A great day at the beach (Chapoquoit). There was a lot of wind. It was still a little cold, temperatures in the 40's. I was photographing Ben, Miles and Nevin. Many of the usual kite surfers are out of town surfing in North Carolina this week, but Ben, Miles and Nevin put on a great show for me.
Monte
Just had my roof replaced after it was damaged in a recent storm. The work took place over a two-day period and I got really interested in filming and photographing the work-crew. I was especially interested in making portraits of the roofers. I have hundreds of photos that will take me a few days to go through, and I shot lots of video, including drone work.
I will be creating a new section within the photo gallery that will showcase some of the portraits. I will also be making a video.
Monte
Was doing some work inside around noon today when I noticed that it looked like a pretty nice day outside. Checking the weather app I discovered that it was a good day for the kite surfers. I had to finish what I was doing and then pack up my gear before I could go. By the time I left for Chapoquoit it was a little after 2:00 PM. There were still some surfers there, but heavy clouds were rolling in and it was colder. One of them, Tim, was already leaving when I arrived, but four of them were still out.
I hurried to setup and was able to take pictures for maybe 45-minutes before the surfers stopped because it was just too cold. Peter told me that earlier in the day conditions were perfect. Oh well.
At least I got a few good shots, like this one of Jamie. Photography is about a lot of things. One of them, and it is an important one, is being in the right place at the right time. Another thing about photography, however, is that it isn't only about the shots. It's also about getting outside and hanging out with great people. Better late than never.
Monte
We had a pretty big storm last Friday. It did some damage to our roof and water leaked into the house causing more damage inside. I've been dealing with that mess and haven't had time to go through my recent photographs.
This is another picture of Nevin Sayre at Chapoquoit. The focus on my recent shots isn't as sharp as I would like. Maybe that's because I've been thinking about a new telephoto lens I want that is ridiculously expensive and I'm trying to justify the cost. Always wanting more stuff is a symptom of our modern consumer culture. It is too easy for us to convince ourselves that another object, a thing, will make us happier.
I don't think a new lens will make me happier. But it might make my pictures sharper. At least that is the way I'm rationalizing thinking about getting something I don't need.
There is handwriting on the bottom of Nevin's board. I can tell that the first words are his name, but I can't read the rest of it. I want pictures that are so sharp every little detail is crystal clear. Will I be happier if I achieve that?
Yes, OCD is an issue for me.
Monte
I was flying my drone at Nobska Light a few days ago and took this aerial photo of the village of Woods Hole. The lighthouse is way out of the frame toward the right. The village of Woods Hole is home to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory and several other scientific institutions. It is also the home of the Woods Hole Film Festival. Basically, it is one of those places filled with brilliant people - the kind of place that makes America great. I don't live there; I only take pictures of it.
I should have flown the drone higher to get a more encompassing view. Next time.
Monte
This is Nevin, a kite surfer I haven't met before today. He's very good. Apparently, he has been a highly ranked Wind-Surfer in the past. After photographing him today I believe it.
There were several kite surfers out today. Many more pictures to follow.
Monte
Tommy Lanagan gave me a heads up that the kite surfers would be out at Chapoquoit around noon today. That's all I need to hear to pack up my cameras and go to the beach.
It was a fantastic day! Temperatures near 50 degrees fahrenheit, clear skies and enough wind for the surfers to have fun but not so much that I was afraid to fly my drone - so I did. It was also low tide at 12:30, which gave me plenty of beach to spread out my gear.
This is the first photograph of the day I'm posting, but there will be more. I took way over a thousand pictures, so it will take a a little time to go through them.
Don't you love the stoked feeling you have after a really great day? And I was only taking pictures. I imagine the surfers are drunk with exhilaration.
Monte
I was loading my gear into my car after finishing a time lapse of the sunset at Chapoquoit this evening when I heard someone exclaim: "Hey, there's a paddle boarder out there." The paddle boarder was just passing in front of the last great colors of the fading sunset when I saw him. I rushed to get my camera out of my backpack and ran to get the shot. Alas, he had already paddled away from the best part of the sky by the time I was ready to take the shot. I actually was thinking of yelling at the paddle boarder to go back so I could take a better picture, but I didn't.
It turns out that the paddle boarder was Miles Manning, one of the kite surfers. I recognized him as he got out of the water and started walking up the beach toward me. Miles offered to get back in the water for a "do-over" after I told him the story of how I had just missed a really great shot of him. But, as everybody who has ever photographed a sunset knows, the light is fleeting and the great moments pass quickly. Miles responded to the situation with his characteristic optimism: "There will be other opportunities."
Yes, there will.
Monte
Went to the beach twice today, morning and evening. In the evening, I got these two shots of young families with their kids. In both cases I was shooting shutter priority with high shutter speeds to freeze the action, which gave me an aperture of f2.8 and an ISO around 200. The f2.8 aperture has a shallow depth of field so in the upper picture the young boy is slightly out of focus and in the lower picture the father is slightly out of focus.
I hate it when I screw up what would otherwise be nice shots.
This morning I was flying my drone at Chapoquoit specifically to get photographs of the color variations in the water.
About a year ago I was photographing the surfers and the water was a brilliant emerald green, like in this picture. A woman asked me why the water was so green and I had to say that I didn't know. I looked it up: Phytoplankton is the answer. Single-celled, photosynthetic organisms that contain chlorophyll, which is green. Phytoplankton are abundant near the shore which accounts for the color gradation. They produce half of all the oxygen available for breathing everywhere on our planet. Seems like we should be careful not to inadvertently destroy them through careless behavior.
Monte
Today I went downtown to photograph the bell in the steeple of the First Congregational Church. The pastor, Jonathan Drury, was nice enough to take me up. Quite an adventure crawling through dark narrow spaces and up steep, rickety stairs that were really more like ladders.
The bell was cast in 1796 by Paul Revere - yes, the same guy who made the midnight ride in Longfellow's famous poem. He also made bells when he wasn't participating in the American Revolution.
I've known about the bell since I moved here in 2003, but I never thought about photographing it until a few weeks ago. Jonathan is a great guy and he was very generous with his time telling me all about the history of the church.
Monte
Back at the beach today hoping to get some more photographs of dogs jumping. It was near sunset and very cloudy, so there wasn't a lot of light. Using a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second to freeze the action resulted in needing an ISO of 1250, thus a grainy picture.
I was also shooting slow motion video, and that looks pretty cool.
I want to do this again in better light to get better images. So, if the very nice woman who agreed to let me photograph your dog is reading this post, please send me an email using the contact button on my website. I'd like to do this shoot again in better light.
Monte
At Chapoquoit with several of the surfers today. These pictures are of Tommy and Sara surfing on Valentine's Day.
They got into the water just as I was about to leave, so I didn't get a chance to take more than just a few photographs of them. Hopefully, there will be another good day for surfing soon and I can get some more shots then.
I had to leave the beach so I could get home to bake a cake to surprise Jenny for Valentine's Day. Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Turned out pretty good.
Monte
Another great evening at Chapoquoit. This is Eddie and his two dogs. He asked me to photograph his dog jumping for the tennis ball.
I also flew my drone and got some video of the sunset.
Monte
I went out to Chapoquoit Beach tonight to timelapse the sunset and fly my drone. I'm on the left holding my drone remote controller and the other person is David, my neighbor, and his dog, Wissett.
This is image 312 out of 600 that make up the timelapse I shot.
Monte
This morning I did a similar drone shot as this one just to see what the view from high above my driveway would look like. I liked it, so I decided to shoot the same shot at sunset.
For the sunset shot I adjusted the camera to a higher angle to get more of the sky, which resulted in cutting the quaint New England church out of the picture (it was in the bottom left part of this morning’s photograph).
I flew the drone to 120 meters (the maximum altitude allowed by the FAA) and started taking pictures. The video image on my control screen went blank just minutes before sunset. I could still control the drone, but only by directly seeing it, which was hard to do since it was so high and back a bit from being directly overhead. I managed to get it back down quickly and fix the problem (turn everything off and then turn everything back on is the limit of my technology-fix tricks, but it frequently works.) I had the drone back up in time to capture several more images.
If the politics of our time is stressing you out, as it does me, I recommend you get a drone. Flying a drone and taking photographs from a new perspective is so much fun you will, at least temporarily, forget about the problems we are having.
Monte
I flew the drone 114 meters above my driveway to get this picture across West Falmouth Harbor and past Chapoquoit Beach on out to Buzzards Bay. Tonight I’m doing the sunset from here too.
Monte
Good day for the kite-surfers – temperature just above 40 degrees Fahrenheit and wind over 22 mph at Chapoquoit. They started around 10:00 AM and two of them stayed until sunset at 4:45 PM. I left around noon.
I took hundreds of photographs using a Nikon D500 with a 300 mm F4 prime lens and a 1.4x Nikon teleconverter, which gives me a 630 mm full-frame equivalent zoom. I like this rig because it is small and easily handheld. I don’t think it gives pictures that are as sharp as what I get with my Nikon 200-500 mm zoom mounted on a tripod, but it does make me more mobile.
Skimming through the pictures tonight I found several that I like, but this one of Ben struck me because of his pose. His hand reaching down to touch the water with a serene, almost monk-like, countenance makes it look like he is paying homage to the ocean, and maybe he is.
I went back to the beach near sunset when the wind had dropped to around 15 mph and flew my drone trying to get video of the two remaining surfers, Tom and Miles. Out of 30-minutes of total video about 1-minute looks okay, but not great. I have a lot to learn about using the drone. I think I’m improving – slowly.
Monte
Out at Little Island Beach today with the drone. I'm standing on the left side of the beach wearing an orange jacket in this photograph. The rocks and boulders at Little Island were dropped off by a receding glacier around 15,000 - 20,000 years ago.
I used the "return home" function for the first time today because I lost sight of the drone. It worked great! I also made some other useful discoveries about the compass. So, from a learning-to-fly perspective, it was a good day.
The video I'm shooting with the drone has been disappointing to be honest. Nothing wrong with the drone, I'm just struggling with composing and shooting interesting video. For example, I thought skimming over all those rocks and boulders and then zooming out over the ocean would be cool, but it wasn't. But that is because I'm not doing this right.
Persistence is the name of the game.
Monte
We had a pretty serious "cold snap" here a week ago, or so. I went out to trunk river hoping to find ice skaters on the frozen pond. They were on the far side of the pond from where I could stand. I used a Nikon 300 mm F4 prime lens with a Nikon 1.4x teleconverter on a nikon D500. This combination gives me an easily hand-holdable 630 mm equivalent, which was just about right for the distance between me and the hockey players.
The top picture is an aerial shot of the hockey game done with my drone.
I'm a transplant to New England and I like taking pictures like these because they communicate what it feels like to live here.
Monte
This is the first (I think) sunset shot with my drone. I wasn't sure how much ice would be at Chapoquoit when I left my house but this was more than I expected. It was just past high tide when I got there at 4:00 PM and about 30-minutes before sunset. Not much wind. I flew the drone up and down the beach photographing some of the people there and shot lots of video. I took this shot just before leaving. I think the drone was somewhere between 30-50 meters up.
Several people stopped to talk to me. One of them was a retired airline pilot who showed me a photograph on his smart phone of him with the Navy drone he flew in 1960! I didn't think to ask him if he would email me a copy of the picture but I wish I had. It looked like a small helicopter. He said he flew it by sight from the deck of an aircraft carrier until it got out-of-sight and then control was transferred to people below deck who tracked it on radar.
I go to the beach to gaze at the scenery and talk to interesting people. Sometimes I take pictures too.
Monte