Category Archives: Photography

Seal Dive

by

I went on a seal dive today. With the weather we had, it didn’t start out well–swells were predicted, and as we were waiting to get on the boat, the heavens opened up and it started pour. After a half hour hold, the captain decided to take us to the Salvages, an outcropping of rocks off the coast of Rockport, rather than the Isle of Shoals off Portsmouth.

We got to the Salvages, and fortunately, the seas weren’t as choppy as predicted, though it did still rain off and on. As we anchored, we could see seals peeking at us from the water surrounding the  rocks.

For me, the first dive was frankly an abortion. I started off the dive with the back of my wetsuit open; all six of us were in the water together; I ended up following the wrong person, the three of us got separated from the dive leader, I led the other two in the wrong direction, and we were never able to reconnect, and all six of us ended up heading in the wrong direction, away from the seals. And the camera strobe stopped firing. Unfortunately, two of the divers had only brought a single tank.

The second dive was better. The captain moved us a little closer to the rocks, and we went down the anchor line and just hung out there. With the strobe out of commission, I put the camera ISO as high as I could, put it back in program mode, and shot with existing light. Eventually a seal showed up, and watched us from a lobster trap line:

Seal by the lobster line Seal by the lobster line Seal by the lobster line

 

Nahanton Downstream

Gallery

by
Among the radio antennas

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Sunday, I paddled downstream from Charles River and Canoe and Kayak’s Nanhanton Park location. Unlike the upstream side, which runs about 14 miles, this is about a two mile trip before you have to stop just short of the Silk Mill Dam. The river is narrower, and the trees crowd the river, providing lots of shade. There are many more human structures nearby, starting with the radio towers looming in the distance. Continue reading →

First Cover

by

Last June, I visited the Quechee Vermont Balloon Festival, and was lucky enough to take my first balloon ride. I greatly enjoyed it and took a ton of pictures. You can read more about it here.

Upper Valley Life May/June cover

Upper Valley Life 
May/June 2013 issue

The Festival has a photography contest, and I entered four pictures into it. I didn’t think anything more about it, until I was contacted by the Art Director of Upper Valley Life, a magazine devoted to the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. The festival had apparently passed along a bunch of their submissions, they liked one of my pictures, and wanted to know if it was OK to use it for their May/June cover!

This is my first published photograph, and I am tremendously pleased and honored.

 

Last Paddle of the Season

by

Today was my last kayaking trip of the season. I’ve had a season pass this year at Charles River Canoe and Kayak, and wanted to go one last time before they transfer over to the  Weston Ski Track for the winter. The weather was sunny, but seasonably chilly — a little over 50°, I’d guess. With water temperatures in the forties, though, wet suits were required,  so I wore my diving 7mm suit.

I wasn’t the only one on the river, either. As I was getting ready on the dock, a guy in a dry suit was returning on a stand up paddle board, and I saw a couple of other folks in kayaks over the course of the trip. It was fairly comfortable while I was in the sun; slightly chilly when I was in the shade. All the maples, and many of the other trees, had lost all their leaves, but the oaks still had their leaves, brown, but just beginning to drop. Continue reading →

Last Dive of the Season

Gallery

by
Hermit Crab

This gallery contains 9 photos.

I did my last dive of the season today. There were three of us, plus Dan Easa of East Coast Divers, and we ended up at Old Garden Beach in Rockport. Despite the impending storm two days away, the sea was flat, and the sun was relatively warm once the fog burned off. Once we were in the water, we snorkeled out to about get some depth under us, then descended. We swam over the sandy bottom, then moved further out into the rocks. There were lots of crabs, of several different sorts, plus we saw a sea robin and a school of fish. Continue reading →

Upstate New York

Gallery

by
Steps at the top of the gorge

This gallery contains 24 photos.

A couple of weekends ago, I went with my sister to visit my brother in upstate New York. He’s living in the Syracuse area, about an hour away from the Finger Lakes area, and he wanted to show us Watkins Glen Gorge and wine country. The gorge is awesome, and it’s beautiful country, with lots of wineries and farmlands. Continue reading →

Night Dive

Gallery

by
Squid

This gallery contains 10 photos.

Thursday night, I did a night dive off Back Beach with a group from East Coast Divers. It was an awesome dive; the water was relatively warm, the dive was easy and we saw a lot of stuff.

The main point of a night dive is that things come out in the night that you can’t see during the day. And the highlight, for me, were the squids. I’d never seen them here in New England before, but I saw a bunch of them on this dive. We also saw a bunch of very small lobsters, a flounder, a small skate, and a shorthorn sculpin. Continue reading →