North of Normal

Pemaquid Point Light Station – Bristol, Maine

Took a needed break from the daily grind and headed up to the mid-coast of Maine with my family last weekend and decided it was time to check out some of the lighthouses that dot that part of the New England coast.

This is a shot of one of the better known lighthouses in all of New England — the Pemaquid Point Light Station. (The lighthouse has become so iconic for Maine, that its outline actually graces the U.S. commemorative quarter coin for the State of Maine).

As for the details surrounding this image, it was all very serendipitous — we just happened to be passing close by on our way home so we decided to go for it and stop here for a picnic lunch. It just so happened that the tide was still low, which exposed all of these very cool striated granite rocks and enabled me to climb down the cliff to get this cool angle. And a bonus was that the sky was also very dramatic as rain squalls moved in and out of the area.

The lighting was a bit of a challenge as the sun kept appearing and disappearing and reappearing from behind clouds, but I just shot and shot and shot and experimented with lowering the exposure settings on my camera to ensure that the light in the clouds would not get all blown out.

But the biggest bonus was my wonderful ultra-wide zoom lens: the Sigma 10-20mm. When zoomed all the way out to 10mm, it provides a sort of “rushing to the center” effect between land and sky that is accentuated here by the striations on the rocks and the lines of the sky.

Overall, a very satisfying place to take photos, and with some excellent conditions to obtain the kinds of photos I like to make.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 6:34 pm. It is filed under Architecture, Art & Sculpture, Black and White photos, Blog, Boats and Water photos, Boston and environs, Flotsam & Jetsam, Landscape photos, Motion, New England, Nightscapes and Low-Light photos, People, Places, Portfolio, Seascapes and Coastlines, Sky & Clouds, Skyline photos, Vanishing Points. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.