The high winds that have brought Alberta floods and lots of rain here off the coast, have also blown Portuguese Men of War ashore. Yesterday I found three of them at Cherry & Webb beach. To have them here so early in the summer is yet another sign of climate change. They are miserable to come in contact with, but they sure make for interesting looking beach blobs....
After the remainder of the season's first tropical storm blew through southern Maine, clouds linger in the early morning twilight.
A low tide walk across the tidal flats in Biddford, Maine yields treasure of all sorts from sand dollars to lost bouys....
South Wharf, Padanaram
Meet Entangled, my fish for this year's school of Classic Cod that will be part of the Art Drive Open Studio Tour in August. Each year participating artists create a school of fish that are used to promote this annual juried summer art tour in Dartmouth & Westport, MA. After the Art Drive, the fish are auctioned off with a portion of the proceeds going to our local environmental education center.
The selection of the Atlantic bearded cod for this year's fish was a timely one, as new fishing regulation go into effect this month. Although New Bedford is one of the biggest dollar yield ports for fish in the US, cod fishing will be severely curtailed going forward. The livelihood of fisherman and the ancillary industries they support are in question. While debates rage about the science behind the restrictions and the politics of enforcement, the harbor is filled with docked fishing boats of every type as owners struggle to survive with catch limits, rising fuel etc. It is a tangled mess.
Entangled is a digital composite made from the photo below of trawling gear and images of ocean waves, along with some digital painting. The trawling rope used for the beard was graciously provided by Reidar's Mfg - a local company owned by fishermen making gear for fishing boats.
In the salt marsh along the banks of the Connecticut River the evening mist is lit in a gentle warm glow.
When the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon it is the beginning of civil twilight. It is the time when shadows disappear. Combine it with pink tinged clouds and wind softened water and the ordinary becomes stunning.
North Harbor, Padanaram
This is the geometry of early spring. Sharp vertical tree trunk reflections, unfettered by the leaves still curled in their buds provide a sharp contrast to the lily pads round green forms. Or perhaps it is the first contingent of alien invaders in Giverny....
Shining like icicles, these "sap sicles" look like both ice and ancient amber.
In Mexico you have four guys and freezer. Here in Padanaram village at the start of sailing season, you have three guys and a 40 foot mast rolling down the street.
In the golden hours of a sunny Saturday in late April, our Boston Public Garden is once again, a place of spring glory, filled with families of every shape and color, tourists, and locals. Last week's chaos is a memory tucked away in the golden light of budding willows.
For two and half years, my trusty Nikon digital SLR has been a steady companion, adding a familiar weight to my "go everywhere bag." But for the last three weeks my buddy has been off in a New Jersey camera hospital being repaired. And delighted as I am with the iphone camera, it is great to have my D500 back. At daybreak, I returned to the same place I took my first photos with this camera and focusing only on the sunrise's shifting colors of black, orange, pink and blue, I shut out the cruelty of this weeks events.
I couldn't get Carly Simon's song Anticipation out of my head the other morning. The air was spring warm, the water calmly reflecting lazy drifting clouds - and along the normally empty docks, lined up like anxious children trying to be first in line, were over 50 sail boats just itching to hit the water. Hauled out from storage, yet still covered in their plastic wrap they were all waiting for the lifts to start setting them free...If a 40 foot sail boat could tap its foot in frustration to Carly Simon, it would have been doing so.
Clam shell points the way....