2013 – Looking back, part 6

 

Without any doubt our vacation trip to the coast of Maine in October was something I really have looked forward to. It is a wonderful landscape with many facets and endless opportunities for photography. I have loved boats and harbors since I was a little boy. Watching the lobster boats going out or coming back from a catch and all the busy activities in a wharf still fascinate me. Getting up early or staying late in the evening is the key for catching the boats in best light.

Many of the lobster boats got very “colorful” names by their owners. I talked to this lobster man after he landed his catch. I told him I liked the name of his boat “JUST BITCHIN”. He said that it was his two sons who told him to name it this way, because that’s what he is doing all the time, “just bitchin”… I thought that was a funny little story, worth to be told here in the blog.

Going for the good light

It is this time of the year when I like to look back and see if there was any evolution in my photography. Working with the available light in low light situations was one of the things I wanted to focus on in 2013. I’m still not done reviewing all photos in detail from our trip to Maine this fall but I'm getting there. A day with heavy overcast and nothing but dull light, like we had today, is the perfect time for sitting in front of the computer and do nothing but post-processing. I dug up a few images that I like to share with you. I hope you enjoy.

The first one was made at 8AM, just after shooting a lighthouse all morning long (see my last post). The light was about to loose its “morning quality” but still good enough to work with the reflections on the water, the fall colors in the upper left corner, and the beauty of this little wharf.

Exposing strictly for the highlights by compensating with -1EV was the key for this image. All clutter in the water or elsewhere is left behind in the black that surrounds the boats. The photo tells the story that everybody shares the same dock, the lobster man who needs his dingy to go to his lobster boat as well as the tourist, who uses his kayak or canoe for recreation.

One of my favorite things to do in Maine was to watch the lobster boats going out very early in the morning. If the harbor faces East, like New Harbor, there is a good chance to photograph the boats while the first rays of sun light strike. It doesn’t get any better than this and there is no light for the next 10 hours that comes even close to this quality.

Every lobster man can identify his lobster traps by a unique color pattern on his buoys. After they are out of service the buoys are quite often used for decoration, like here at a restaurant right beside a lobster wharf. I left my dinner alone for a couple minutes when the last sun of the day made the colors even more pop on these old buoys.

Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund

 

There is an old German saying, "Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund", which means about "Morning hour has gold in its mouth". This has probably to be your mindset if you are a lobsterman. As a photographer you have to get up way before sunrise if you like to see the lobster boats leaving the little harbors. If you do, and you choose a harbor that faces to the East, like New Harbor on the Pemaquid Penninsula, you may get rewarded with some awesome light. This was what we were looking for one morning when we climbed out of our sleeping bags very early and headed for New Harbor, not far from our campsite.

We asked very polite one of the young men, who helped to load the boats with barrels of bait fish for the lobster traps, if we could shoot some images from the dock of their lobster wharf, and I promised we would stay out of their way while doing so. He smiled and replied, "Oh yes, go ahead, you are actually the first one who is asking for permission this year...". We thought this was a funny reply because it was already late in the year...

We started shooting about half an hour before sunrise. A tripod is of course essential. The first image here was made about two minutes before sunrise. Many lobster boats had already left the harbor and the one in the background just drove into a golden morning.

The following minutes were just great for story telling photography. It was fascinating to see how one lobster boat after another got prepared, loaded with bait fish, plastic trays for the lobsters, or new lobster traps. A lot of inspiration for this trip to the coast of Maine came from an article by Moose Peterson, a photographer that I really admire, but what we found in Maine exceeded my expectations by far. I can't rave enough about the quality of this early morning light we had at New Harbor this morning...

It's all about lobsters... :-)

 

We spent the first three days in the region around Freeport, Maine. Everything here seems to rotate around lobsters. Beside eating them every day (yes, you read this right!! :-) we spent quite some time in the little harbors with their lobster wharfs to watch and photograph the lobster boats going in and out. Before they leave the dock they take big plastic barrels full of fish that are used as bait on board. When they come back the lobster men can hopefully unload boxes full of lobster. It doesn't get easier to see if they loose or make money...

We had great weather so far with killer light in the mornings and evenings. It isn't difficult to make an image that can tell a story. Watching the highlights on the boats is essential for the story telling. It is very easy to blow them out and have a picture that looks just "blahhh". I can promise you that I will post more photos of the lobster boats in the next time. They all look different and are such a great subject that tells the story about the life along the Maine coast. More to come...