I stopped at the Spicket Falls Dam on the way home and snapped a few pics.
Safe bet that the next visit will be on film.
Dam
Tag: New England
Gloomy Lake
The weather is kinda crummy today but in the interest of the photo-a-day thing and avoiding crowds at supermarkets I found myself taking the back roads through Salem, NH and I stopped at Canobie Lake and snapped a couple pics. They suck, but so what?
The question now is, are we going back to Vermont again? Bellana and her roommates were in Massachusetts yesterday and they stopped at the house for a quick hello. We think one of them left their coat here because there is a coat in the dining room that doesn’t belong to either of us. It’s cold out today so we may be bringing it back to whichever roommate left it. No clear plans yet, but we’ll see.
A Few Foliage Pics
Here are a few pics from our drive up to the mountains today.
This spot is a scenic pull off on Bear Notch Road.
These are from a pull off near Crawford Notch, as clearly denoted by the sign.
Here are a bunch from the Willey House in Crawford Notch.
The polarizing filter in action, first:
Second:
Shutter at 1/80th of a second:
Shutter at 0.8 seconds:
A few from outside the Mount Washington Hotel.
My favorite stop of the day, The Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch.
I should probably crop out the street sign.
Quarter Second
I took this with a whole quarter of a second shutter speed and my hands didn’t shake! WOOHOO!
Lighthouse
No Boston photo walk tomorrow. Where to instead?
I was thinking of trying the ocean again after the bust last time. Then I did some Googling and found there is a lighthouse near Salisbury Beach. That’s something to think about, eh?
There are lighthouses in Gloucester and Portsmouth too, both less than an hour away from home. Those might be in play in the future, but Plum Island, near Salisbury is closest and I was thinking of being in the neighborhood anyway.
Very interesting.
The Park
I went to that park near my mother’s facility after leaving her today. It’s a nice open space with a little garden with a stone bridge and a gazebo and a couple of war memorials and lots of park benches and one huge ass cannon.
I took a bunch of pictures and didn’t like any of them. I felt the same way when I saw the film shots I took there a few weeks ago too. Just… blah. Then I converted today’s pics to black and white and now they are almost okay. Here’s a few…
Here are a couple of color pics too, just for the record.
Three Bodies of Water in One Morning Part Three: Merrimack River
Hello and welcome to the third and final post dealing with pictures I took this morning. This time we returned to Raymond J Martin Riverside Park on Riverside Drive in Methuen, MA. The last time I came here it was with my Nikon film camera, also known as the ebay camera. Today it was all digital, babie. Nikon D90 like a boss from 2010.
When I first arrived the water was perfectly still. It was like a mirror, except for the mist. I am so happy most of my shots came out okay. At first I couldn’t figure out what the two crossed lines in the water were, but then I realized they were reflections of the contrails in the sky. Awesome.
Dig that crazy mist!
This one is a little crooked. I was leaning over trying to get under the tree and I should have just used the LCD screen. Oh well.
Ducks! Even though they ruined the perfectly still water. Still, ducks!
Now we come to the lesson part of our journey. Using Manual mode instead of Auto means that when things come out of the blue you can’t just point and shoot. You have to set things up. When I suddenly saw a mist-spiral cruising along the top of the water I had to be quick, but in Manual I wasn’t quite quick enough and this is the best I could get. Had I been in Auto I would have nailed this before it hit the trees. This is the best I could do under the circumstances, I guess.
I was trying to get another misty shot but the birds flew in out of nowhere and it looks like they were the point all along.
Just look at that!
I wish I had the polarizing filter. I would have seen right through that glare to the bottom of the river.
I need to find out what that building across the water is. Pretty sure that’s Andover, MA.
Did Robert use exposure compensation on this puppy? Yes, Robert did use exposure compensation. Almost like he knows what he’s doing, babie!
Album cover?
No, this is the album cover.
I took a few of the park itself too, including some pics of the places I got all of the previous views.
Blurry background AND blurry foreground. Nice.
Gazebo pic #1.
Obligatory flag pole pic.
Gazebo pic #2.
Warning!
And that, friendly readers, brings my three part post journey to an end for today. If the weather holds I might do my original idea of visiting three bodies of water in Tewksbury tomorrow. Long Pond, the Shawsheen River, and Ames pond. We’ll see. Tewksbury is only 15 minutes away but it seems like a long drive for some just-after-sunrise goofiness. I haven’t checked the weather since last night. If it holds, I might give it a shot. I’ll let you know.
Three Bodies of Water in One Morning Part Two: Forrest Lake
Part two of this morning’s photo adventure is Forrest Lake. I’ve been here a few times and the pictures always disappoint me. Not today. Not really, at least.
There were a lot of people at the boat launch area so I walked a little toward the closed beach to keep plenty of social distance. The mist coming off the lake made the stop worthwhile.
Dig how still the water was.
Is it really a lake, or is it more like a pond. Seems pond-esque to me, but what do I know?
The public beach closed at the end of August.
Dig that crazy mist.
I should have brought my polarizing filter but it doesn’t fit on the lens I was using.
Next stop is the final stop, at the Merrimack River.
Three Bodies of Water in One Morning Part One: The Mighty Spicket River
Did I go out shootin’ pitchers this morning? You know it babie! The air was cold but the sun was bright and the sky was perfectly clear. I thought about going to Tewksbury and checking on the Shawsheen River and Long Pond and maybe Ames Pond but we had people coming to pick up the couch we donated and I didn’t want to go that far from home. Instead I visited the three biggest bodies of water in Methuen. The Spicket River, Forrest Lake, and the mother of them all, the Merrimack River.
I took a few pictures at each location, going slightly overboard at the Merrimack, but we’ll get to that later. First, some shitty pictures of the muddy and gross looking Spicket. It’s super low, but not nearly as low as it was the last time I checked on her.
The Mighty Spicket has seen better days, but it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. This is on Hampshire Street, just a few minutes after the sun came up.
The sun wasn’t getting through the trees to the water, but it was pretty freakin’ glorious out on the road. Is this why they call it golden hour?
Crossing the road for a different view…
The next post will be Forrest Lake and after that will be the Merrimack (where I went a little overboard).
In Search of Cobblestone Streets
After my less than stellar sunrise trip to the beach (get it???) I drove over to Lowell, Massachusetts, the former home of the Lowell Lock Monsters, to wander around their rather depressed down town area in search of Cobblestone streets. I found two off of Market Street. I took pics of other things too though, so don’t worry.
I took a handful of shots outside of the Trolley Museum. I was there to get a shot of the clock tower across the street (city hall?) but I got a few train-related pics while I was there.
There are a lot more things to see in Lowell, even just in the downtown area. I’ll go back. Next time I will try to focus on the river more, and maybe some bridges.
Inside the Red Head's Head 