Marshall Point Lighthouse, Maine, originally uploaded by briburt (Brian Burt Photo).

When we took a mini-vacation up to the Maine coast a couple of months ago, I made a point to seek out as many lighthouses as I could to photograph. This one is Marshall Point Lighthouse near Port Clyde, Maine, and is quite interesting in that it is very accessible. At low tide, you can walk all the way around it on the rocks and even go up and walk out on the wooden walkway to the light house door. (Click here for some more information on Marshall Point Lighthouse.)

Photographing these lighthouses is an enlightening experience for me as I am constantly trying to get to angles that are not just your typical “lighthouse shot” and to see the structure in different ways.

Lighthouses are in and of themselves dramatic structures both in their location and in their function, so shooting them seems like it should be a pretty straightforward affair. But it’s more complicated than it looks, mainly because often the lighthouses are hard to access (surrounded, for instance, by steep drop offs and cliffs) in a way that allows you to get new and interesting views of them.

Lighthouses have also been favorite subjects for visual artists, and most have been photographed or painted many times over, so it’s often hard to get a new view. Luckily, I was helped out by a very unique sky and also by my super wide Sigma 10-20 lens, which at 10mm helps to capture this drama by creating this sort of rush of energy in almost any cloud-filled sky.

On this particular evening, the sky was really quite dramatic, with a storm front being pushed out by a low pressure system. In this photo, you can see the storm clouds moving off to the right, and I wanted to capture both the drama of the sky’s contrast as well as the sharp lines of the walkway to the lighthouse itself, which lead the eye out to the energy of the sky.

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.

OK. I was up before dawn this morning, photographing the sunrise, and it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit. So what did I do when I got home? Started processing photos of Cape Cod from last summer. Makes sense, I suppose. This is one of those photos.

Had a lot of fun with this one, deliberately breaking the "rule of thirds." To me, "rules" like this exist more as handy guidelines to get me going than hard-and-fast rules.

Boston Skyline in the Blue Hour, originally uploaded by briburt.

This a shot of the Boston skyline taken from one of the best locations for skyline photography in Boston: the Boston Harborwalk near Moakley Courthouse.

I just love the changing light during the blue hour, as the sky deepens in its shades of blue and the golden lights of the city begin to appear.

For this photo, I used Photoshop to stitch together two exposures, and then did some perspective correction and further color processing in Lightroom.

Approaching Storm, originally uploaded by briburt.

This is a shot I got while wandering around the harbor on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, when we were on vacation there last week. A storm front was moving in fast, and I was afraid that we were going to get rained on, but as it turns out, the clouds blew over and the storm never happened.

I processed a number of versions of this, and it came down to this one, which emphasizes the blue of the ship on the right, versus a black and white version, which emphasizes the dramatic sky more. After consulting with Christina, we both agreed that this one is the better photo.

Taken with a Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 lens rented from LensProToGo — part of a prize I won in a photo contest sponsored by them. I highly recommend their service. They are a customer service company that rents lenses!

Rowes Wharf and Custom House Tower at Dusk, Boston, originally uploaded by briburt.

This is a shot of the Boston Financial District skyline taken on the Boston Harborwalk near Moakley Courthouse.

The clock tower in the center-right of the composition is the Custom House Tower. The tower has been through various iterations, but now houses a Marriott hotel.

I love taking photos of the city during the “blue hour.” The light always seems so palpable at this hour, and I hope I captured that feeling of falling blue light as the golden lights of the cityscape slowly rise in the air.

This photo was created by blending three bracketed exposures in Photomatix Pro and then doing further color and exposure adjustments in Adobe Lightroom.

Rockport, Massachusetts

Went out to Gloucester, Massachusetts, on Cape Ann last weekend and headed straight for the water. It is one of the great fishing ports on the Eastern seaboard of North America.

Found the Inner Harbor area and managed to get some shots at dusk. This is one of them. That building is the "Gloucester Manufactory," which, from the writing on the side of the building, looks like it is (or was) a place that makes and/or sells maritime clothing.

Sunlight and Clouds on Beach 4, originally uploaded by briburt.

Now that I’m out here in New England, I thought it might be time to revisit some shots I took when we were out on the Pacific Coast last fall.

Going through my Lightroom library revealed a number of shots with potential, and this was one I decided to go ahead and process and see what came out of it.

Overall, I like how it turned out, though the blown out areas behind the trees are less than optimal in my opinion. I tried to use Lightroom to recover some of these areas, but they are still overexposed. What saves the picture in my view are the sun rays streaming through the trees and hitting the beach, contrasted with the blue sky and dramatic clouds.

Not bad, I guess, but there are others from the same shoot that I prefer over this one.

3 Fishing Trawlers, originally uploaded by briburt.

Fisherman’s Terminal, Seattle

And, yes, that gray sky is probably here to stay, more or less permanently, until next July. The splashes of color from these fishing boats, though, can help make up for all of the gray and rain of the coming months.