... just as i was finishing up my morning appointments chad messaged me, "would you like to go down to portland this afternoon with shara and me to take some pictures" ... about a half-hour before the appointed pick-up time i donned my it's-going-to-be-wicked-cold gear (including, with a very sad r.i.p. to my forty-five year-old herman survivors, my new boots) and then we were off ...
... our first stop was bug light in south portland ... admitting to my compositional failings, i've never managed a pleasing shot of the structure ... this day i played a bit ...
... as i continued to familiarize myself with the sony a7ii, i commented to chad that since it aligned with the horizon the fence wasn't easy to fit into a composition ... having said that i immediately challenged myself to disprove my thesis ... a bit classic, but i think this is a pleasing picture ...
... shara and chad were dressed to take pictures on the bleak icy surface of pluto, which, in this weather, the coast of maine would make a good training ground for future astronaut training ...
... as we drove up onto portland head i noticed this spot at the top of the hill ... after a debate of which spot to park in, i slogged my way up what i think was once part of battery dehart's defensive glacis and enjoyed a little dance with the tree and the lighthouse ...
... descending the icy stairs i became fascinated by the juxtaposition of the fractal form of the tree and the linear geometry of the lighthouse ...
... along the fence i came across a guy with a very, very expensive nikon camera around his neck ... affixed to it was a most humongous zoom lens, big enough that i image it had it's own zip code ... he was pacing back and forth along the safety barrier, apparently trying to find a suitable vantage for a picture ... i looked around, walked another seventy-eighty feet down the path, squeezed through a gap between the fence and the nasty thorn bushes, and, carefully holding the railing so if my feet slipped i wouldn't plunge to an icy death (i've had enough of that nonsense), worked my way back to a little rocky promontory i had seen from above ... there i took this picture ... after, as i worked my way back to safety, i noticed that the man had been watching me from further down the path ... i think he was scowling ... strange, very strange ...
... i saw shara and chad down below, so, deaf to the voice of my ankle doctor, "wait a few more months before trying it out on uneven rocky surfaces," i negotiated the closer-to-vertical-than-horizontal slippery path down the the boulder covered shore ...
... i like lighthouses ... i like rocks ... i like ice ... i really, really like icy rocks near a lighthouse ...
... i thought of ma, "ohhhhh, look at the rocks" ... she loved rocks ...
... i wonder why creationists think that the science of geology, in determining that this quartzite intrusion is much, much older than 6,021 years, in any way diminish the glory of g*d ...
... finally, my photographic piéce de rèsistance ... using my sony a7ii with a "classic" (30+ years-old) nikkor 50mm lens, hand-held (rather foolish for shots like this) i made three separate exposures and then combined them into a single image ("hdr," for those of you not in the know) ... gosh, every now and then i begin to believe i've actually learned something about photography in the past fifty years ...
... shara, now officially a member of our "merry band" ... this, not photographs, is what i believe it's all about ...
"A good photograph is knowing where to stand."
ANSEL ADAMS