Vistaphotography

Part I: Fall foliage planning from Salem photographer Vistaphotography.
You’re probably wondering why I’m bringing up fall when we’re not even into summer yet! Some of you might say you don’t want to think of it because in just a hop, skip and jump, we’ll have snow again… Brrrrr…

My experience with fall foliage is shorter than some but I’ve been attracted to it for many years. I used to take leave (not leaves, this is vacation for those in the service) and come home from the Air Force and visit in October just to get some of the colors of fall. This is probably why Yankee approached me a few years back…

I have an alter ego that blogs for Yankee Magazine in the fall (Jeff Foliage) Shhhhh.. it’s a secret..
Now you may ask why do it now? Well with gas prices nearing $4.00/gallon in New England we are going to have to budget for these extra $$ needed for gas and traveling. The most common question in my fall blog on Yankee Magazines fall foliage site is “I want to see as much as possible in the time we have available” and When do I get there for the best color”?

If anybody actually tell you to get up here on a particular date and in such and such a spot and you will have peak color! I would expect him to want to sell you a large chunk of Maine’s north woods for .30 cent per acre.. Why? because anyone who has lived here for a while knows that Mother Nature keeps the when, why and where of peak foliage to herself. The only way to find peak color (and one persons peak is another persons “just middlein color”) is to explore. What do you need to do this without wasting your time and gas? Information!
Last year I drove 4 thousand miles in the month of Oct to cover all six New England states (plus a short trip into NE New York) HEY! that isn’t required for you which is why I’m telling you to start planning now. Before you start panicking I’m going to let you into some links to help in your planning. First of course in the foliage forum on Yankee’s site. There are lots of places to go and ask questions, such as:
Visit New England
Foliage Network
There are also the links on the Yankee website that link back to the New England tourism pages and they get their reports from the forestry rangers out in the field. The rangers call in and give their report each week and since they are out in the woods each and every day they have a good grasp of what is really happening in the way of peak color.

Part II The art of getting lost

This one is real simple… JUST DO IT!!! Are you the type that likes to go out and explore a road you’ve never been on before or are you a person who never takes the chance on this? Either way you can have fun with this. First you pick a state to get lost in… No not a state of confusion… Pick a state… Let’s say New Hampshire. Now go and get a map book of NH. The ones that Delorme put out are wonderful with great detail down to all the small dirt roads. Yes dirt roads… When I say get lost it doesn’t mean getting lost in a parking lot! Get off the beaten path and find your way in the map book. (you only want to seem lost I don’t mean go out there and get hurt).
All through the summer I’m going to get into the details of getting lost and how to do it safely and then find little magical places that few tourists find from a tourist bus…

I hope this gives you some ideas and do you have questions or suggestions then I would love to hear them. leave a comment here to share with everyone else..

I’ve been watching with interest for stories in the Boston Globe and Salem Times about The whales in Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary off Marblehead (about 16 miles). Lisa and I were asked by a friend a while back to go out with him and a client on his converted lobster boat. It was kind of a rough ride and Toby’s daughter was a little seasick. The day was very gray looking and foggy. I wasn’t too hopeful for good pictures this day.
By the time we arrived in the area the clouds we clearing but no whales insight. Toby’s daughter was still not feeling good so I suggested she get up on top of the cabin and look out for signs of whales (green water from bubble netting and flocks of seagulls on the water). It turned out to be a good maneuver since her added 6′ of hight allowed her to see at a greater distance and she soon spotted her first whale and immediately forgot about being seasick… (I’m smart and knew this would happen) “yeah right”
Anyway we would motor to the vicinity of a humpback and then turn off the motor and coast in the rest of the way. Toby explained about the rules of operating a boat in these waters around the whales. At one point we found ourselves being observed very closely by a pod of whales… At least 6-10 of them surrounded us and we could almost reach out and touch the closest ones. It was unnerving to say the least to have the pod so close and looking us over.. Especially when the smallest of them was easily one and half times the size of our (rather small feeling) boat.
There were several whale watching boats out of Gloucester on the scene and they were rushing from sighting to sighting to try to get a close up of the whales. Infact while we were surrounded by the pod, one of the ships got wind of it and came at us at a high rate of speed and as we looked from the ship to the water where the whales were a few seconds ago, we were amazed… Not a whale was in sight. No tails, no nothing… They just slid from view silently and were gone… The boat stayed for a minute and when nothing was forth coming they went in search of another pod sighting.
To our amazement as soon as the ship was gone the whales poped back up within 15-40′ of our boat.. it seems they just dropped down just deep enough to be not visable from above and then they just sort of popped back up… Amazing…
It was soon time to leave and in the distance two of the humpbacks said goodbye in their own fashion.. ok, that’s my interpretation…

Jeff

Well, finally for the first time the St Albans Maple festival in Vermont had sunny and warm weather. Lisa and I went up there and spent the Sunday afternoon with the grandkids at the parade downtown. I love taking the grand kids or my niece and nephews to things like this because it means I can be a kid again and not have people look at me too strangely… Well less strange than usual…
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And to add the cuteness factor…

of course I took hundreds of pictures and more but these give you a feel for the little town St Albans… How small is it? They don’t have a Walmart, that’s how small it is!
Let me know what you think!

Jeff

Last week I started a look at the renaissance wedding that I shot two weeks ago. Here is a link to the first part and you can catch up on the background.
I met the bride at the hotel and watched and waited for shots as she was helped by her hand maidens to get ready. I love fun themes to weddings and as her mother and father came in to check on her, (Father in a tartan kilt) Mom stepped in to help with the final preparations before heading down to the waiting chariot (235 horse powered limo).
As all weddings I’ve photographed this one was no different.. The bride was running 30 minutes late and as always, I told her “what are they going to do? Start with out you?… I know it doesn’t always help but you have to try.

As expected all went as planned and the ceremony was beautiful. The bride and groom and the man of steel as seen in this shot (You can hire him to greet guests at the Higgins) are standing with the MOH and BM.
This is a shot caught during the formals by my second shooter, Jurgen. I love to have a second set of eyes there and it allows me to focus on what’s at hand knowing I have someone looking for those “other” shots, like this one during the formals.

We didn’t have much time but I wanted to try and capture this shot of the receding archways and it came out good but if I hadn’t accidentally handed my flash cable to my assistant it would have been perfect. What I was going for was a little fill light on the couple (2 stops down) and the light in each alcove a different color. I ended up with the two flashes on pocket wizards down the hall (one with a red gel on  it and since I had given Lisa a handful of things (one of which was my PW cable so I had no flash on my camera for fill. So I shot very slow on a tripod. I got a few nice shots out of it but I wonder how other photographers would have handled it?. Let me know what you think.
I hope I can do a wedding here again since I would like to try out my low light shooting some more. (with more time!!)
The evening went well and the first dance came out good with an off camera flash set at 1/4 power on the far side of the B&G held by my assistant who danced her way on the far side of the couple to keep the B&G between me and her.

Thoughts?