Photographing Autumn In Acadia

Personal Explorations in an Iconic Setting

Here we are, past Thanksgiving, hurtling towards Christmas and deep winter, and I’m finally releasing images I gathered in Acadia this fall. Thank you for bearing with me!

I was by myself for four days, focused solely on exploring and creating new images out of the spirit of curiosity and adventure. This felt like such a treat, since I’m usually leading groups and not so footloose, especially during the fall, and especially in Acadia! Thanks to the generosity of a friend I had a great place to stay in Southwest Harbor. And of course I couldn’t have done this without the support of my wife, holding down the fort at home with three small children. Thank you, Andrew, and thank you, Kimberly! :-)

Dawnland

My curiosity led me upwards, more often than not, hiking on trails that lead to overlooks and summits around the park. My first morning was spent here at this rock outcropping adorned with rust-colored bayberry bushes on the back side of The Beehive, looking out at Champlain Mountain and the beautiful Bald Porcupine Island as the first light of day kissed both. The Tunk Mountain region can be seen in the distance.

Bates Cairn

That evening I went for another hike, this time in the center of the island, up Bald Peak. This was a personal favorite from the trip, an image highlighting one of the iconic Bates Cairns. The Bates cairns – two to four base stones, with a mantel rock across and a pointer stone up top – were first dreamed up by Bar Harbor path maker Waldron Bates during the early 1900s, even before Acadia came into existence. These cairns are sturdy, easy to maintain, and use far less stones than the standard conical cairns we often see. That means that more stones can be left in place, which provide critical habitat for invertebrates and help keep soil in place. I was grateful indeed to have captured the excitement and sense of adventure I feel when I see them in an image.

Bald Peak Sunset

Further up the trail on Bald Peak, as sunset advanced, I captured this view looking down at Upper Hadlock Pond. I knew coming here that I wanted to capture the distinctive lichen-speckled granite formations I had seen on an earlier hike with red blueberry leaves in sunset light. It did not disappoint!

Gorham Mountain View

The fun continued the next morning after a short climb to this vista on Gorham Mountain. When I got here, I ran into two students that were on our Monhegan Island photo workshop this summer. We caught up while photographing this beautiful light together at sunrise. It was so cool to see Ocean Drive and Otter Cliffs below along with some cool orographic cloud formations in the sky above. The golden light on the ledges and foliage actually had to be turned down in post because it was so orange and vibrant!

Splashes of Color

All along my hikes and jaunts around the park, I collected detail and small scene vignettes. It was fun to just focus on patterns and textures, along with some other interesting design ideas that come to life when you see nature as 2-dimensional graphic art.

Boulder Field

Cliffhangers

Eliot Porter

I’m Lichen It

I felt like these images complimented the grand landscapes nicely, and do justice to curiosity I felt when coming across them.

Autumn Harmony

Another one of my favorite images from the trip came in the middle of the day, a time that I don’t often bring the camera out. Some passing clouds softened the shadows enough here to allow me to make this image. The rich colors and mix of vegetation along with the wonderful lichen-covered granite, mirrored by the cloud formations in the blue sky, made this image impossible to miss. I also love the converging diagonal lines formed by the steep sides of Cadillac Mountain and South Bubble.

Eagle Lake Twilight

I finally came back down to ground level towards the end of my four days here, and captured this quiet scene from the side of Eagle Lake. I had photographed another maple tree on the shoreline here a previous fall, but that one was nestled in the forest, not isolated like this one was. A long exposure was required because it was far past sunset. That helped smooth out the water, and a circular polarizing filter helped to darken the sky and make the foliage pop a little. The simplicity and iconic nature of Pemetic Mountain being framed in beautiful fall foliage made this an obvious candidate for a print once I got home.

Monumental

This wild scene had nothing to do with fall foliage, but when I saw this halo forming around the sun just after sunrise on my last morning, I knew that I wanted to get down here below the famous rock formation in Monument Cove. I had scouted this scene on previous visits, and although the scramble getting down here can be a bit hairy, it’s such a cool view. This is an ultra-wide, probably more than 180 degree field of view, which I captured by panning around with a 12mm lens.

Cobblestone Bridge in Autumn

The streams and waterfalls were nicely full this year, thanks to plentiful rain leading up to my visit. Seeing Jordan Stream cascade around rocks covered with colorful fallen leaves was icing on an already delicious cake in this scene below the iconic Cobblestone Bridge. This bridge was the first to be built as part of the carriage road system in 1917. I come here every time I visit.

Autumn Cascade

The final image I’ll leave you with is this small scene that I encountered further up the stream. I took a graphic approach and pointed almost straight downwards to capture the stream cascading along boulders and framed by beautiful maple and spruce branches. A slightly long exposure showed water movement, and luckily the air was still enough so that I didn’t get blurry branches.

We’ll be running two different workshops here in Autumn 2024, one 3 day and one 4 day. I hope you can join us!

If you’d like to order prints of any of the images in this newsletter, you can do so here.

Thanks for sticking it through to the end of this long email. I hope you’re enjoying the accounts in this new format. I look forward to sharing more!