Tag Archives: Winter
January Thaw, Peaks Island, Maine
Peaks Island has a wonderful reserve of conserved land. After a harsh arctic blast, we had several days well above freezing in January 2018, and a ground hugging fog made for a nice even lighting.:
Ice, Sun dogs and Parhelic Circle
It’s been cold this February in Maine—by local accounts, we’ve had more ice in Portland Harbor than has been seen in decades, and the Coast Guard has been using it’s ice breaking ship to keep the harbor navigable. However, “navigable” is relative; smaller boats have not been able to escape the harbor due to the ice buildup, which has now even reached Peaks Island:
View looking north along western edge of Peaks Island.
The cold weather means that small animals (such as a recently sighted mink) can even make the trek from Peaks Island to neighboring House Island (mink not in this photo):
View from Peaks Island to House Island at -20 C.
Just the other day (Feb 16, 2015), on a frigid walk around the island with my daughter, we spotted a beautiful sun dog—an optical phenomenon caused by reflection & refraction through ice crystals in the atmosphere. The two opposite rainbow arcs are formed when the light refracts through a minimum deviation of 22 degrees:
Sundog from back shore of Peaks Island, ME.
Sometimes, but apparently much more rarely, one can see a parhelic circle extending from either sundog part way around the sky. On this morning, the arc extended more than half ?way around the sky, and I took this panoramic image before my iphone6+ battery totally tanked in the -18 C temperatures:
Parhelic Circle extending from a sun dog on Feb 16, 2015 on Peaks Island, ME
Mount Desert Island and Frenchman Bay
A blustery March day just before the March 19 Snowstorm. Just as I was getting psyched to see the mountains open up to running, winter returns. Now another week of wet slush and mud to follow.
(1/100 Sec, 40mm f/11, ISO 100)
Mount Desert Island and Frenchman Bay, March 2013
Storm Cloud and Snow, Brooklin, ME
One of the great things about the ocean in Maine is that in the thick of winter,?no matter how many meters of snow might be on the ground, you can walk at low tide along a beach as if it were summer (provided you can ignore the obvious temperature difference). A walk along the beach in Brooklin, Maine brought a view of this amazing house situated with a sweeping view of the ocean. The house, outbuildings and their careful placement in the landscape left me with the definite impression that I had left Maine and been transported to Norway or Sweden. A gorgeous spot with pretty nice lighting.
Single exposure 24mm f/13 at 1/80 sec; processed in Lightroom 3.3 and Silver Efex Pro 2.0.
January Relaxation, Maine Style
Ben, North Brooklin, Maine, January 2011
Ah, what do do on a cold January afternoon? Curl up with a good book on your porch.
Febrary Ice
As I was walking my dog on this cold February day in Maine, I came across this icy stream. Unfortunately, I brought a monopod instead of a tripod, and was forced to do my best without a true stable platform. I attatched the monopod to my Canon G10 and braced the horizontally oriented camera/monopod against myself while taking this photo (1/4 sec, f/4, ISO 80). Not bad for 1/4 second. But what I’m not showing are the 35 pictures that didn’t make the cut. There’s one distracting element in this picture that bugs me; do you see it?
Posts in Snow
Taking my dog for a walk, I came across these cedar posts in my neighbor’s field. I liked the patterns of the posts in the snow and the shadow detail around each post in the image below. Another 30-40 cm of snow on the way tonight…
50 cm of Snow
Just when I fell into the trap of thinking winter might be fading, we get another 50 cm of snow—this time heavy, wet snow that snapped tree limbs and knocked out power. Here are some of our neighborhood children on top of a 2 meter high snow pile that has accumulated this winter.
Great Gulf, New Hampshire
Had a brief opportunity to make a few pictures this weekend in the Great Gulf:
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Winter Bog, Presidential Range, NH