanting to make a change for a long time. I initially had my sights on going much farther away, in fact.

That didn’t work out for a few different reasons.

I’m pleased this much smaller move has been good so far.

Even that took a ton of work, let me tell you.

While I’ve been getting out to photograph when I’m able, I’ve been putting off sharing my work, if I’m honest with myself.

I’m not going to get into that here, however.

One of the perks of the Ocean State being so tiny is that I have easy access to a ton of scenic places along the East Coast.

I’m one trip behind as far as sharing goes, even, as I was out and about yesterday photographing at National Seashores.

Today’s share is from a day trip I took to Block Island and New Shoreham a few weekends back.

It’s a small affair something like 14 miles out from the mainland. Ferries run year round, with fewer time slots in the autumn and winter months.

Or you can fly in.

I didn’t have a ton of time on this particular outing and hiked out to the bluffs on the Southeastern side of the rugged atoll.

I’ve been working out but am nowhere near in the kind of shape I need to be if I want to keep doing this and minimize sore shoulders, let alone the risk of injury.

Some pretty amazing views. Not exactly easy to get anything that doesn’t have people and / or buildings in it, however.

I initially envisioned posting something on my website once a week.

That isn’t viable at present, however.

So I’m going to aim for once a month.

I also plan to put together a newsletter / email section on the website, so that people who want to view my work can subscribe to that and not worry about manually visiting to see what I’m up to.

Hopefully that won’t be a big to do and I can get it running in September.

More photos to come soon-ish

Adventure Time

Barnegat Light

We’re nearly half way through 2024.

Not gonna lie: I’ve had little time for photography.

And bluntly, little motivation.

A lot of that is me trying to keep up with work, seeing what is going on in the US and around the world, and so on.

The usual stresses we all deal with each day.

It does seem like a lot more to cope with over the last several months as we approach an election in which the US will choose democracy or fascism.

And in which the fascist side will do all they can to take power even if we do collectively reject them.

Some getting older stuff making its way into my life, too. I’ve started wearing contacts, for instance.

Glasses when my very narrow eye sockets aren’t cooperating.

Case in point: the contact for my left eye popped out this morning after rubbing said eye.

So I’m a contact pirate today, since I don’t want to have an uneven number of left and right contacts to work with going forward.

I’m still not a pro at putting the contacts in. I probably still spend 10 to 15 minutes each morning on average.

Little time wasters like this leave me wanting to spend hours each day doing nothing to balance it all out.

By the time the weekend gets here, I’d rather rejuvenate and recover than go on a strenuous hike with lots of camera gear on back.

I did make myself do all that on Friday, since I took the day off from my day job.

I’m moving to New England in about 6 weeks. I’m definitely excited.

Also feeling a little nostalgic.

With that in mind, I drove down to Long Beach Island and spent the day between there and nearby Barnegat Light.

I last visited the area in May of 2018. I came away with a nice black and white composition of Barnegat Light on that occasion.

Of course I took photos with my phone while I was puttering around LBI. But I opted not to lug my camera pack around with me during that part of the day.

I reasoned, correctly, that I’d needlessly sweat for several hours and not see anything that moved me enough to want to stop, rummage through my bag, set my tripod up, and compose something.

So I just leisurely strolled on the beach and around town while occasionally stopping to take a quick photo on my phone or message friends.

I got to pet two beautiful dogs their human was walking. I stopped for salt water taffy and a sub for a picnic lunch before heading out.

I was more business like when I got to the light house around 1 PM or so and scouted the park for likely compositions.

This was not quite so straightforward given the time of day I arrived and the number of people who were there.

I grew impatient more than once waiting for slow movers to wander out of frame at the first place I set up.

I was able to get it down to just one person in frame but couldn’t do better.

I might try using AI to see if I can get rid of that lone figure.

I also think Photoshop might have a lot of difficulty with that, as the person is leaning against guard rail.

So I moved farther away to see if that would present me with a view that eliminated any tourists.

:: In my best Lumpy Space Princess voice:: And then the drama started.

I’ve been at this for about 15 years now and do most things by rote. Including checking that I have secured my camera to my tripod before turning away from it.

I did check it on this occasion.

So I thought my camera was secure.

It wasn’t.

Maybe a second after I went to put things back in my pack, I heard the sound of my camera smacking into rock.

It fell lens first, as you might expect.

The “bad” news: my nifty 50mm was destroyed in the fall.

That isn’t upsetting at all. My first thought was that I got more than my $50 dollars worth out of it, as I had bought it used 10 years prior.

The okay news: my far more expensive camera works and did not take any serious damage.

However, the battery door no longer stays shut on its own.

This particular mechanical problem is common enough that I was able to buy two replacement battery doors on Amazon when I got home for like $10 each.

I was surprisingly calm in the moment.

In saying that, I’m imagining that younger me would have been extremely upset before checking things over and still extremely upset after assessing the damage.

Younger me, though, doesn’t have the life experiences I’ve accumulated over the last 20-30 years.

I’m not going to pretend I would be happy about having to replace a camera I paid $3200 for if the damage had been more extensive than a flimsy piece of plastic that springs to latch the battery door.

But I’ve been through far, far worse.

I ended up taking photos handheld for about another 15 to 20 minutes. I was able to hold the battery door closed with the palm of my right hand and still steady the camera well enough to get sharp photos.

I also had to switch to my 85mm lens.

I considered using my 24mm, too, but that would have made the lighthouse much less prominent. And I would have ended up with people in frame.

I’ve also taken to using my camera phone as a back up in case for whatever reason photos on my dedicated rig don’t turn out.

I came away with several decent compositions that way. Though with people in frame…

I’m not going to get into what I like and don’t like about this photo. Overall, I’m pleased with what I was able to get after a rookie mishap.

Removing People Using AI

Before I get into today’s share in depth, I thought I’d point out that I’ve changed my signature in my photos. It’s the same one I’m using across my website.

I paid a modest fee for the one I was using before, which you’ll see in one of the three images I’m comparing in today’s blog entry. It was based on my own handwriting but done by someone else.

The one I’m now using is all me. I’ve updated it a bit to have a little more flare while also adopting a more minimalist capital G.

So, like it or not, AI is here—it’s been around in photography for around 8 or 9 months with adobe’s generative fill tool in Photoshop—and it’s not going away.

There’s already lots of debate and outrage at the implications regarding how AI might be used in other industries, film being the most obvious one.

And worries about AI being used to spread misinformation in a world already hyper saturated with misleading content aimed at influencing us in one way or another seem justified.

In photography, we’re at a point where we might want to question the authenticity of a photo. Some things we might want to consider on this front include:

How was the photo manipulated using AI? Or how much of it? Does this matter to us? Does it diminish the quality of the art?

Is the place we’re looking at in a landscape image real? What if after seeing the composition we decide to go there, only to discover after carefully planning part or all of our trip around that and getting to the place that we’ve been tricked?

Did the photographer even take a photo, or did they generate a dramatic landscape without ever getting up from their computer?

To at least address the manipulation of a photo question, I’m not too worried.

The truth is that photos have been altered, edited, or whatever for much of the existence of the art form.

Ansel Adams wasn’t the first to apply dodge and burn in order to darken and lighten specific areas of his compositions, but he made it into an art form in and of itself.

I do think the likelihood that some people will use AI in photography unethically is high. But I also think, as with anything else, that will be an extremely small minority of people.

Most photographers I follow and study, like me, are pretty particular about making compositions appealing in camera. Post processing is meant to bring out what is already there.

AI will help with workflow and can make turning a very good photo into an outstanding one less of onerous task.

Thanks for bearing with me on all that background before getting to the meat of today’s discussion.

The three images I’m sharing are all based on a single photo I took after hiking to iconic Delicate Arch in Utah back in 2021.

This first image is the original, unedited exemplar.

There are times when including people can lend drama to a landscape photo.

I suspect that can even be true if your intention is to make a subtle or not so subtle comment on what crowds of people waiting their turn to be photographed in front of something considered iconic says about humanity and modern life.

However, that was not my intention on this occasion, and there was a GIANT line of people that you cannot see out of frame at left.

I knew that would be the case just from parking my car when I visited, as I had to circle around for 30 minutes before I was able to get a spot.

Conditions weren’t ideal either, with long shadows creeping outwards from the sandstone towards where I was standing in the afternoon hours.

I played around with lightening those back when I first edited the image, with no success. I couldn’t improve upon that with AI either, though I’m still new to using it for this sort of thing.

Here’s my first effort at post-processing, without the aid of AI.

While images naturally vary a great deal depending on the kind of scene, the weather, time of day, and so on, I follow a standard workflow in general.

This consists of cropping if needed, applying a curve to the lighting, adding GND, Tonal Contrast, and Darken / Lighten Center layers to fine tune things, and cleaning up any distracting elements and/or stray artifacts.

I read years ago that if you’re spending more than 5 minutes editing, you’ve likely not taken a good photo.

That’s patently false, but I try to stick to it simply because I don’t want to agonize over my compositions.

All that to say I spent a LOT longer—probably around an hour--manually eliminating the people so that I could share something that looked close to “real” and wasn’t sellable in my opinion anyway.

I needed to google how to do all that using generative fill this AM.

Even while I’m a beginner when it comes to AI, I don’t think I spent more than 5 minutes removing tourists from the scene using Photoshop’s built in tools.

And there is much less “wrong” with the photo with AI taking the wheels, in my view. Though I still wouldn’t sell something like this.

In both the non-AI and AI versions, I know where things look off from using removal techniques. They’re in the same vicinity, in fact, since I was eliminating the same stuff in each instance.

I’m not going to go through that and instead invite you to see if you detect anything that looks weird.

I’ll end by saying I do think there are very appropriate uses for AI in photography.

For one, it does a very good job of getting rid of imperfections in an image caused by dust on the sensor showing up as spots in the photo, deleting distracting or unpleasing snow or rain drops, and the like.

There are also legitimate reasons why someone would want to erase people from their personal photos.

Think those occasions where you’re on vacation and capture a great memory that would be an otherwise perfect photo except for the person who was walking by and wandered into frame, and no other photo has you looking just right to your eye.

From a professional standpoint, you don’t have the consent of people occupying the background of your photo.

Everyone understands that privacy ends when you’re in public areas. Hence the paparazzi business being so lucrative and technically legal if rather distasteful.

But my goal typically isn’t to photograph anyone so that they are recognizable in my work.

With AI, I can now practice my craft more ethically when possible and appropriate while making a composition I might otherwise not have been able to at times when I’m also a tourist like everyone else.

Until next time!

Memories of Spring

Happy Mardi Gras, y’all!

Fat Tuesday in these parts was accompanied by snow that started in the wee hours and continued through late morning.

Not really digging it, though my area didn’t get the worst of the silent storm by any means.

While not the primary reason I decided to launch this website, I do plan to sell prints in order to support my work as a photographer.

With that in mind, I’m sharing a photo of a limited run of just five prints that I am offering on a first-come, first-serve basis. The first in the series is already spoken for.

I happened to make this composition on a late spring day.

The title Memories of Spring came to me of its own accord, and it fits rather well with the mood here as the mid Atlantic region shrugs off wintery weather and thinks hopeful thoughts about warm spring days to come.

My mood at any rate!

Prints for this run are on semi-gloss Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique II paper and are 13x16 in. They can be trimmed to 11x14 to fit standard frames. Printed area is approximately 9 x 12.

Each remaining print in the series is signed and marked as 2/5, 3/5 and so on.

All prints in this limited run are $100 + S&H. I will ship worldwide. Please allow up to 14 working days for prints to ship once I have received payment.

You can use the form section of the home page or on the contact page to get in touch with me. I accept PayPal and Venmo for purchases of this print.

I’m going to use similar text when I get the full blown online store up and running, but I think stating my philosophy on what you are doing when you are buying my work and how that factors into pricing is important to cover here.

Firstly, you aren’t paying for the paper and ink.

There’s a story about a woman seeing Picasso in a restaurant and asking him to sketch her.

It may or not be apocryphal or wrongly attributed to Picasso, and different variants of the story likely exist. I heard it told like this.

The anonymous woman says she’ll happily pay whatever Picasso asks. He proceeds to make a quick sketch of her on a napkin and then states that the price for his effort is $10,000.

I suspect the price also differs depending on the telling. A large sum in any case.

Shocked, the woman tells Picasso something along the lines of, “But that only took you 30 seconds!”

To which Picasso responds, “No. That took me my whole life.”

Whether you buy into this story as a real event or not, it illustrates my point.

Namely, when you buy one of my prints, you are paying for all of the technical know-how and aesthetic sensibility I have developed over the last decade and change.

And you are paying for how I have used that accumulated wisdom to produce the composition that arrives at your doorstep.

When you think of my service this way, the price point for one of these limited prints is low.

Here’s to spring when it arrives!

My First Blog Entry!

Welcome to those of you who are new here and to those of you who have followed me at my old wordpress site.

A brief introduction for folks who don’t know me is in order.

I’m Greg. I’m a professional writer during business hours and a landscape photographer when I’m not doing that.

I grew up in New Jersey and have lived up and down the Eastern seaboard. I also spent a decade in Louisiana before eventually returning to the garden state.

I’ve been snapping and sharing photos for the past 15 years or thereabouts. Places I’ve gone to photograph outside of my home base include the Smoky Mountains, upstate New York, Utah, and Maine.

On the international front, I spent about two weeks in Belize in 2022. I’ll be going abroad again in March of this year, so stay tuned for blog posts on that trip!

To get a better sense of who I am and why I do what I do, please check out the About Me page.

I’ve worked hard over the last month to get this website to a place where I felt like I could publish it.

While the site is “finished” in that sense, I will also be adding a great deal to it on an ongoing basis.

That will include a store where you can purchase my work!

Please feel free to inquire about prints before the store is up and running. I’ll be sharing a limited run I put together in an upcoming blog post with that in mind.

My custom when I write up a blog post has been to share a composition and discuss a relevant topic.

I don’t always reflect on the photographic process in my entries, though more often than not I do.

Sometimes I’ll get quite technical.

Others I’ll delve into a connecting subject, whether that’s a piece of literature the image reminds me of, a connection with a friend, the loss of a pet, what’s going on in the world, and so on.

Even when I’m talking about challenges I faced when putting together the final image that you get to see on your screen, I write in my natural voice.

Well, at least how I naturally sound on paper after spending a lifetime perfecting my unique voice.

On to the first photo itself!

As you can see, it’s not a single photo but a collage.

I initially intended to use it as the gallery banner image for this site.

A good deal of elbow grease went into making it, I can tell you.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to get to the look I wanted in the current iteration of Photoshop and watched a ton of professional videos on how to put photos in shapes.

Those methods, while cool, weren’t really working for me.

What I ended up doing was make some frames and distort them into the resulting shapes. Then add images I had chosen and position them artfully within said frames.

I had some professional experience doing that sort of thing, though this was years ago, and it took me longer than I care to admit to remember how to do it!

After all that, I asked a good friend if they prefer the collage or a single image.

You can see for yourselves which one won out on my home page!

I’ll end this very first blog post with the expected but nonetheless very sincere kind of closing thought.

I am very excited to be launching this website and for you to be going on this photographic journey with me!