Aurora At Night Sky Festival

Wow, last weekend's Acadia Night Sky Festival in Bar Harbor, ME featured an aurora! I couldn't believe I was the only person at Jordan Pond to witness the event. I think everyone else was sleeping at 2:00 in the morning. Friday evening the aurora forecast was 'quiet', but I checked just before going to bed and the aurora was increasing and expected to peak around 1:30 AM. I grabbed my gear and headed to Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park, my favorite location to shoot the aurora given it faces north and it's 1.5 miles from my house. As I drove into the parking lot - no cars and I'm thinking to myself how can this be? There are thousands of people participating in the Night Sky Festival, maybe they're down at the pond. Nope, no one at Jordan Pond. I set up my camera and hung out for an hour, all alone, shooting the aurora. I was texting my wife, Brenda, while she was at work. To learn how to create images like this, consider taking my night sky photography workshop on Mount Desert Island.

EXIF data: Nikon D800, 24-70mm @ 24mm, f/22, 30 secs, ISO 3200, 9/27/14, 2:04 AM

Aurora At Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park, Maine

 

Aurora Text Message From Brenda

 

Golden Sunburst Sunset

While on our Sunset Cruise Safari, I demonstrate how to photograph the sunset with a sunburst effect. There are three steps to achieve this effect: (1) set your aperture at f/18 or higher, (2) shoot into the sun, (3) best results are when the sun is partial eclipsed - in this case, by the Western mountains of Acadia National Park. Sunsets from the water are magnificent, this night's was a deep golden yellow. To learn how to create images like this, consider taking my sunset cruise photography workshop off Mount Desert Island. 

EXIF data: Nikon D800, 24-70mm @ 70mm, f/22, 1/250 sec, ISO 400, 6/3/14, 7:58 PM

Golden Sunburst Sunset, Acadia National Park, Maine

Pool's Open

Found this photo among 700 seal shots I took one evening with my friend George Soules. We decided to tackle the problem of too many blurry seal photographs and only a handful of sharp shots. After many different permutations of settings and going past the seals so many times they stopped looking at us, we did come away with a few suggestions. In a nutshell here are the suggestions: using faster shutter speeds was paramount, the larger the zoom the better, shooting at shallower depth of field didn't matter as much, and cranking up the ISO when needed was okay. Now here's the strange part, my best seal shots disregard the suggestions. This seal getting ready to dive into the ocean was shot at 1/800 sec at f/7.1 with 400 ISO using a 300mm lens. Following these guidelines should result in more consistently sharper images when shooting seal from a moving boat. To learn how to create images like this, consider taking my sunset cruise photography workshop off Mount Desert Island. 

EXIF data: Nikon D800, 300mm, f/7.1, 1/800 sec, ISO 400, 6/15/14, 5:39 PM

Pool's Open on Bunker Ledge, Mount Desert Island, Maine

Brisk Wind Dinghy

I couldn't pass up the quaintness of dinghies at the dock glowing with low golden sunlight during one of our sunset cruise safaris. The water's stillness presented reflections with equally beautiful golden light. I always enjoy getting out on the water with my camera in hand. I'll be sharing a few of my images from those trips on this blog over the next week. This one was taken at Islesford Town Dock on Little Cranberry Island in Maine just off the coast of Mount Desert Island. To learn how to create images like this, consider taking one of my nature photography workshops in Acadia National Park.

EXIF data: Nikon D800, 24-70mm @ 40mm, f/8 (&B there), 1/125 secs, ISO 200, 5/28/14, 7:25 PM  

Dinghies At Islesford Dock, Little Cranberry Island, Maine

Spring Stream Fern

Who says rain isn't good for photography? After the rain there are many wonderful streams and waterfalls to photograph in Acadia National Park. I spotted this scene while leading a photo safari along Jordan Stream and pointed it out to those on the safari. I was drawn in by the complementary colors of red rocks and the green fern. The next day I went out for about an hour trying to find this particular angle. To learn how to create images like this, consider taking one of my nature photography workshops in Acadia National Park.

EXIF data: Nikon D800, 24-70mm @ 29mm, f/10, 1/8 secs, ISO 100, 6/15/14, 4:00 PM

Spring Fern, Jordan Stream, Acadia National Park, Maine