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

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

I posted 5 photos on Facebook in the album “Fall foliage by Isabelle”.  Her mom showed me an album of her work as I’m a “Pro” and supposed to know art… I tried to let her know that Art is in the eye of the beholder..  But I can tell when a picture is well crafted…

Photo by Isabelle

While she isn’t ready to go to New York or the cover of Vogue, I did see that she has a good eye and if she pursues this she may do well…  My practice is to give encouragement but not flatter to the point their egos get inflated… Here is a shot from her album on Facebook.

I moderate the Yankee magazine fan page for foliage and also the page for New England Photography. If you want to see and talk fall foliage head to the Yankee Foliage page and for those who have pictures of New England and want to show off their work, please visit the New England Photography fan page.

Jeff Folger
Salem Photographer
Wedding photography
Artwork
Salem MA wedding photography

Fall Maple Leaves

I’m Jeff Folger and a Salem MA, photographer and I’ve been reading Yankee Magazine for some years now. Like a lot of folks they have had Yankee sitting on their coffee tables for quite some time. I even asked my dad to send me them while I was stationed overseas and it would make long deployments to the gulf much easier while bringing a little piece of home with us.

Well, this year is!!! Yankee’s 75th birthday and there’s a video about the founder of Yankee Robb Sagendorph, as reminisced by Jud Hale. I got to meet Jud Hale on a visit last fall to Dublin NH and the home of Yankee Magazine.  Here Jud talks about what the founder Robb Sagendorph was like and what being at Yankee during the early days was like.

Edie Clark

The magazine has a 75th anniversary website up and running all year long. If you want to view old covers see classic Yankee articles then stop in. For those who dearly love Mary’s Farm writer Edie Clark, there is an article about her and the years she has spent at Yankee on this page.

Jeff Folger
Salem Photographer
Wedding photography
Artwork
Salem MA wedding photography