Nemo Night Photos

Went out to explore in the blizzard late last night: the snow was as beautiful and cold as you would expect.  I was playing with the camera settings trying to capture all the pink light glancing off the snow and sky. 

Riverside Cemetary

 

Some pictures from my most recent trip to Maine--had a great walk in fresh snow through a romantic old cemetery in Lewiston, Maine.  (Very, very Fredrick.)  Great trip, too short as usual, and quite the climate change from 75 in NC to 14 Maine in the same day.  May seem like a drastic shift, but it wasn't anything like what the hordes of Bates students underwent yesterday. (Witnessed my second puddle jump.)

Hodgman Lies Here

Snowshoeing Apatite

While my northeast readers have had well enough of winter by now, some of you in warmer climes may appreciate even more snow photos.  These are from a morning outing at Mt. Apatite state park in Auburn, Maine. Regardless of groundhog prognostications, I can't imagine seeing much more of this unseasonably warm winter. I'm reluctant to let the season go too soon and hoping for just a bit more snow. 

Fresh Snow

Woke up to a fresh light snow this morning, and took a few pictures to remember it by.   Again, I'm not enough of a photographer to catch the contrast between the morning light and shadows or the snow blowing off the trees in the wind.   If you squint and have a great imagination, you may be able to make this out in the image below:  

Gray Bates

 

Some photos from a walk around Bates, chapel and pond, the day after the infamous puddle jump. Surveying the aftermath, I was reminded of Friedrich's Ice Sea, albeit with less drama.

Fall Colors

Some shots taken from the kayak on the journey from Buker to Jimmy Pond in Lichfield, Maine.

Tree

There is this fantastic tree that I walk past nearly every day on my way home from the studio and I'm always meaning to sketch or photograph.   I had my camera with me today with a fixed lens so that I couldn't get the whole thing in the shot.  Then I remembered photo stitch software.  I was reminded of this last weekend when Gary was taking photographs of my larger work.  He actually took several pictures from each one using a level and a special tripod, and then made a composite image from each at massive resolutions.   While mine is hardly as precise as the work he was doing, I was surprised at how well this study came out with so little effort.  Definitely will be good enough to inspire a painting, and the time to take it was now as it's been unseasonably warm.  Thought today felt like the last breath of winter, it wont' be long before it will have all these pesky green leaves sprouting and lose all of its fierce naked majesty.

Stonington

Back from Stonington late last night. Turns out that the town was founded as a granite quarry, has plenty of rocks as you can see. Beautiful place, surrounded by water and islands.

It was a productive trip: I took spooky night photos around the the house, I painted in the woods, and I painted on on the porch. I made little use of Stephen Pace's to-die-for studio, other than using it as a base of operations. In all a great trip and I'll post photos of the paintings shortly. The house is a wonderful gift to the college and I offer my deepest gratitude to the Pace family for their donation and making this experience possible.

All the World is Green

Another perfect spring day, cool and overcast. Took a hike on Mackworth Island and had to appreciate the deep greens of the new undergrowth. Maybe I'll be psyched up for a Spring painting by January.

Flowering Trees

While I am truly sad to see Winter depart, I can stop and smell the trees on a day like this. It was foggy and a crisp 51 degrees on my walk to the studio, my idea of perfect weather. The air was full of fragrance that would be impossible to paint. I lack the patience to even try painting all of those petals, so photos will have to do. Click any for a better view.