Feeling Like Summer
Photographing Piping Plovers and lighthouses on a seasonably warm day this past weekend.
The trees are beginning to bloom in large numbers here along the Mid-Coast of Maine, and with temperatures climbing into the 70’s and 80’s the past couple of days we have enjoyed our first real taste of the coming summer season. With such beautiful weather over this past weekend I took the opportunity to head down to the Portland area on Saturday and get out with the camera along the coastline.
It had been a while since I’d visited the three lighthouses around Portland Harbor (Portland Head, Spring Point, and Portland Breakwater), so it seemed like the perfect day to head over and capture some fresh imagery of these popular beacons. However before I headed into Portland I decided to visit a new location that I had yet to explore: Higgins Beach in Scarborough.
My motivation for investigating this particular beach was to photograph Piping plovers, a small and endangered shorebird that nests on a few sandy beaches along southern Maine from April through August. I had never photographed these beautiful birds and had heard Higgins Beach was a good spot to see them foraging for food in the tidal zone.
The beach was nearly empty when I arrived around mid-morning, which I found quite surprising considering it seemed to be nearly a perfect beach day. But this was good for me photographically as it meant less interruptions to the plovers. I made my way up toward the northern end of the beach where I discovered my first plover wandering around the beach grasses. I quickly set myself up down near the water’s edge and waited for the plovers to come down the beach in search of food.
Keeping low to the ground and remaining very still are two of the most important keys to photographing these birds, and if you do a good enough job of both they will actually wander pretty close to you. I had a 600mm lens with me so I could capture some more detailed images of the plovers, but it was really amazing how close they would meander toward the camera.
I could have stayed and photographed the plovers for hours, but with high tide nearing the birds were slowly wandering back up into the dunes to rest until the feeding grounds returned on the ebb tide. This was my key to head up the road to explore some lighthouses!
Portland Head Lighthouse was my first stop, and though it might have been calm and peaceful at the beach it was nothing like that at Fort Williams Park. Hardly a parking spot could be found, and hundreds of people were enjoying the vibrant sunshine and warm temperatures. Despite the crowds I managed to find a spot to park the car and made my way down to the shoreline where I hoped to capture some crashing surf in front of the lighthouse.
Unfortunately the gate that leads down to the rocks below the lighthouse was locked, so all I could do was try and come up with a composition along the shore path. I decided that I’d try my hand at the most obvious composition of this lighthouse that you’ll find, one that you’ll see on postcards, calendars, and countless other tourist memorabilia. However in my quest to come with something at least a little unique, I grabbed an ND filter out of my bag, extended the shutter speed to 20 sec, and captured this image…
Is this an image that many people have shot before? Yes. But am I happy with the results? Also yes. Sometimes the most obvious shot is a good one!
After capturing this image I was already getting tired of the crowds here so after capturing another long exposure image, this time of the Ram Island Ledge Lighthouse offshore, I packed up my gear and headed up the road to Spring Point and Portland Breakwater Lighthouses. Parking was also at a premium at these locations and I didn’t hang any longer than necessary, but it was such a beautiful afternoon to be along Casco Bay.
Out with the Wista 4x5
I had the Wista 45D with me on this trip and pulled it out at each lighthouse to capture an image. This was the first time I had captured these lighthouses for my “Lighthouses of Maine: On 4x5” project, so it was really nice to cross them off my list. But undoubtedly I’ll be returning to capture some more imagery from each location in some different conditions. I’ll be sending the exposed negatives to my developer this week, and I am really excited to share them with you soon!
It was such a fun day of photography and it has me looking forward to the summer season with much anticipation. The late-winter/early-spring time can be a bit of a rough time photographically along the Maine coast when the landscape is dominated by brown hues, which makes the arrival of green leaves and blue skies that much more exciting. And the warmer temperatures make it much more enjoyable to get out on the water, and I already have some photography boat trips planned for June. Stay tuned for some fresh imagery from those and thanks for reading!
Horseback Beach in Westport, MA has a dedicated area for the Piping Plovers.