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Lupine & Waterfall Workshop Wrapup

The second week of June is a great time to be in the north country. The weather is unpredictable so the clouds and mountains work in harmony to create incredible vistas. Then to add to all of this beauty add in the flowering of the lupines. The blues, whites, pinks and purples are an inspiring palette for the landscape photographer. The spring run-off waterfalls create wonderful flowing lines when taken with a slow shutter speed thus our workshop focused on all of these elements which made for some great images made by our participants.

lupines & Tree
Lupines surround an old tree in Sugar Hill NH.
Lupines and clouds
Young lupines wait for the next cloud burst.

We had participants from all over New England and what a great group it was! This year the lupines were slow in coming up but by the time we left they were really starting to come up. We stayed at the Inn at Sunset Hill and were overwhelmed by the location and the Inn itself. It is an Inn in the Old New England style and it was a pleasure to stay there. The vistas that greeted us every morning it was not raining were unmatched and we could not have found a better place to stay for our workshop.

Cannon Mt. sunset
The sunset billows over onto Cannon Mt. in Franconia Notch.

We had plenty of rain on day one which kept us away from the lupines until sunset. The image above was made from Sunset Hill in Sugar Hill, NH. as the blazing sunset behind us spilled over onto Cannon Mt. and the clouds above it. The first day gave us the opportunity to photograph some waterfalls down Rt. 93 at the Basin. The light was subdued and it really added to the wet experience.

Waterfall at the Basin
This waterfall is near the Basin in Franconia Notch.
Pemigewasset River
The Pemigewasset River running by the Basin in NH.

On our last day we experienced a huge field of mature lupines that took our breath away. Everyone was busy finding compositions among the huge selection by Pearl Lake in Sugar Hill.

Lupines Sugar Hill
Lupines across from Pearl Lake in Sugar Hill, NH

Overall we had a great time even though it was like photo boot camp at times. Below is a video with Dave and I talking about the weekend.

 

Patience – never give up on a sunset!

Lanes Cove sunset
Memorial Day sunset at Lanes Cove Gloucester

We knew it would be close! The sun was going down and my wife and I could see the color popping up under the rather large cloud layer that had moved in. So driving along 127 in Gloucester towards Lanes Cove kept bringing the question, are we going to miss it? As it turned out we were just in time. Shooting at water level made a huge difference.

I made this image handheld with the lens OIS on. The exposure was 1/50s at f 5.6 with the ISO at 400. This image is sharp as a tack. The OIS is outstanding on the Fuji 18-55. As you can tell by the flag it was blowing pretty good. A slower shutter speed at a lower ISO with a tripod would have meant the flag would have shown more movement.

I really like this shot of the glow on the horizon as the sun dipped below it.

 

Lanes Cove
Sunset over Lanes Cove

Then I switched to my Fuji 10-24 to see if there were any good wide shots available. I tried a few different compositions but nothing really felt good so I headed back to the car. Just as I was about to climb into the car my wife said; turn around you’re going to miss it. So I turned around and this is what I saw. My first thoughts were wide and the crop will be 16:9 and that is what I ended up with.

The exposure was tricky but Lightroom was able to pull the shadows and calm down the sunset so it all worked. The exposure on this wide shot as the light level started to go down was 1/25s f4.5 @ ISO 640. I would have rather had the tripod for this shot so I could have shot at a lower shutter speed. ISO 640 might be a little high. When I print this I will see what the shadows print like.