Photos of the Week

A Trip to Bailey Island

I feel so lucky to live where I do. I can hop in my car, and in less than an hour, be in a great number of beautiful locations. In this case, I only needed 20 minutes to get to this beautiful place, Bailey Island. Because I live so close, I’m able to watch the weather and choose my window. Thursday sunset was just such a time, and I was glad that I had support at home to make it happen.

The first place I stopped was Cook’s. Bright sunlight against dark clouds provided great contrast for the Schooner Alert, Cribstone Bridge, and iconic cottages at the southern tip of Orr’s Island. It’s nice to see the Alert out at her mooring, ready for the season.

With the light being this good, I raced down to check out this scene, which I return to often. I made sure to stay right next to the road, and not walk onto private property, and made this fairly straightforward composition in the beautiful light.

I then drove back to Cook’s and walked out on the docks, and was very pleased when the F/V Danica Hailey pointed straight at me, while F/V Great White was at an angle. This made the dynamics more interesting. I’m always looking for ways to showcase the Cribstone Bridge, one of my favorite landmarks, and the light here really helped with that, too, along with the reflections.

This little dinghy really stole my heart. Banged up, simple, perfect. The lineup with the boat behind and rest of the scene was perfect, too. My favorite image of the outing.

The light continued getting better, and I moved again to get the scene from a wider view, and made this panorama. I will always remember coming across a guy who was here one summer, many years ago, who said, “This whole place looks like a movie set”. I didn’t quite get it, thinking it’s quite the opposite, it’s a place where people make a living, not some kind of diorama dreamed up for tourists’ entertainment. Now I’m not quite as cynical. It really is something special and beautiful. The utilitarian nature of everything is what makes it so perfect.

Finally, as the sunset faded to the last gasp of red on the northwestern horizon, I again went back to the shack on the nubble in Mackerel Cove. To get this angle, I parked the car right in the road, got out, and stood on top of it. Not kidding. Thankfully, I was the only one here and no other car came down the road while I was parked in the middle of it.

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I’m excited for the first workshop of the summer season, starting Thursday on Monhegan! If you’d like to join us on a workshop, we have just a few spots left on Acadia and Beyond in July, where we visit and photograph the puffin colony on Machias Seal Island in addition to lots of photography around Lubec and Mount Desert Island, and also our August and September Monhegan trips. These will sell out so make sure you sign up soon!

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To order prints of the images above, click HERE.

To see our complete photography workshop offerings, click HERE.

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