Nature & landscapes

A view of Eagle Lake

A couple of weeks ago I biked from Bubble Pond to Eagle Lake in Acadia. It’s one of the many great trips along the Carriage Roads, and you can’t beat the views!

Nature & landscapes

A late spring through a new lens

On Friday the latest addition to my lens lineup came to my door: a Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS. I thought I’d take it for a spin on Saturday, and while flower photos aren’t usually my kind of thing, I thought the overall lack of a sunny spring we’ve been having here in Maine was a good enough excuse to finally head outside and take some shots of what was blooming and growing.

After admiring the lilacs in my own doorstep, I headed up to the University of Maine to experiment some more. What I love about this lens is that it’s extremely versatile; I can shoot wide shots and zoom right in with the same lens.

My last stop of the day was a flora photographer’s paradise: the Lyle E. Littlefield Ornamentals Trial Gardens.

Yup, I think I’ll enjoy having this lens on hand!

Nature & landscapes

A Labor Day Acadia adventure

My Labor Day trip to Mount Desert Island reminded me once again how much I love Acadia National Park.

I wasn’t really sure where I wanted to head on this trip. I started out at one of my new favorite places in the park, Jordan Pond. Jordan is great; it’s incredibly peaceful, impressively gorgeous, and there are a number of ways to enjoy it. Casual travelers can walk along a fairly level trail around the edge of the pond, while more advanced hikers can climb the iconic Bubble peaks alongside the pond. A stretch of the park’s carriage trails also run alongside the pond, offering hikers, bikers, and horseback riders the opportunity to see the pond from yet another angle.

I decided to take it easy and just hike alongside the pond on this trip. The views didn’t disappoint.

After going to Jordan, I headed to the spectacular vista at Cadillac Mountain. Cadillac offers gorgeous views of the entire horizon around Mount Desert Island. I particularly loved one of the cairns on the mountaintop, one of the many trail markers that dot Acadia’s hiking paths.

Finally, I headed to the other side of the island in hopes of reaching one of my favorite Maine lighthouses – Bass Harbor Head Light – in time for sunset. I’ve taken a number of pictures of the lighthouse in the past, but I’d never really had a chance to stay at the lighthouse’s edge for sunset. Luckily, I decided to stay this time.

Thank you, Acadia, for providing a wonderful Labor Day and the most gorgeous sunset I’ve ever witnessed.

Nature & landscapes

Sebasticook sunset

Photographers often joke about four of the most popular photography “clichés”: flowers, sunsets, babies, and kittens. My view? There’s a reason those topics are cliché.

I love taking short trips with no particular goal. A couple hours before sunset last night, I set off down Route 2 and tried to find a good pond for a sunset shot. Along the way I visited Hermon Pond and Etna Pond, but neither had the shot I wanted.

I did, however, manage to capture some Queen Anne’s Lace in the evening sun just outside of Hermon Pond:

After checking my DeLorme gazetteer (I never leave home without it), I found myself on the edge of the beautiful Sebasticook Lake in Newport. I reached the lake just in time to snap a few shots of the sun to the west.

Spontaneous trips are fun.

Nature & landscapes

Hurricane Bill brushes Maine

While thousands of people crammed Acadia National Park to view the high waves caused by Hurricane Bill passing through the Gulf of Maine this weekend, I decided to take the road less traveled: specifically, route 131 to Port Clyde and Marshall Point Lighthouse.

Marshall Point is one of the most beautiful yet under-appreciated lighthouses in Maine. Through its  years of service as a beacon on the Mid-Coast, its most memorable role may have been its inclusion in the film Forrest Gump as one of Forrest’s turnaround spots on his cross-country run.

If Forrest had ventured out to the light yesterday, he wouldn’t have left. The loud booming waves provided a spectacular show at the lighthouse and along the nearby coast. It was a great opportunity to see the power of Mother Nature first-hand.