The light at Owl's Head, on St. George's Peninsula, is situated atop a high bluff overlooking Penobscot Bay and the entrance to Rockland Harbor. From this high vantage point, you can see well to the north, easily to Mt. Desert Island and Acadia, 60 miles to the north and east. This image was captured at sunrise using a deep red filter to darken the sky and increase the contrast against the clouds and the scenery. The PC-Nikkor was shifted almost its entire range to maintain vertical perspective.
Nikon F3, PC-Nikkor 35mm, shifted, Ilford XP-2 Super
Leading up from the lightkeepers house, past the power house to the lighthouse is a long wooden walk and stairway. Taken at sunrise, the warm soft lighting contrasts with the deep blue of the cold Atlantic waters. The 24 mm focal length used exaggerated the perspective somewhat, but not excessively No filtration was used. Indeed, it is a long way down to that water!
Nikon N90S, Nikon 24-50mm @24mm, Agfa HDC200+
One of the many tiny, nameless fishing ports to be found along the Maine coast, this one near Owl's Head. A polarizer would have been useful to darken the sky somewhat. Recall, though, that polarizers work most effectively on the sky 90° from the sun, and have no effect near it. The result, with a wide angle shot this one, is to increase the contrast of the sky vs the scattered light near the sun, giving an artificial appearance to the sky. Thus, no filtration was used.
Nikon N90S, Nikon 24-50mm @24mm, Agfa HDC200+
A third of the way down St. George's Peninsula is South Thomaston, a little village on the Weskeag river. Situated on its shore is the Weskeag Inn, a large and elegant bed and breakfast. From the rooms, one can watch the Weskeag reverse its flow 4 times daily, roaring back and forth under the nearby highway bridge. This is just seaward of that bridge: another small fishing shack on the last part of the river allowing free access to the open sea. This image was a balancing act: make the shack the main element on its own, and the foreground is darkened too much. Emphasize the forground, and the shack is lost in the mists. Striking a balance, we have all the detail in low-key background to draw the eye up to the high-key ghost of the shack.
Nikon N90S, Nikon 70-210mm @100mm, Agfa HDC200+
Here are more images from along the upper part of the Weskeag. Taken in February, these would normally be snow scenes, but the current drought has left much of New England devoid of its normal snow cover. The scene to the left was shot with a short telephoto length to maintain near-normal perspective while eliminated extraneous elements. The fog provided a muted background on which the gulls were "painted."
Nikon N90S, Nikon 70-210 @70mm, Agfa HDC200+
The image to the right was shot with a moderate length (about 150mm) telephoto. Normally, this would compress the perspective between the foreground and background elements. However, in this case, the fog has helped to suppress those background features that might otherwise confuse the image. The focal length was chosen, then, to tightly frame the image. Using a shorter focal length would have exagerated the relation between the main trunk and the limbs.
Nikon N90S, Nikon 70-210 @150mm, Agfa HDC200+
This is the long bridge carrying Route 1 traffic heading north out of Wiscasset, Maine. During the summer, delays of a half hour over this bridge are not only common, they are expected. Shot in late February, there is no such traffic to disturb the almost surreal image. I had to work fats on this, the fog was closing in fast. 5 minutes later, when I had retrieved the other camera for a black-and-white shot, the visibility had dropped to less than 150 feet, and the bridge was invisible past the 2nd pier. Any filtration would have compromised the sublteties of the image.
Nikon N90S, Nikon 24-50mm @35mm, Agfa HDC200+
Wiscasset, for a number of years, was the home of rotting hulls of two enormous 4-masted schooners. Attempts were made over the years to raise funds to save them, but to no avail. As a safety precaution, the remains were destroyed recently. This is all the remains. The resulting image, enhanced by the fog, looks almost like some alien calligraphy.
Nikon N90s, Nikon 70-210mm @70mm, Agfa HDC200+