The forecast called for clear skies at Salisbury Beach at sunrise today. The forecast was wrong. I was there and I took a bunch of pictures, but the clouds covered the horizon and there was no photo of the sun coming out of the water. It was a wasted effort on that front, but I went to Plumb Island after and got a nice pic of the lighthouse.
When the sun eventually did break through, it made the Merrimack River look nice.
No ocean visit this morning, but we did have lunch on the water in Newburyport, MA which is really close to where I had planned to go for sunrise.
How’s the forecast for tomorrow looking? I’ll let you know.
I went back to Plum Island today to take a film shot or two of the lighthouse. I took some digital pics as well because why not? I walked over to the river this time because the lighthouse itself is boring and uninteresting. I saw some chartered fishing boats loading up. It was cool. The Merrimack River is HUGE here, right near the point where it empties into the ocean.
I used Dad’s camera and finished off the roll that I originally loaded up around Christmas. I might send it off to a lab today. I think I have one other roll that’s ready to go as well. Maybe a trip to the post office is time well spent on my last day off this month.
There you have it though, the highlights from this morning’s photo excursion. When will I do another? Not tomorrow, as it is a work from the office day. After that? Who knows.
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.
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).
Here are the color equivalents of the pictures from the previous post. Amazing, right?
I stopped at the river on my way to visit mom today and took a few pictures. I got a few on film and then switched to the same ol’ digital black and white vs vivid mode again. Here’s a few black and whites…
In Manchester, NH. You can kinda see the river in the distance.
So let’s see here. I posted the long exposure pics from Tuesday. I posted the normal Forrest Lake pictures. I posted the Grove Street pictures. All that’s left is the non-long exposures from the Spicket Falls Dam. Guess what’s coming now!
I’ve seen the flow over the dam both much lighter and much heavier than this. Doesn’t matter, I like it no matter what.
I still haven’t been up on the walkway. Somehow it feels to me like I would be trespassing if I did.
Even with the light flow over the dam, you get a pretty good rush of water underneath.
The water on Tuesday looked pretty dirty to me.
A lot of the old mill towns in the Merrimack Valley have converted their old abandoned mill buildings into condos or apartments. This, I hear, is Methuen’s mill-turned-apartment. Not 100% sure of that, but I think that’s true.
And that, kids, is everything worth sharing that I took on my little walk around on Tuesday. Just a little touch of my town, Methuen, Massachusetts.
Inside the Red Head's Head 