It's Almost Time For A Field Trip

Every year in the September/October time frame we take a couple of days to go out shooting. For the past four or five years we’ve headed to the Maine coast. Bar Harbor, Boothbay Harbor and almost every spit of land twenty miles down at the end of each peninsula jutting out into the sea have been targets for our wondering. This year we’ve decided to put the car in reverse (so to speak) and head in the other direction. I took a look at the distance up to Bar Harbor (about 440 miles) and spun the compass around the opposite way. It came up to western Pennsylvania and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. We did the western PA thing a few years ago to check out largest Elk herd east of the Mississippi. Basically you need a longer lens than we had at the time or trample through people’s yards. If you ask the “officials”, they’ll tell you there’s a “viewing area” where you’re sure to see herds of elk. Sure enough, they said to be there about a half hour before sunset and there had to be a couple hundred elk in the field. Only problem was that the field was about a half mile away. There is the official viewing area, but some of the elks didn’t get the memo. You’re just as likely to see one, two or three elk standing on the side of the road or in someone’s back yard. On our way back from the viewing area we stopped along the side of the road and were within six feet of a couple of elks. We tried to get a couple shots, but the light had faded enough that they all came out blurry. Oh well. This year we’re heading to the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. A couple places we’re hoping to hit are the Dolly Sod area and Blackwater State Park. We’ll be spending one night at the Blackwater Lodge, on the Canyon side. We have two “guide books” we’re using to plot an itinerary. One is “Scenic Driving in West Virginia” and the other is “Waterfalls of Virginia and West Virginia, A Hiking and Photography Guide”. Both have been very informative. But, today’s image isn’t in West Virginia. To find out where it is, hot the “read more”.



Today’s image is from Bailey’s Island, Maine. It’s along route 24 about 16 miles south of route 24’s junction with route 1. We found out about the lobster shack in today’s image from Dave Middleton’s excellent book “A photographer’s Guide To The Maine Coast”. We were a little surprised when we got to the point for shooting the shack. Middleton’s shot showed the entire shack painted the same red as you see on the door. Dave had, obviously, gotten there just after the shack was painted. Several years of weathering late and we arrived. It certainly wasn’t the same shot David had gotten. On the spur of the moment we continued down to the bottom of the peninsula just to see what we would see. Reminds me of an old song. “I joined the Navy to see the world, but what did I see? I saw the sea”.


I’m hoping our drive to West Virginia results in as good shooting as has been the coast of Maine.