I don't only photograph the surfers when I'm at the beach.
Monte
Shooting into the Sun
Ben Stadelmaier at Chapoquoit Beach - June, 2018
I try to avoid photographing the surfers when they are directly backlit by the sun, but it's hard to avoid. Occasionally, one of these silhouettes turns out interesting. I thought this image of my friend, Ben, was one such example.
Monte
Crowded Day at Chapoquoit
This is JR, one of the kite surfers. He's very exciting to watch.
This afternoon, around 1530, I went outside to take Bevo for a walk and noticed the wind was picking up. I loaded up my gear and went straight to Chapoquoit where, as I expected, I found several kite surfers - probably more than ten. The wind was over 20 mph, and the tide was coming in. I had to retreat to the elevated parking lot after about an hour of shooting because the surf was lapping at the legs of my tripod.
The surfer in this photograph is JR. I don't see him that often, but I love to photograph him; lots of energy! Capturing the kite of another surfer in the background was a happy accident.
The world outside my little town by the ocean is crazy and escaping to the beach to photograph the surfers is a good way to leave all the nonsense behind, at least briefly.
Monte
Gull With Fish
This evening at Chapoquoit I spotted this gull paddling toward the shore with her head under the water. When she came up on the beach the reason was clear - she was grasping a big fish in her beak.
Monte
Peter and His Dudley Do-Right Hat
Peter
Peter
Going through some more of the 1900 pictures I took a few days ago of the kite surfers at Chapoquoit. This is Peter F. I like the hat.
Is This Street Photography?
Ben
Peter
I haven't met this surfer yet.
I was photographing this young boy playing in the surf, but I was intrigued by the man. I guessed he was the boy's grandfather, but I didn't know for sure. The man stood sternly and silently on the beach keeping watch over the boy, who was enthusiastically running in and out of the water. There was scarcely any additional interaction between the two of them.
The dinghies at West Falmouth Harbor.
I'm reading a new book on street photography by Valerie Jardin and I was happy to discover that the author, like me, doesn't think you have to be taking pictures on a street to make it street photography. The photographs can also be taken on a beach. Ms. Jardin says that street photography has to do with people, or, and I like this, the "idea of people." So, the first four photographs in this series are clearly of people, but the photograph of the dinghies conveys the idea of people.
I like the documentary nature of candid photographs taken of people on the beach. I can imagine looking at these photographs years from now and wondering who the people were? Where have they gone? What has happened in their lives since this brief moment captured as a digital image by my camera? Maybe that all sounds a bit creepy? But it is interesting, don't you think, to make up stories about strangers in photographs, especially if the photographs are old? So, does it matter if the photographs have been manipulated?
I've lamented the problem of backlighting when photographing the kite surfers at Chapoquoit. The beach faces west and the afternoon sun makes it difficult to get anything but silhouettes with an over-exposed sky in the background. I've tried using polarizing filters and graduated neutral density filters but with no success. In these images I've used photographic editing software to address the problem of silhouetted surfers with a flat grey sky behind them. I took photographs of the sky and then used my computer to make composite images by replacing the featureless grey sky behind the surfers with a different, properly exposed, image of the sky. Is that cheating? Some people think it is, but I disagree. It's an image, and I'm creating the image to tell the story I want to tell. So, it seems perfectly reasonable to make the sky look more interesting. We live in an era of "alternative facts."
Monte
Bridge Jumping and Steve Kite Surfing
It's Memorial Day weekend and that means summer is starting on Cape Cod. I was out yesterday with a bunch of the kite surfers - more pictures of them in an upcoming post. Today, I went out to photograph people at Chapoquoit and got some nice shots of kids playing in the surf and people walking on the beach.
On my way home I spotted a small group of kids jumping of the bridge on the road to Chapoquoit. This is a favorite summertime activity and I love to photograph them when I can. I stopped and got set-up in time to capture the last jump any of them did. This particular young man is quite athletic, and fearless. He did his jump by running across the road and leaping over the guardrail while turning a flip. He probably shouldn't show these pictures to his mother.
I should have been zoomed in tighter, but from where I was standing below the bridge I couldn't see him on the road as he was about to start his jump. I zoomed out a bit to give myself some room for error since I was guessing when and where he would come over the rail.
Rain tomorrow, but hopefully there will be some more opportunities for cool shots before that starts.
Monte
last graduation
Lindsay
Lindsay with a whole bunch of people
Justin on the left and Zach on the right
Lindsay with her brothers
Lindsay with mom and brothers
Lindsay with her mom, brothers and grandparents
Lindsay with her friend, Hannah.
Lindsay with her boyfriend, Jackson. They met while he was also a student at Boston University Law School. Jackson graduated last year. He's a great guy.
Lindsay with her grandparents
Lindsay with classmates Arwa, Danielle and Maggie
Lindsay with classmates Daniela, Viktors, Arwa, Danielle, Maggie and Zoeth
Lindsay with Jackson and the sign of the bar where they had their first date
My youngest kid, Lindsay, graduated from BU law school yesterday. I took some pictures using a Panasonic G9 camera, which I don't like as much as my Nikons. I used the Panasonic because it is smaller, lighter and makes less noise when using it. But, it also takes worse pictures than a Nikon. What was I thinking?
The graduation ceremony was nicely done. The Dean of the law school, Maureen O'Rourke, gave an inspiring speech in which she lamented the shift away from integrity and truth and reason in our current public discourse and encouraged the graduates to embrace these characteristics as core elements of a successful life - and essential for the maintenance of our democratic system of government.
The other speakers, which included NPR's Nina Totenberg and some of the graduates, also gave wonderful speeches. To be in the same room with all of these smart, optimistic and brilliant people was emotionally uplifting, especially after the social media assaults spewing lies and hate that we've all been subjected to over the past couple of years.
Among the many things that really do make America great are our universities and the hopefulness and intellectual courage of the professors and the graduates they produce. Some of the graduates were from foreign countries and they spoke of the warm feelings they developed for their new-found American friends and of the respect they have for this country and our free society. We are indeed in troubled times in America, and so much of what is great about us is under threat. This day gave me hope that we will survive as a great nation and continue to lead the world toward a better future. There are so many really good people here.
Monte
fog
The wind picked up in the afternoon today so I took a chance and went to Chapoquoit near 5 o'clock. Peter and Tom were there kite surfing when I arrived. A dense fog started rolling in over the bay almost as soon as I got set-up. The fog gave the beach an eerie but appealing sort of feel. I only stayed about 40-minutes because the air was heavy and wet and I was worried about the effect on my camera and lens. I did have them protected with a weather cover, but I was having to wipe off the front of the lens every few minutes.
I don't like the featureless grey sky, but the upside is the soft, even, light it provides.
Miles and Paul showed up at the end of my session. Neither of them were planning to go out; they just wanted to see what was going on at the beach. At the edge of the ocean our day-to-day decisions are shaped by wind and tides and an irresistible urge to see what's happening on the water.
Monte
the sailors
This is just a few of the photographs I took on Sunday when I was with a group of people who meet every Sunday to race their Laser sailboats. The man in the bottom picture is named Jay; he was driving the small motor boat that I was in when I was taking the pictures. He's a great guy.
I will post these images, and some others, in a separate gallery called "the sailors" under the photo gallery tab.
Monte
Laser Sailors
Hanu and Tommy invited me to Red Brook Harbor in Cataumet to watch them and their friends race Laser sailboats. I was in the "Committee Boat," which was piloted by a man named Jay. There was a small area in the front of the boat from where I was able to launch my drone. I've never flown the drone out of a boat before so I was a little bit nervous, but it went well, except for the time when I was hovering the drone low and a sail boat came up from behind me and almost took it out. I guess you'd call that a "near-miss" but it was more like a "near-hit."
It was a really fun day and I have thousands of photographs and video clips to comb through looking for some good shots. I mostly shot video with the drone but I did remember to capture a few still images, like this one. I think all of the sailors are in this picture.
Monte
promotional poster
I went to the Library yesterday and put up all of the pictures I'd prepared for the exhibit. They asked me if I had a promotional poster for the front desk area. I didn't know that was something I was supposed to do - or could do. So, my answer was no. But, I made one.
Monte
Chapoquoit Photography Exhibition
This is a six-minute video about my first photography exhibition being hosted by my local public library. The exhibit consists of images from Chapoquoit Beach in Falmouth, MA on Cape Cod. It is called Chapoquoit: Or, Life at the Beach, which is a play on the title of Thoreau's book Walden: Or, Life in the Woods. The exhibit will run the entire month of May, 2018.
The video briefly describes the evolution in my thinking about photography and shows several of the images and video clips that I've captured at Chapoquoit over the past few years.
Monte
More surfers at chapoquoit
I accidentally left out this picture of Peter and this wide-angle view on my earlier post.
Monte
kite surfers at chapoquoit
The weather report indicated wind speeds at about 20 mph between 3:00 - 5:00 PM today, which was also the time frame for high tide. I figured there was a good chance the surfers would be out, and they were.
I used my Nikon 300 mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter on a Nikon D500 for these shots. The good part about this rig is that it is small and I can handhold it. The bad part is that the pictures aren't as sharp as they are with the Nikon 200-500 mm lens, which requires a tripod. Everything in life is a compromise.
I think I have a photograph here of all the surfers except Tommy. He went way down the beach and was out of sight the whole time I was shooting. Next time.
Monte
jumping dog
I've photographed this dog before; he's exciting. I was using the Panasonic G9 camera with the Olympus 40-150 mm lens. The image could have been better, but I'm generally happy with this new camera/lens system.
I wanted to get the dog facing the camera, which meant that I had my back to the harsh late afternoon sun, and this gave me the beach house as the background. I would have preferred the ocean as the background, but the dog would have come out as a silhouette.
Monte
Nathaniel
This young boy was at the beach today with his family and he was interested in what I was doing with my camera and my drone. After he asked me a few questions about what I was photographing I suggested that I take some action pictures of him running, and he agreed.
Monte
Susan's Dog
My friend Kyle Banks and his wife Susan showed up at Chapoquoit just as I was getting ready to leave today. It was lucky for me because I got to take pictures of their dog running up the beach.
I was working with the Panasonic G9 and the Olympus 40-150 lens. I don't think this system is as good as the Nikon D500 with the Nikon 70-200 lens for action photography, but it's pretty close. The benefit, or at least one of the benefits, of the Panasonic/Olympus mirrorless systems is that they are smaller and lighter weight than the similar Nikon systems.
I like the way the dog appears to be staring directly at the camera.
Monte
kites and dogs
Out at Chapoquoit this afternoon to photograph people and their dogs. There was a young boy flying a kite and he was pretty good at it. I took several photographs of him and his mom and his little brother. But the one I like the best is the top one in this series. I took it as I was packing up my car and saw him from the beach parking lot. I used my Nikon D500 with the 70-200 mm lens .
I also took some pictures of this man and his dog. The dog is eleven-years old, but still has a lot of energy.
Another great day at the beach.
Monte
new camera
Went to Chapoquoit this afternoon to try a new camera that I got yesterday. It's a Panasonic G9. I used it to take this picture of my friend, Ben. Ben is one of the kite surfers and he stopped at the beach on his way home from work while I was out there looking for people and things to photograph. So, I pestered him to let me take his portrait.
So far, I think I like this little Panasonic camera.
Monte