Fireworks above Marblehead MA

The fireworks 4th of July fireworks  once again fly over Marblehead and yet again gives justification to their being selected as Coastal Magazines #1 fireworks display on the east coast. and as usual I’m back out there looking for a new vantage point to capture the fireworks.  This is a shot from Fort Beach just below Fort Sewall. and more can be seen here.

The location is a quaint sea town that has grown up on the sea trade over the years and here Independence Day continues to take on an important meaning.

Fort Sewall’s (the row of flares on the left) most important moment in history was on Sunday, April 3, 1814 when the U.S. Navy’s Constitution, being chased by two British frigates, escaped into Marblehead Harbor under the protection of the fort’s guns.

Here in this picture you can see Fort Sewall on the left point of land with the flares glowing.

The flares are part of Marblehead’s Harbor Illumination where the town hands out flares for residents to put along any of their properties that have water frontage.  Then, Glover’s regiment fires a canon to let everyone on the harbor know that it’s time to light their flares all at the same time.  It makes everyone jump at least a foot and no one has any doubts that a canon was just fired…

This is quite the sight to see and you can make yourself very comfortable up in Crocker Park because they have bands playing up till the fireworks starts and then afterward the music continues, all as part of the Marblehead Festival of the Arts. But! get there early and bring your blanket to get a good spot.

I’ve captured the Marblehead fireworks for a few years now and more shots from this year and years past can be seen by clicking here.

Here is a link to the to the Marblehead Festival of the Arts web page if you want to read more about this event.

I’m an admin for Yankee Magazine’s New England Photography and if you would like to join our fan page feel free to visit us at www.facebook.com/NewEnglandPhotography.

If you have any questions about photography or want to post your own view of New England we like to see shutterbugs of all abilities, so stop in and show us your view of New England.

Jeff Folger
Vistaphotography On Facebook
Yankee Magazine fall Blog
Yankee Magazine’s New England Photography

I had an excuse to get out to Rockport yesterday I had a wedding consult request for Vistaphotography for a June wedding on the headlands of the Rockport harbor and I decided to get up there

Vistaphotography at Rockport

veeery early and try to shoot the sunrise.  I got to bed at midnight and somehow got myself back up at 4:30ish to arrive at Rockport just after sunrise and as you can see here the sun had already cleared the horizon.  I was lucky because I was in a hurry so I didn’t put the filter adapter on the camera and I didn’t run with the ND grad filters to lesson the impact of shooting into the sun.

Even if I had the grad filters on the camera lens, they work best if the horizon is straight which is not the case with Motif #1 in the view. What saved me this morning was that there were just enough clouds to diffuse the rising sun which also led to the intense cloud colors.  You don’t have long to catch scenes like this and I was lucky this day. Normally you have to be in place and waiting for it with a plan of how you’re going to shoot it.

I knew from previous trips that I wanted to be somewhere at the end of the harbor but I had to make a decision and just go with it. I don’t think I made too bad of a choice but I bet I could do better.

Vistaphotography

This weekend has for almost 60 years been the home coming event for Rockport and in recent years they have tried to grow it into something very special. So the weekend prior to Memorial day weekend they have this two day party in the streets and they do the town up right.

I walked up Bear Skin Neck rd as the only traveler and I was suddenly pulled to the right by an heavenly smell of fresh brewed coffee and some sort of pastry. In front of me was Helmut’s Strudel and I was unhappy as it was not quite 6AM so I walked past to the neck and I set up for some shots of the harbor from the point.  If I had more room I would post the sun dog that appeared in the clouds but here is a link to my gallery. Later this morning while I walked around the town I   listened to some of the great musicians that had taken up positions in front of several stores in iconic Rockport’s art district.

This is a short clip of the live jazz band on the street they are called “Jazz in the Air” and they were very good.   Bob Sabourin of Jazz in the Air can be found at Jazz in the air.com or email him at jazzintheair@hotmail.com.

I also found a Irish singer with Celtic band back in front of Helmut’s Strudel They were as good as anything I’d ever heard on TV or in my travels overseas. If you would like to contact the Celtic singer his name is Michael O’Leary and can be reached at celtsinger@gmail.com.

This is it for now I hope you enjoy this quick trip around Rockport Ma during their Motif #1 days.
See more of my Art work at Vistaphotography Art work
And for Wedding or Event work visit me at Vistaphotography.com

Jeff Folger
Vistaphotography On Facebook
Yankee Magazine fall Blog
Yankee Magazine’s New England Photography

Hi everyone! it’s been a while and I apologize for not writing more…

I’ve been researching stories and as a photographer in Salem MA with Vistaphotography one of my passions is following the fall foliage throughout New England for Yankee Magazine.  Each year is a bit different and sometimes the year has just wonderful color and others, less so.

This year Eastern Massachusetts is being hit by the winter moth which came to us via Europe and in the last few years it has found a source of food which happens to be our beloved sugar maples (Acer saccharum ) which gives us our spectacular scarlet reds and oranges. (seen at right)

The culprit at left has only been here a few years and with no natural enemies to keep it in check it has been spreading from south of Boston to now north of Boston in Salem.

I witnessed the mating flights last November and it was like a fairy wonderland with thousands of the moths  flying in the woods near my house.

Now before you start canceling your trips!!!

All is not lost since the area is a small one and also a scientist from Harvard started this month releasing some European flies that are the natural enemy of the moth.  They are picking a couple of locations both north and south of Boston so they will spread out from these areas and start to keep the winter moth population in check… I’d like to get a few for my trees but I don’t seem to be high on their list..

If you want more information on the winter moth control efforts check this WBZ news clip on Youtube.

All in all the problem will be a small area in eastern Massachusetts and the rest of New England will be unaffected but you can check both here and on my blog at Yankee Magazine where I keep a close eye on anything that might affect our search for fall foliage.

You can also visit Facebook where I admin Yankee Magazines Facebook page for fall foliage. There you can follow both my posts on where the fall color is happening and many other photographers post there with what they are finding. This year that page should be a happening place.

You can also follow me on Twitter (Foliage_Reports) and I try to post during my days on the road what I’m finding where ever I’m at. You can also reply back to my posts with questions on specific areas that I may have not visited yet to see when I’ll be hitting those areas. Or I may ask one of my other contacts what they are seeing in these areas.

So If you have any questions be sure to either drop me a line here or at Yankee or on Facebook and I look forward to hearing from you this summer leading up to our fall explorations…

Jeff Foliage

My Fall Foliage Blog

My artwork

Spring flowers

As many of you know I’m a photographer for Yankee Magazine and I blog there (as well as here). In an attempt to improve my writing I took a travel writing course over the past month and one of the things I found during the course was this link to webcams in Africa. Now you may be thinking one picture every hour updating… Not here, try a full live feed! I watched elephants come trotting through… OK! they didn’t trot but they did amble at a fast pace… The camera is focused at a water hole since that is where the animals tend to congregate. You can see different cameras set up at preserves and the animals are really cool to see in their habitat unrestrained by chains or fences which is our normal zoo view…

Here is the link if you missed it above Africam or Africa Cam.

I just found another fantastic webcam link on the Old Farmers Almanac website. This one is a webcam of an eagles nest and currently as of writing this one of the adult eagles is sitting on the nest and it looks like three eaglets are in the nest. they are a just a bunch of soft downy gray feathers right now but it will be neat to watch them grow up…

Take a look and enjoy

Jeff Folger
My Art Gallery
My Yankee Blog
Yankee Foliage