gloucester Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Cape Ann Photo Tours

Finding the Photo Nuggets

August 14, 2018 by Kirk

Traveling to a new location can be exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Recently I had a client in from New Jersey and she was very excited for her photographic adventure. Cape Ann is not new to her but she was still a bit overwhelmed by the beauty this location offers. This was a three day excursion but she had some things in mind that she wanted to capture.

This was a key to making her tour work as well as it did. I wanted to start off with something fun and easy so sunrise was a great choice and Good Harbor Beach came through like it usually does with a beautiful sunrise. A photographic nugget if there ever was one.

sunrise_good_harbor_beach — Sunrise Good Harbor Beach

The rest of the morning on our first day came easily as we moved over to Rockport and ran into Gussy the lobsterman. A great character who explained his bait and how the lobstering would go for the day. My client did a great job of photographing him and telling a little story (another post on story telling while traveling will feature her photos). Gussy was an incredible nugget!

lobsterman_gussy — Gussy heads out to his lobster boat.

I felt it was important to look for different things so we started trying out different compositions of interesting subjects. Shooting through this window while shading the camera made for an interesting image.

refections_shadows — Long early morning shadows play on a floor shot through a window.

Looking at things differently can be fun! You just need to think differently when looking for interesting subjects. Another nugget!

I love this lobster shack as it has a great sign in it along with buoy’s on the outside and traps next to it. The entrance is even more interesting but we have shot it before. A nugget for sure!

One of the things my client was hoping for was some fog. On the second day we found some and I made this photo while I was waiting for her.

foggy_fishing — A fisherman watches the fog clearing off Atlantic Rd. in Gloucester.

An unexpected nugget.

The next day we headed over to Rocky Neck to see what we could find and came across this old rusty bike against a green background. Wow, what a find!

Photographic nuggets seem to jump out at you when you slow down and walk about! We shot every angle of this bike – close, far way, you name it every angle.

Day three was rainy with thunder storms here and there.

We headed over to the Essex Shipbuilding Museum and looking for more nuggets! The rain had stopped and the sun was peaking through here and there so the contrast with everything wet was awesome! Nuggets everywhere!

Oars_shack — Oars lean up against a shack at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum in Essex, MA.

These dories all lined up created an interesting composition with the Burnham shipyard in the background!

Rowing_dories — Rowing dories wait to be used at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum.

On the last day in the afternoon we dodged some rain drops again and looked for some great compositions at Granite Pier in Rockport. I knew that traps, buoy’s and other assorted fishing gear is in abundance there so we headed over for more nuggets.

Lobster_buoy's_and_skiff — Lobster buoy’s and a skiff wait to be used at Granite Pier in Rockport.

The use of a ultra wide 15mm was the key to making this shot work. Very cool!

Then we ended our three day adventure with an appropriate sunset at Cambridge Beach in Annisquam. It was a little disappointing but certainly not bad and still a nugget.

Cambridge_Beach_sunset — Sun sets as a fishing boat slides into Ipswich Bay.

Finding the photographic nuggets is what makes any photographic trip worthwhile. Make time to explore and they will show themselves to you. Don’t rush about trying to fit everything in. Concentrate on a few areas and really work them in the best light possible. Nuggets don’t appear at 12 noon!

Landscape photography tools – leading elements

August 17, 2017 by Kirk

One of the most important elements of landscape photography is the leading element. It’s that one aspect of the image that pulls the viewer right into the frame. On one of my recent tours to Good Harbor Beach we were faced with a very low tide which gave us some very cool mounds of sand created by the tide. This added to the visual aspects of this image by also giving it some texture. The curving structure of the rivulets of sand leading up to the rising sun pulls the viewer into the image.

sunriseghb-3

I shot this in both horizontal and vertical but the vertical to me is much better. It gives the image more depth.

sunriseghb-2

The sun star is much better in this image because the sun is lower, but I still like the vertical even if it does have some sun flare from the filter as the sun was higher.

Reflections – A powerful landscape photographers tool

August 15, 2017 by Kirk

Last week while on an early morning tour to Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester we were faced with a full moon low tide that seemed to go out forever. Normally this is not a great thing but in this instance it offered our group an interesting perspective on the cliche sunrise photo.

We set up looking for the sunrise over Thacher’s Island and the early morning dawn did not disappoint. It had a wonderful glow about it which started to brighten up the clouds in the south with incredible pinks, yellows, oranges and blues. I kept looking over in that direction at the clouds changing colors and could not help but think that there is a photo there. My Canon 5D Mklll was on the tripod with a longer lens but I had my Sony Nex7 with the wide zoom available. I grabbed this “little” camera and ran down to a large puddle and using the tilting LCD I made some shots at water level of the incredible colored clouds just before sunrise.

sunriseghb-1

I have shot reflections before and know that the best way to photograph using them is very low at water level. Of course this does not work in every case but in this case it works. The mounds of sand in the foreground give this scene a realistic look not just a copy of the scene above and help the viewer look over to the left following the clouds.

This image is not overdone with saturation and and is very real as the color is how I saw it. In my view it’s important not to overdue things in Lightroom or Photoshop as it takes away from the natural scene. When this image was shown to the folks in my tour we moved down to the small pond and made some great images as the sun came up.

Another successful Cape Ann Photo Tour!