I drove North from Hampton Beach looking for a place to pull off that had a nice view. There were a bunch of potential spots, but they all had no parking signs. This spot had a no parking sign too but I was a total rebel and pulled over anyway. If you know this area, you’ll recognize the spot.
I stopped in three places this morning. I will post each stop separately, though almost all of the pictures I took were at this first spot.
Stop number one was the same spot as last week’s cloudy sunrise failure. Hampton Beach. Just a smidge north of the main beach area. Last week the tide was out and the clouds were in. This week the tide was in and the clouds were nowhere to be seen. I got there about 10 minutes before the sun came up. I only had a short stretch of very rocky beach between me and the sea wall. It was enough.
This next photo is a very happy accident. I had put my digital camera (Nikon Z5) down to take some pre-sunrise film pics (Dad’s Pentax K1000). It was getting very close to sunrise time so I switched back to digital and just put it up to my eye and focused on the horizon. I was looking due East (totally by accident) at the exact moment the sun broke the water. Like, the exact moment. I saw it through the view finder. I did not see a green flash though.
This photo is from about one heartbeat after the sunrise started. Can you see the little guy off in the distance?
This photo demonstrates my one screw up in a very positive way. When I am at home taking pictures of the cats I keep the ISO on my Z5 pretty high. 1600, usually. When I go outside I lower the ISO to 100 or 200, depending on how much light there is. I just like the way things look when the ISO is way low. Today… I forgot to lower it. All of these are at ISO 1600, which means the camera takes in more light (ISO is supposed to be like film speed, the higher the number the more light) which meant I could use a way faster shutter speed, which means the birds who randomly photo bombed me are not blurry at all.
I know I already posted this next photo, but it is my favorite of the day by so many hundreds of miles that I am posting it again.
And there we have it. The first of three posts from this morning’s photo fun. I am very pleased with how these came out, even if the ISO is way too high. The next post will be from the side of the road (route 1A) a few miles north of this spot. The second post is from a few miles south at a little beach spot in Seabrook, across the water from the nuclear power plant and where there is a little marina or something with lots of boats tied up for the night.
I just hope all of the film shots came out okay.
I thought this morning was going to be a bust. I got up to Hampton Beach in plenty of time to catch the sunrise, but there were clouds covering the horizon. Lots of them. I thought I had wasted a morning. I didn’t though. Gravitational lensing and all that? Could be.
I took a few shots before the appointed sunrise time, just because I was there and the ocean was there and we were there together and why not, right?
The waves were super wimpy, but the sky was just spectacular. I set up the tripod and put the digital camera on it for some long exposures. I’m not sure why, but none of them came out. I used shutter priority and set the time to 30 seconds. I didn’t try anything shorter than that so it’s my fault, but at least I can blame the… shit… I forgot to drop the ISO down to 100. I keep it set at 800 when I am at home. Okay. I can’t blame shutter priority, it was all my fault. Sorry about that, folks.
Anyway, I took out the ebay Nikon with Dad’s zoom lens and I was putzing around with that when suddenly I noticed the freakin’ sun was visible, popping out of the water. I guess I didn’t waste the morning after all!
Success! Two sunrise shoots in less than one week. I think I am set for sunrise at the ocean pics for a while then. Excellent.
One thing that’s fun at this spot on Hampton Beach is catching the sun reflecting off the windows across the street. It was less impressive than other visits but it was okay. I was missing my old zoom lens at this point, but I had a zoom on the film camera so I may get a good view when I get the film developed at some point in the vastly distant future.
I took a bunch of sun and water shots with the film camera. I expect they will all suck, mostly because the light meter on the Nikon FG-20 is a bitch to read. Manually focusing with that camera is also a bitch, but everything I was looking at was at infinity so that made it easier. Hopefully everything will come out okay, but we’ll have to wait and see.
I had planned to make a second stop on this morning’s photography adventure. I was going to go to downtown Lowell and walk around with one of the film cameras. Unfortunately for my plans my bladder was kinda full. I changed plans to stop at a spot in Andover where you can get up close to a railroad track, but I needed to change from route 495 South to route 93 South and I accidentally got on route 93 North, which is the way to get home. I was kind of on autopilot because I was listening to the live tracks on the deluxe edition of Rush Permanent Waves because today is Geddy Lee’s birthday and I guess I just distracted myself.
I decided I would go home, pee, and then go out for some car music. When I got home, Jen suggested I go back to bed because it was only 6:30am or so and I was going to need a nap at some point, so I went back to bed for a couple of hours and then did car music.
And that is my morning.
Success! The cloud cover was non-existent and the weather came through for me! This is Salisbury Beach in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Sunrise was at 5:27am. The first few were before the sun came up. The waves were pretty high for this spot. The tide was pretty high too. I was hoping to be able to go over to the other side of the pier, but I didn’t bother.
There were film shots too but it could be decades before I get them developed. I used my ebay Nikon with Dad’s zoom lens. That lens really is a piece of shit, but I kinda want to have one full roll shot with it. We’ll see if anything comes out recognizable as sunrise at the ocean pics. I definitely got to get myself a new lens for that camera.
Right then, I have finally done a photo-trip this summer! There were two more quick stops, but you’ll see those in the next post. You might say I have the bug again. There will be more morning photo-jaunts before the weather goes bad. I promise. Sunlight be damned, I am doing more of this!
I’m back from my beach photo stop. I took my first long exposures with my new camera and lens! They are all 30 seconds, and they are all the same view as I didn’t bother moving the tripod much. Enjoy!
More photos coming soon!
Salisbury Beach.
My goal, never stated until today and pretty much unachievable, is to catch a sunrise or a sunset from each state that borders an ocean and has a good East or West angle. I have New England covered. Rhode Island and Connecticut both border the ocean, but they both face the wrong direction. Rhode Island has a bay that faces East, but I sort of don’t think that counts. I might change my mind on that though. The goal is to see the sun break the water.
So far we have sunrises in…
Massachusetts:
New Hampshire:
and Maine:
On the sunset side of things, we have California:
That’s four! I’m practically done! WOOHOO
Inside the Red Head's Head 