Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Cape Elizabeth Maine and Not the Golden Hour

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Cape Elizabeth Maine is a beautiful spot just outside of Portland that for photographers is probably best known for Portland Head Light.  I would highly recommend getting yourself to Fort Williams Park and check out this great location.  However, after awhile, the question comes up 'Do I Really Need Another Picture of the Lighthouse?'.  Like any good photographer the answer is pretty much always 'Yes' but that is a problem that will need to be addressed another day.

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I spent a good deal of time near Two Lights State Park.  It's an interesting area, rocky beach, large section of granite shelf, oh yeah and a great seafood stand.  I of course was there to commune with nature and not the clams.  OK, it was for the clams.   But I have often thought about how to handle pictures during the middle of the day.  The standard rule of thumb is the only good light is near sunrise and sunset certainly makes sense, but let's face it, during the summer the sun comes up at about 5:45a at that location, you've got a 2 hour travel time unless you live in Portland, and the need to be ready at least 45 minutes to an hour prior to sunrise then you need to get up about 2:30a.  A little too early for routine work.  So mid-day light starts looking better and better.



So you get creative.  High Dynamic Range processing (HDR), a study of black and white conversion, and you should develop an affinity for rocks.  I feel you can actually get some very interesting material by working the contrast in the deep shadows you get during that time of day and use multiple exposure to bring out the details.  The image above uses three exposures separated by 1.5 ev and tonemapped with Photomatix Pro.  For those of you who are here for the pictures you can ignore the previous 'blah, blah'.

The rock formations here are really quite interesting.  Instead of the normal granite of Maine, it's actually some form of sedimentary rock.  From a photographic point of view, it gives you interesting structure that you can work to your advantage, especially in the middle of the day.  The high contrast along with all the rock detail just begs for a black and white conversion.  That's what I was trying to do here.

Let me know what you think of these pictures.  How do the rest of you handle getting pictures during midday?

And now it's time to pay the bills.  These pictures, like all the others in this blog, can be purchased.  There is a limited size of prints available if you press the 'Buy Print' button directly below each picture.  If you click on the picture it will take you to my SmugMug site where a much more extensive selection of print options are available.  Everything from standard prints in a large number of sizes to canvas and metal prints ready for hanging on a wall.  If you like something, think about purchasing.  It goes towards feeding the photo addiction.

1 comment:

  1. The last photo, at least from my iPhone image, gives the rocks a texture like wood.

    Perhaps next time you can stay at a motel so you can get the early morning light. It would also be interesting to catch lighthouse at night when the lamps are on.

    Nice job.

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