The Night Before

The day before the Carolina Beach morning was also the afternoon that I managed my icicle photo, and that evening I managed a few worthwhile shots as well, so it was all in all a photographically productive day.

First, from the afternoon in Raleigh, here are two shots of the cabbage-like plant that I'd spotted earlier and "sketched" with my phone.

Here are three night shots from my hotel room balcony.

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Carolina Beach Sunrise

I "cheated" in creating these three photos this morning.  I did get up well before sunrise to see what might develop, and I did not give up when I saw the heavy overcast.  The first hint of anything interesting was about three minutes after the invisible sunrise, when a huge congregation of seabirds flew across the ocean waters just beyond the breaking surf.  The "cheating" is that the light was dull, hardly any color.  I have seen this kind of feeding activity on mornings with nice golden light, when I didn't have any kind of camera.  So, I decided to "tweak" it in Adobe Lightroom®, and got something more like what I've experienced before.  No, it didn't look like this today, except in my imagination.  So I guess one could say I "played painter" for the occasion.

A few minutes later, some warm colors did appear through a thin region of the clouds, and a lone beachcomber stood admiring the view for a moment.  I again greatly intensified the image, but all of the elements you see were really there.

The last shot is in some ways the most interesting color display that I observed, and it lasted only a few seconds!

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Tides, thistles, and whale clouds

On our final full day in Maine, I decided to return to the Thunder Hole section of the coastline and do some more "playing" with the rocks and surf.

 Sometimes it's fun to just pick a spot for awhile and watch the hydraulic developments.

As we moved down the coast just a bit, the topography offered nice little surprises. The diversity of plant life in this tide pool was remarkable. The first photo places it in context, but I also rather like the abstract isolation of the second one.

I love the curved coastline, the red rocks, green trees, blue water, and textured sky. Sadly, I can't live right at that location, but I think it will live in me for quite a while.

After the raw power of the ocean against the cliffs, I found a nice soft contrast in a thistle, a dead tree, and sparse clouds.

Later in the day, I revisited a pier in Bar Harbor, where low tide allowed me to clamber around the slippery rocks that collect seaweed, barnacles, and other colorful stuff. I used my old friend the tilt/shift lens (17mm) to get the perspective I wanted.

For a little while, the clouds mimicked a whale with impressive flukes.

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Hiking Gorham Mountain

Gorham Mountain, in Acadia National Park, is a nice morning's hike that can be accessed from a trailhead off the Park Loop Road, just south of Thunder Hole. It is not nearly as high as Cadillac Mountain, but the peak is close to the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Otter Cove to the south, making possible some impressive views.

Because we approached on foot from further up the shore, I first spent some time photographing red rocks and blue-green surf.

Even though there were lots of people in the area (a National Park on a beautiful day in August), in certain spots, at times, one could really feel a pleasant sense of solitude, a connection to the land, yet a bit of removal from almost everything.

A tree along the shore path had an impressive collection of boles, and did not seem to be suffering ill health from them. One near the base reminded me of a rabbit.

The solitude of the lonely gull.  No, definitely not "lonelygull15", and not fake.

The solitude of the boulder.

As we started up the trail on Gorham Mountain, the way was mostly tightly enclosed by trees and rocks. Then this temple-like formation appeared, like a scene early in an Indiana Jones film. Is that a plaque?

It is indeed.

Waldron Bates was one of the pioneer pathmakers in Acadia.

There were some "false summits" along the way, that offered nice views, but we had been warned not to mistake them for the top.

It was fun to be able to look down to where we had been earlier.  I lighthouse tour boat seemed to be playing at making circles.

Here is a very wide view from the second "almost peak" along the way.

Still some climbing to go, but it's an easy grade at this point.

And here it is, the summit of Gorham Mountain. Only 525 feet, but more exhilarating than that suggests.

Retreating toward sea level, I wanted to capture the character of some of the path. This was not far above the base.

And here's a final peekaboo from the shore path.

(I kept my camera kit simpler than usual to ease the load when doing the Gorham climb. All of these photos were shot with a Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS on a 5D MkIII.)

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