Deer Isle/Stonington 2/14/2017

The on thing about the coast, is it’s always changing.  One day the ground is clear, the next 24 inch of snow!

 

We got slammed and are waiting on more in the next 24 hours.  Go down south they said, it’s warmer they said!

 

I love these old places, there is so much character here!

When it snows, typically the next day the sky is bright blue and the water is gorgeous as calm. 

The colors just started to come in through the hazy clouds as I drove home today, snapped a few pictures.  I’ve gotten into the habit carrying my camera with me. 

Haystack Mountain

My wife, god love her, as I do, isn’t an outdoors person. I am. ATVs, hiking, walking in the woods, going off and finding abandon houses, tramping along the railroad bed. But, I did get her to climb Haystack Mountain! Whooot!

The hike up was great, the sun was nice, and a few good pictures were had!

We often forget what is just in our back yard, and the gorgeous world that is around us, every single day. Cotton Candy Clouds on a Bed of Blue….

A few of these might make it up onto our wall one day. Was a great, short stint up rocky terrain.

Dessert Flowers

Don’t let them deceive you!  These flowers are very small!

But very pretty.  The white sand sticks to the oils of the flowers and in the sunlight looks like star-light, and sparkle. 

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I could go walking here every weekend.  It really is a gorgeous tapestry. 

Garden of the Gods

 

For my birthday I decided I was going to take a trek into Colorado, to this place everyone raved about: Garden of the Gods.

1 – the place is gorgeous!

2 – its free

3 – go EARLY!

4 – while you don’t have to do a lotta hiking to see the sites, DO bring water! Snacks! And a camera.

This place is wonderfully gorgous and I only saw a fraction of what I could have. I drove in early in the AM, luckily, parked in the main lot. The Center of sorts. I ventured into several hiking areas, heading towards the visitors center for a mid morning food break there.

Instead of a huge lunch, I opted for a snack and a Jeep tour. Worth every penny! Not a lot of picture taking, but it’s not about that, it’s about seeing the sites, the history, etc.

I still have not seen a rattle snake!

This pretty doe was just standing there, eating, the five people ahead of me were so intent on just walking – they never saw her… I took my time and ventured in closer – I got to about five feet away – did a bit of staring, the let her get back to having her morning snack.

Pikes Peak. 

This is a wonderful pinkish stone.  I ended up bringing a piece home with me, was lodged in my Merrils.

While taking this picture, I met some nice folks from Maine – Camden, in fact.  We are everywhere!

Famous Balancing Rock (its not balancing any more, FYI, after years of people doing what that guy is doing, it began to roll off a few years ago.  Its now cemented there)

One of the great places the Jeep tour took us!  Tunnels, and cliff roads, oh my!

This used to be a train rail.  If you look real carful like, at the ceiling, you can see the soot marks from the coal engines. 

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Helen Keller Falls. 

The GotG is a very surreal looking place.  Like someone shoved their fingers up from under and pushed the rock up.  And juts of stone, sentries, guard this really wonderful tapestry of earth. 

If you look really close, you can see the “bear” staring off up into the sky.

Pike’s Peak in the distance

Kissing Camels – lore goes something like this – warring tribes found out that the son and a daughter of opposing tribes were in love.  This was forbidden.  As punishment, they sent them into the Garden (it was a place of peace) – its said they never returned, but that the camels were forever kissing above the garden

Drive to New Mexico

I did not take a lot of time to sight see on my way to my new job in New Mexico, why? I was in a hurry. I was on a mission. On my last day I came across this gorgeous field of sunflowers:

 

Chasing The Light

After a long day at work, all I want to do is sit down and relax.  That’s the light at the end of the tunnel, sit, kick back, read, study, relax put on some mindless TV show for a few hours and bask in the light thrown from the pellet stove.

Instead, today I went out in the chill and fading light to snowblow my drive, while my wife prepared supper. 

I took the dog out for a run, and saw that the sun was setting behind the mountain before the house.  Everyone knows I have a love affair with that mountain.

At this point, the wind started to whip and cool and all I wanted to do was go back inside, but I knew that the light, that ever elusive light was changing.  So I ducked back under some trees to get shelter from the wind. 

I was about to give up.  No.  Really.  I knew my lens was going to be peppered with snow but I really wanted to see if the wonderful clouds were going to yield something spectacular to look at and better yet, take a good picture.

Then it started to happen. The golden moment. 

I quickly played with one setting after another.  Trying different things.  My fingers frozen and shivering rather hard, but I was not moving until I got a few more shots. I like the cold anyway  

A camera can never ever catch/capture/save for eternity what the human eye can see. The 3-D technocolored details.  A photo is flat (No 3-D printer here yet!) 

Sometimes sitting in the snow is worth it. 

JMC

Stopping Time

Pictures are moments in time captured in a medium.  The medium used to be film.  And post processing was unheard of. Now we can tweak, add colors, remove objects.  The camera can do so many things, more than just capture a moment, but we can choose how we capture it.  Fast shutter speed, longer exposure time. 

While I was away at clinicals I found a fun little spot and sat around playing with camera settings.  This is what I got.  The beautiful thing about digital is that you can take as many pictures as you want and it doesn’t cost you a thing.