Guide to Photographing Phippsburg and Georgetown

Two of Maine's Finest Beaches and My Favorite Working Lobster Harbor

Welcome to the continuation of my Guide to Photographing the Maine Coast. We kicked off this series on May 30. If you haven’t read that post, I’d recommend checking it out so that you can orient yourself with the structure of the guide. Each location is listed in geographic order from southwest to northeast along the coast.

Without further ado, here’s the guide to points on the two peninsulas to the south of Bath, Maine.

---

1. Popham Beach

Photographing beaches can be challenging. Let’s face it, smooth, featureless sand isn’t that interesting. I like to look for features like ripples, dune grass, rocks, and driftwood to provide visual interest. In this regard, Popham Beach excels.

That said, please refrain from trampling sensitive grasses, moving rocks, or driftwood just to make a photo. Leave no trace, aside from footprints in the sand.

The scale of the beach is pretty breathtaking. It’s over 3 miles long from the river to the Fort, which we’ll talk more about in a bit, and there’s a lot to see on either end. Standing on the beach from the state park, you are looking across Fox Island to distant Seguin Island and its beautiful lighthouse.

When photographing on the beach, I like to look for ripples in the sand, which are common at the mouth of the river and at low tide when there’s been a breeze, and if I can find them, pieces of driftwood to provide some foreground interest.

This huge expanse of sandy shoreline has been somewhat reduced in recent years thanks to the Morse River changing course and washing up very close to the shoreline now.

Even more importantly, it has cut off the sand bridge that used to connect Fox Island to the beach at low tide. Fox Island is a favorite spot to photograph, and not being able to reach it from Popham now is very frustrating. To reach the island, you now have to either wade across the river through fast-moving, chest-deep water. I wouldn’t recommend it. The other option is to drive down to the Morse Mountain preserve, and hike over 4 miles to get out here. It’s worth it, but again, requires much more effort these days.

Perhaps at some point, the river will punch through southwest of the island again, and access will again become easy. I hope it does!

In the meantime, take the time to explore the “Fort” side of the beach, where I captured the beautiful Rosa Rugosa bushes in bloom in June one year. The fort is Fort Popham, which started construction in the Civil War but was abandoned due to munitions becoming too powerful for the fort to withstand.

There are some interesting rocks, and also, pieces driftwood usually washed up in this area, too. The northerly angle of sunrise and sunset in high summer make this a great spot to point the camera north at both those times of day.

Wandering around in this area, you’ll see that there are several large rocks that you can climb up. From the top of one of these, I found these lilacs to make a great subject, framing the little Popham Chapel on the opposite side of the beach down near the fort.

My favorite image from this side of Popham came one evening when I was again standing on top of the large stone that I photographed the lilacs from, but this time pointing down the beach towards the old lifesaving station and distant Pond Island Lighthouse, both of which can be seen above. The golden light in the water was moonlight reflecting, and the group of revelers on the beach provided another great sense of warmth in an otherwise cool blue deep twilight scene.

Stay even later, and you’ll find Popham Beach to be one of the best places in Maine to practice night photography, especially if you are aiming to capture the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, a common target for the rich and awe-inspiring detail that you can pull out with modern camera sensors and a long exposure. It’s very dark at Popham, and the Milky Way core sits over the open ocean, just to the left of the bright lights of Portland.

Remember the basics for night photography: set up on a tripod with a wide angle lens, open your aperture up as wide as it can go, preferably f/2.8 or wider, boost your ISO to 3200-6400, and expose for 20 - 30 seconds. You’ll be amazed at what you can capture!

Here’s a panorama of the Milky Way Galaxy with the core reflecting on the beach and northern lights appearing at the other end!

Gear Tips: I like getting low and close to objects in the sand and ripples with a wide angle lens. Something in the 14-16mm range works best, but 24mm will do if that’s the widest you have. A tripod is a must for working with longer exposures that show wave motion, as well as night photography. Speaking of night photography, a good night lens would be a 14-24mm f/2.8. Some of the fast portrait lenses, such as a 24mm f/1.8, would work as well, but many also have spherical aberration at the corners that make the stars appear as streaks. A quick google search of the best astro lenses for your camera body should turn up decent results to get you started.

Best Times of Day: All

Best Times of Year: All

Tides: All

Access: The main beach is a state park that requires a fee, open from 9AM to sunset. You can park outside the gate and walk in for sunrise, but I usually like to catch sunrise over on the fort side due to the lay of the land. The beach there is best reached from a small parking lot next to Spinney’s Restaurant, not the restaurant parking lot itself.

If you are going to photograph at night, either park on the fort side, or if you park on the beach side, please put a note on your windshield alerting the rangers and local police that you are out on the beach photographing. That’s what I was told by them and I’m happy to pass it along!

---

2. Five Islands

Since Five Islands is one of my top 3 favorite locations, I have to restrain myself a bit to prevent going overboard here. What I love about Five Islands, and what I hope comes across here, is that it’s not iconic in some senses of the word. It’s scenic and beautiful, and the lobstering culture that is unique to this part of the world is definitely on display. But, there’s no ‘one’ place to stand and make a photo. There’s no one target. There are thousands.

Five Islands faces east, so generally, this is a sunrise location. That said, some of my favorite images have come at sunset and on cloudy and foggy days.

The main attraction here are the boats and the islands that give the place its name. From June to October, there are several sailboats and powerboats, but by late fall and winter, they are mostly gone and the working lobster boats remain.

At all times of the year, there is lobstering activity, since this is the Georgetown Town Wharf and home of Five Islands Lobster Company. In the summer, there’s a bustling seafood shack operating on the wharf. That means that it’s filled with picnic tables and other signs of restaurant activity, but I find it easy to move and photograph around them, especially in the morning before the restaurant opens.