I post photographs here from time to time for those who are interested in a bit of the story and the locations behind the pictures.

I shoot most of the photographs on on Martha's Vineyard.

If you would like to buy a photo, you can click on the link below the picture.

All of the photographs I have for sale are available at FineArtAmerica.

If you are thinking about using these photos without permission, don't. I'm protected with PIXSY


Chicken

1/200 second at f/10
I made a picture of a chicken. I don't know why. But that is the greatest shade of red I have ever seen.

Old Wooden Groin

5 seconds at f/22
Old wooden groins like this are all along the northern shore of Martha's Vineyard, a mostly failed attempt to prevent beach erosion. State regulations now prevent any kind of structure like this in a coastal zone. Most of these groins are weathered and worn from decades of tides, which makes them interesting to photograph. The colors of a clear dawn never fail to take my breath away.

Island Theater

1/4 second at f/5.6
I was dodging rain showers, looking for some night shots in Oak Bluffs when I noticed the projectionist moving around in the projection room of the gritty old (and that's being kind) Island Theater. Using available light, mostly street lights, I had to shoot with a slow shutter speed, which produced a sense of motion with the blurred movie reel on the left. The reel on the right is perfectly sharp because it's not moving. Also notice the misspelling of the movie title. Batman would not approve. It all adds up to a picture that screams Oak Bluffs.

The post above proves I have never been able to tell left from right. I disagree with the whole concept anyway.

Ferry Bridge Sunset

1/40 second at f/4.5
The M/V Island Home was still in the slip in Woods Hole when the sky just exploded with color. A golden sunset in the west is reflected in the bridge windows, while the sky is turning a hundred shades of pink off to the north.
I'm sure the crew on the bridge thought I was nuts, jumping around on the chairs trying to get just the right angle before the colors disappeared. Eli Dagostino, a terrific young photographer, happened to be on the boat. I'm sure he thought I was nuts, too.

Dawn at Lucy Vincent Beach

30 seconds at f/22

This is the first picture I made that I thought might be of interest to somebody besides me. The long exposure gives the surf swirling around the rocks on Lucy Vincent Beach an ethereal effect. I am on this beach two or three times a week in the off-season. It's amazing how different each day looks, with the variables of light, surf, tide, and wind.
Erosion has changed it radically since I made this picture. Most of the rocks are gone, and a few new ones have washed up in violent ocean storms. The clay cliff on the left side of the picture has mostly fallen down in a pile of glacial rubble.


Zen Morning at Ghost Channel

8 seconds at f/16

I love this location and shoot here often. The light is always different. The rocks form an old channel that led into a harbor long sealed off by the shifting sand of the Martha's Vineyard shoreline. My friend Chris Pettit dubbed it the ghost channel. On this morning, the colors of first light were especially vivid, and the image evokes a feeling of calmness for me.

Governor's Light

13 seconds at f/7.1
This a long exposure of the M/V Governor, my favorite of the Steamship Authority ferries. It was a very gray morning, and I was about to give up on the light, when Governor came over from Woods Hole on a deadhead run, to load up with cars and head back to America. The harbor was quite still, which made the reflections interesting. It's not a post card photo.

Chappy Ferry Light

45 seconds at f/16

This is a very long exposure of the Chappaquiddick Ferry crossing Edgartown Harbor. The running lights paint the ferry's course across the swift channel. It took a little experimenting to get the aperture setting right.

Into the Fog

1/640 second at f/6.3

We get some fog on Martha's Vineyard, though not as much as Maine. It was really thick this afternoon in Vineyard Haven Harbor. I was hoping the M/V Martha's Vineyard would slide into position behind the schooner Alabama, and the shot came together for a few seconds. This was around holiday time, because Alabama is flying small evergreen trees from her topmasts. It's an old seafaring tradition that dates back hundreds of years.

Martha's Vineyard Dawn

6 seconds at f/6.3

This was a very, very cold morning, without a breath of wind. At first I wasn't thinking much about the reflection, but I noticed the crescent moon reflecting in the water and started concentrating on composing the shot to accentuate the mirror image.  This is a little strip of barrier beach at Harthaven in Oak Bluffs, on Martha's Vineyard. It's a very sharp photograph, and it will print well in large sizes.

Full Moon Over East Chop

1/10 second at f/5
I shot this picture of the full moon from the ferry coming back to Martha's Vineyard. Quite a few people have asked me if I "Photoshopped" the moon. I did not, and would not. I think it's such an unusual perspective that most people have never seen it, and think it must be fake. The moon does not usually look that big in a photograph.
Here's my philosophy on altering pictures. Almost all of my pictures are processed in Lightroom 4, an Adobe program that allows me to correct exposures, crop, and tweak colors. I try very hard to recreate what my eye saw, and often that means compensating for the things a camera cannot do. I never add or subtract things from a photo.
This was a tough shot because there wasn't much light left, and I had to shoot slow. I was on a boat, where a tripod is useless. I probably shot 30 frames at very low shutter speeds. Most of them were blurred because the camera was moving (on the boat), but this one came out sharp.


Work Boat

1/50 second at f/10
I didn't think much of this image when I made it, but when I posted it on Facebook, it got a lot of reaction. The old double-ended skiff in Vineyard Haven Harbor has seen better days, but it's a working boat of solid construction, and it works hard. Maybe that's what people like about the photograph. I got the shot hanging over the dock, with my camera about six inches above the water.


Ocean Park Fireworks

1.6 seconds at f/8

This is one of my favorite photographs. It is easy to get a shot of fireworks, but difficult to get a shot with something dark in the foreground, and without smoke from the previous bursts dulling down the shot. This was a result of many furious experiments with camera controls, in the dark. The August fireworks in Ocean Park, Oak Bluffs, on Martha's Vineyard, are the best I've every seen. The 2013 fireworks are scheduled for August 16.

Dawn at Gay Head

6 seconds at f/22
For once, I woke up early enough to take my time driving up-Island. Of course since I was driving slowly, I had to dodge three rabbits and a raccoon. I missed them all, but then a small deer ran straight into the side of my car.
My friend Chris Pettit and I were shooting the full moon behind Gay Head Light, but the colors of dawn always catch my eye, so I swiveled around and shot this photograph of first light creeping toward the famous clay cliffs.


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