If you've been following the posts Maine Vacation 1 and 2 you know that, while this is definitely a good time, I am making pictures while here in Maine too. Photography's hold on me is deep enough that I seldom stop making pictures. After so many years in, it is hard to turn it off. 

For several days I have been a "regular" at the Owl's Head Transportation Museum near Rockland. The second day there I had fog:

Perhaps a little underwhelming, yes? I understand. This definitely is one of those times when I am envisioning the prints I will make from these. This is called "previsualization" in Adam's Zone System terminology and can be a very helpful concept to master when shooting. How will I want these prints to look? Thinking about that when making the pictures is often a very good idea. In this case, large fairly flat and with muted colors. Can't wait to see them as prints.

What's next? More from the Museum but the next couple of shoots I moved indoors to photograph things on display.

More Maine Vacation to come.

Stay tuned.

This one will look at some of the pictures I made last week when I first got to Maine.

I spent two nights in Augusta, a scrappy and sincere town that happens to be the capitol of the state. While it does gear up for summer I think it's mostly for locals and maybe a few tourists. This is nothing like being on the coast.

I spent a couple of extended sessions at a thing called the Kennebec Arsenal, which is old and kind of creepy and sits along the Kennebec River.

From a National Park Service site: http://www.nps.gov/resources/site.htm?id=18980

I was working with the 24 mm PC (perspective control) lens. This is a very demanding but very rewarding lens when used correctly. Odd to be playing the same games with it I used to such great advantage when working with 8 x 10 earlier in my career. It is exactly the same concept, just with smaller controls!

And here's the river part:

and the stone steps that lead up from the river:

And finally, some of the other buildings in the complex:

where the lens creates some havoc with what were, presumably, right angles.

Can you personalize a place? Can you work to identify with it and also to utilize it to your own ends? Can you take something from it and use it for your own? Can you mold it to make your own pictures from it? This is a key point, isn't it? How to avoid the generic and to distinguish what you do with it as yours and apart and different than someone else's. This is partly intuitive and partly thought through, of course. But absolutely essential. Look at the really good photographers in the history. It's what they did. 

From there I headed to Port Clyde, definitely on the water. This is where the boat to Monhegan Island leaves from and it is at the very bottom of a long peninsula.  It is simply the best. 

More to come.

I am in Maine for a 1 1/2 week "vacation" as relief from a relentless schedule of being retired [sic]. The first couple of days were in Augusta staying in a motel, then to a rental cottage on the harbor in Port Clyde with my daughter, my grand daughter and my future son in law. We did stuff like go to the Blue Hill Fair and eat lobster. I really enjoyed having them. My six year old grand daughter Skye lost another tooth which makes corn on the cob not possible until she grows some front teeth.

But they are now gone and I am working again. I worked on a new Guggenheim application this morning and contacted my four outside reviewers bringing them up to date and telling them I am on course to apply later this month. I also proofed a piece sent to me by Chris Benfey, an author and friend, who is writing the introduction to a new book coming out soon of my writings. What? Yes, it is true. We are hard at work on a new book of essays written by me. Stay tuned.

And I went out looking for pictures. It has been foggy all day. This represents a huge opportunity to make pictures, I think. But this part of Maine is hard as it is relentlessly pretty. I ended up at the Owl's Head Transportation Museum near Rockland in the back paved lot which was mostly empty after a Labor Day weekend of crowds gawking at hundreds of motorcycles.

There I made this:

and this:

among others. 

Neither image is essential to the other pictures I was making there, which I am saving for another post. This gets us into the "this one" or "that one" game, which can go on forever. Please don't send me your vote as, believe me, I don't need to know it. 

But know this: fog is good. Make pictures under adverse conditions, particularly if you are interested in using outdoor light. Sunny is good too, but just not all the time.

It's the light that makes our pictures. Use it the best you can and use different light whenever possible.

Stay tuned for Maine Vacation 2.

Yesterday I drove from Boston up to the Connecticut River, the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. I hitched a ride using the service North Star provides up river several miles and put my boat in the water just above the covered bridge at Cornish to paddle back down river to where my car was parked. 

Warm air and water in mid August and only a few of us on the river. I paddled under bridges, watched  kids flying and somersaulting into the river on a tree swing, battled strong headwinds and stopped several times to photograph. In places it was so shallow you could walk right out into the middle of the river. It was glorious.

Here are a few of the pictures I made:

One of the stops I made was where a small stream flowed out into the river:

I paddled up stream as far as I could, got out and sat on a downed tree and ate my lunch, then headed up the stream for a ways, walking on rocks in shallow water, camera in hand, hearing a train go by on the New Hampshire side of the river but cut off from the world looking down making pictures. I found about equal parts of beauty and mankinds' detritus on the stream bed.

and finally, this supporting a bridge over the stream

here converted to black and white.

All this about as good as it gets: the day, the air, summer, being out on the water. This while unable to keep Robin William's suicide just a few days ago off my mind. I wasn't a big fan, as he was too frenetic and manic for me, but there were moments when you just couldn't believe what he was doing, so brilliant and so very funny.

I also liked some of the acting he did in movies like Good Will Hunting or Good Morning Vietnam or even Mrs. Doubtfire. What a talent and what a huge loss. 

Depression is awful. There has been some in my family. I think I have only really been depressed once, after I finished grad school a very long time ago. 

Imagine deciding to end it all and to not see the time yesterday along the river in northern New England as being worth living for. 

Tragic.

Wait a minute. Can a "trilogy" have four parts?

Well, maybe. Read on.

The overall concept is to photograph Massachusetts Route 2 from the air starting about Rt 128 near Boston on out to where it stops at the western border with New York.

As I can only photograph about 1/3 of the state at a time the project broke down naturally into thirds, hence..."trilogy". But I have now photographed 4 times on the project, hence the "PT 4".

Thanks to new friends Jerry Muller (pilot) and Charlotte Richardson (plane owner) I have now flown twice to work on the Rt 2 Trilogy (Aerials) project on their kindness alone and I am most grateful. We take off from the air strip at Stow, MA and head west along Rt 2.

Today's flight was a little shorter than last time and by the time we were close to home the day was clouding up and it would rain soon. 

Footnote:

As we landed and were taxiing the Cessna up to the gas pumps to top off the tanks, we were confronted with this:

As we pulled up, he hopped back in his plane and took off, lunch on board.

How cool is that?

Next up? I need to print the ones made today and last April to complete the series.

And I need to post them on the site.

Stay tuned.