Long Island beach photography in the winter

James Griffiths January 27, 2018

I guess I like solitude, and nothing quite says it like a cold beach covered in snow. It's empty here this time of year, not like a warm summer day when you can barely find room to get to the water. I think it's the idea of taking a photo of something that's normally associated with warmth and relaxation and then showing it in a completely different way. It's so much more interesting in the winter, and it changes so quickly. One day it might look nearly identical to how it does in the summer, just without all of the people, and the next it could be covered in snow and ice. I particularly like finding the transitional phases of it, like a few days after a snowstorm when the sand starts to come through from beneath the snow. The first image here is an example of that from Hecksher State Park a little over a month ago. I had this spot in mind and waited until it just started warming up so that the snow cover would be receding.

This next image is from the same park a few weeks later. The park looks over the Great South Bay which freezes over if it's been well below freezing for a few days. I didn't put too much planning into when I came here this time, I just wanted to get some shots over the frozen landscape. I had noticed on the forecast that some fog was going to be rolling in and I think that added an interesting element because the background blurs out to the point that you can't really see the land on the other side of the bay. It's kind of like faking an arctic scene or something. Those streams that form on top of the ice make for some convenient leading lines too, especially when I noticed this one catching the pink light from the sunset. In a few days all of this ice will be gone, and it will look like it does in the summer for a while.

That's why I liked the idea of including this one. It's from Robert Moses which is an ocean beach so it never freezes over like the bay can. It's an interesting contrast though because it's just a few miles away and taken in the same month (though a year earlier) and looks just like a typical beach. Nothing really wintery about it, but the emptiness and cool blues can kind of give you a sense of the cold. The photo below is of the same beach after another snowfall this January.

A completely different feeling from nearly the same exact location at the same time of year. The way the winds mix the snow and sand give a really cool effect, and one that's only there for a few days if that. All of these beaches are awesome environments to photograph in the winter. You can't go two days in a row and expect the same landscape like you can in the summer, and on top of that you usually have most of it to yourself. So if you're tired of the cold, go to the beach. And if you're not able to overlook the fact that this advice won't make you warmer then get a flight to the desert - which just happens to be what I'm doing in March.

I'm starting to sell some prints on my website here if you're interested. I may add more soon but if you are looking for a specific image of mine let me know.

2017 In Review

James Griffiths January 20, 2018

This is a little late, January kind of got away from me, but I wanted to share a recap of my year. This was the first full year that I've really focused on improving my photography, before this point I was a very casual photographer often going months at a time without even picking up my camera. It was in the fall of 2016 that I realized how therapeutic it can be through the entire creative process, and it quickly grew from a casual hobby to something of a passion. I also have done more traveling this past year than I ever have before. I've been to 32 states (14 of which I'd never been to before) and spent 59 nights away. It's particularly been interesting since I quit my job last may to focus on myself and my own projects (both with photography and programming). So I thought I'd go through this past year month by month using my favorite photos from each month (when they were taken not necessarily when they were posted) as the subjects.

January
The photo for this month is at the top of this post. Kind of fitting because I think it's still my favorite photo of the year (or at least a close runner up). I'd wanted a photo like this for a while, a cool lake leading up to a snow capped mountain, and I finally saw it with the waning sunlight hitting the peak while driving through Olympic National Park in Washington State with my sister. We were in the Seattle area for a long weekend and made the most of the time there, but this was actually taken only a few hours after landing in Sea-Tac.

February
This month spent a few days up at my parent's cabin in Upstate New York, but was home for the most part. I love the island I live on, mountains and deserts are amazing but there's no comparison for an ocean sunset (or in this case a bay sunset - close enough). This was taken a few hours after a snowfall stopped in early February. The names I choose for the photos I share are usually either the name of the place or some combination of the way I was feeling when taking the photo along with how the photo makes me feel. For instance this one is called "Stuck" because it was at a point in my life when I was feeling kind of trapped, I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life but hadn't figured out what yet and didn't think I could quit my job to figure it all out (which is what I wanted to do). You can also kind of see it in the way the overcast sky traps the colors of the sunset at the horizon, yet the pinks and purples still manage to push past that barrier. It's also called this because I had accidentally driven my car off the parking lot pavement and into the sand (it was all covered in snow) and literally had to get my car unstuck after I took this photo.

March
This month I went to the Southwest for the first time with my father. It has since become my favorite part of the country. I've wanted to go to Horseshoe Bend for years, so it was a kind of surreal experience finally being there. I'm showing two photos from this month because they kind of go together. It was drizzling on and off on the walk to the edge of the canyon and for a few minutes a rainbow appeared. I was glad I had my camera out at the time because it was gone a moment after I took that shot. Then I was at the edge, where I found a good spot and waited there for nearly an hour while the light changed to make sure I wouldn't lose this key spot - It was a Saturday night and it does get pretty crowded there that time of day.

April
I realized when going through the photos for this post that I never posted anything I took in April. I had taken a few but nothing all that interesting and I was probably more involved with going through my photos from my southwest trip at the time. I had also given in my two weeks notice to my job in the middle of this month so I was focused on finalizing things there. I did spend another weekend up at my parent's cabin with some friends (I go there several times a year because it's a really convenient getaway).

May
I have two photos again because they were taken at the same place, and although my favorite is the first one the second one was much more popular on social media. I still like both but I think it's interesting when a photo I love isn't as well received as one I thought was good, but not as good. I was in Tennessee for my sister's graduation staying at this cabin. The first photo I planned the night before, rolled out of bed before sunrise, opened the window, and took the shot. Then I went back to bed. The next one I just wanted a cool glowing cabin night shot and the moon happened to be in the perfect spot to make a "moon-star" - I guess. My last day at my job was the day I left to come here, so it felt like the start of something new and that's kind of the feeling I had when taking these. The very end of this month was when I began my road trip around the country.

"The Yellowstone River" - Yellowstone National Park

June
This month is difficult to choose my favorite or best photos for, most months are to some degree, but I spent so much time driving around the country and taking photos nearly every day. The first image here is from Yellowstone National Park, a multi-shot long exposure of the Yellowstone River that I took my first time seeing it. It ended up being one of my most popular photos on social media in 2017. The second image is of Mount Shasta in northern California. I was driving around this mountain for nearly an hour on my way to San Francisco and as the light was getting better I decided that I had to stop and find a composition for it. I'm really happy with how it turned out especially being it was unplanned and from the side of the road. The third image is from Tennessee towards the end of my trip. I didn't expect one of my favorite images from this trip to be from the same half of the country I live on, but it was. I love the smooth waterfall and reflections creating those leading lines, and it was just a nice picture to close out my trip (I think this was basically the last one I took).

July
I stayed home for most of the summer after I got back from my cross country trip. I drove for Uber for a while to make a little extra cash but wanted to focus most of my energy on photography and some programming ideas. This image was from the north shore of Long Island in the early part of the month. Just a simple golden sunset, kind of the way I'm feeling at this point.

August
I love this shot, it's of the Fire Island Lighthouse about 10 minutes from my home. Lighthouses to me have a powerful yet calming feeling to them, guarding the sea. I've shot this one several times, but this was the first time I planned out a trip there before sunrise to this particular beach. I like to incorporate little details in my images that you might not notice at first glance whenever I can. In this one you can see the moon directly above the lighthouse, it's very small here because I'm using a wide angle lens but it's presence adds a bit of depth to the image.

September
By September I was getting the urge to go somewhere, and that somewhere was once again my parent's cabin (on my way up to Maine). A few miles away on top of Mount Utsayantha I got this image. I've been to the top of that mountain several times but this was the first time at sunset. After a few days there I left for Maine, but that was technically in October.

October
Here I am in Maine, or rather here are 2 pictures I really like that I took in Maine. The first one was just outside Baxter State Park on my way back to a hotel. I was trying to get a shot of a full moon that was setting but by the time I found a good spot to pull over it was gone, and this was there. Even though I've seen a lot of similar images I didn't want that to stop me from trying one out myself. The next image is from Acadia National Park, this was one of my favorite parts of the park, Otter Point I think, that I had scouted out in the afternoon. The rock I'm standing on felt much more precarious when I came back around sunset to shoot this, but it was worth it.

November
So this is in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. I never really think to explore other parts of New York because I live here, but that can be a mistake. There are some really awesome things to see around in my home state. I spent a few nights again at my parent's cabin (for a total of 4 times this year) and then set off for a couple of days chasing waterfalls. I love this particular image because it feels so much different than most of the others I've taken and I think it really captures the mood of the place. It worked out pretty well because the path in this photo is closed at that time of year so I was forced to take the path overlooking it. If that hadn't happened I wouldn't have seen this.

December
The last month of the year and the only photo I posted that was actually taken in December. I came here specifically for a shot involving that concrete wall thingy but the scene had changed a lot from what I remembered. I was happy with the composition I ended up with, and the contrast between the snow and that red algae (at least I'm pretty sure that's algae) was really cool. I honestly almost didn't share it because the focus is slightly off from where I wanted it to be and I didn't realize that when I was there. I'm starting to learn to be okay with minor imperfections as long as it works as a whole.

It was a great year for me, in fact I can pretty easily say this was my best year yet. I've done a lot of things that I've wanted to for a very long time, and I've never felt better about the path my life is on now. Thank you all for the support, and have a great 2018!

I'm starting to sell prints of some of my images, currently 5 of them shown here are available on my website here. If there are others you are interested in please let me know.

Acadia National Park October 2017

James Griffiths November 2, 2017

Boulder Beach from Otter Point in Acadia National Park

I meant to write this a few weeks ago, but I didn't. This is my trip to Acadia National Park last month. I had just spent the previous day in Baxter State Park (Maine) and was now on my way to Acadia. I've wanted to go here for a while and it's really not too far from my home in New York. It was about an hour drive from Bangor where I spent the previous night, I left in the mid morning and got there with plenty of time to do some exploring. I wanted to find a good place to come back for sunset, and I figured I'd want that spot to be on the water, so my first real stop was around Otter Point (I think that's what it's called, possibly Boulder Beach). I loved the look of the granite rocks going into the ocean with the hills and forests climbing out on top of them. I spent an hour or so climbing around until I found a view that I really liked. Of course it was on top of a slightly more difficult to get to rock, but I made it up without falling the 20 or so feet down into the ocean. I wandered around the park for the rest of the day walking through forests of birch trees and the gardens and stuff, it was all really beautiful but I was set on Otter Point for sunset. I went back leaving enough time to find another spot if I had to (I figured it would be a busy spot at that time). Surprisingly when I got there I was almost alone. I think I saw a total of 3 other people around those rocks for the next hour that I was there. I don't mind people being around me but one of my favorite things about taking landscape photos is being alone in nature. It's really peaceful and clears my head, which is the main reason I do it. Still, I didn't expect to be alone here I just really wanted the shot. I climbed up to the rock I had scouted earlier, having a little more anxiety getting back up but kind of throwing myself up the rock face did the trick. Below is my selfie from the rock and above is the image I took (from the other direction).

Me at Boulder Beach in Acadia (I should probably learn how to look at the lens)

When I left I was completely alone in the dark. I drove out of the park towards Bar Harbor and stopped at an overlook where you could see the lights in the town. I wasn't really trying to get any pictures here, not to say I didn't take a couple, but it was nice just sitting up there for a while looking down at the town and lights on the boats skimming over the water.

I was really surprised at how often I was able to find myself alone in this park. It's beautiful and not too far from civilization, definitely worth the trip. I got a hotel on the Island and the next day I went to explore the other side of the park - it's kind of divided into two because of a sound splitting up the island the park is on.

One of the most well known icons in the park is the Bass Harbor Head light, which is where I planned on going first that day. It's roughly an hour drive from the other side of the park where I had been all day yesterday. I knew I wanted to be here around sunset, but had also heard that it can get pretty crowded. There's a small parking lot that apparently fills up quickly and causes a line down the road. If you don't park there I think it would be something like a 2 mile walk to the next reasonable spot to park your car. I thought I should go early to at least make sure I saw it and to get an idea of the place. Luckily at that time I was able to drive right in and park, then walk down to the rocks below. You can walk up close to the light but it's run by the coast guard so I don't think you can actually go inside without special permission or something. My only interest was in seeing it sitting up on that granite shoreline in person, so I was happy to climbing around below seeing it from a few different angles. There's always something so calming about these old lighthouses sitting there, timelessly guarding the shores. I'm a big fan anyway and this one did not disappoint.

The rocks below the lighthouse at high tide (with some random people I don't know)

I left there to scout around for a bit, but still planned on coming back for sunset. I had a few ideas of some good rocks to stand on later but I also knew it would be closer to low tide then so I was going to have more options. In the meantime I went up to Southwest Harbor and took this panorama.

Definitely not my favorite job on a photo, but I always like to try new things and see if I can make them work. I actually took 2 of the same panorama, one with the harbor in focus and one with the trees right in front of me in focus (this is the one with the harbor in focus). The plan was to try to combine them, that hasn't worked too well because there were some mismatches I think caused by the wind or maybe some focus breathing. You can also tell where some of the images were stitched because the lines in the water don't match up, and I'm not sold on my composition. No harm in trying it out but I think I'll call this one a learning experience. Anyway that's Southwest Harbor, and it was a pretty view.

After that I found this giant slab of granite jutting out into the water from the beach. I walked out onto it and saw that it was covered in little tide pools (it was just about low tide now). I took out my macro lens and spent the next couple of hours walking around that giant slab of granite taking pictures of the little creatures there. That was honestly a lot of fun, I'm not too experienced with macro so it's another learning thing for me. In fact I didn't get my macro lens for taking macro shots, I just found myself using that particular focal length (60mm) a lot on a zoom lens and wanted it in a fast prime. The macro ability of it was just a bonus but I'm starting to use it more and more.

They're nothing too special but it's a nice memory of a pretty great day. After playing around in the tidal pools it was getting within a few hours of sunset and I wanted to make it back to the lighthouse in time to deal with the potential crowds. I thought about parking farther away and walking, but I thought i'd at least check to see if there was a line first. There was a line, the internet didn't lie it does in fact get pretty crowded there. I ended up waiting though because I had allowed so much extra time and the line didn't seem terrible. After about 40 minutes I made it into the parking lot, I'll let you decide if that actually is a terrible wait time, at this point I was just focused on getting down to the rocks and securing a spot before sunset. At low tide there really is a lot more room, I think it was around 3-5 feet lower than when I was there earlier, and it was full of people. All of the spots I had scouted before had people and tripods set up on them by this point. I could have squeezed in but I was starting to like the idea of a low wide angle shot now that I could get onto some previously submerged rocks. I wandered out in front of everyone else (but behind a rock so I wasn't in anyone else's shot) and got my composition together. I had a comfy rock to sit on which was nice, because I spent the next hour and a half right there. About half that time was waiting for sunset and the other half waiting for the light to fade so I didn't miss anything. I was not about to lost my spot to the swarms of people that filled in behind me. It was kind of funny turning around to see roughly 50 people and 20-30 tripods, especially because in front of me all I could see was this.

Like I said I did wait until well after sunset, but I preferred the image of the sun hitting the horizon here. Often the better light is after the sun is below the horizon but it's always good to have options. Getting the lighthouse light in the photo (which is something I always try to do in my lighthouse pictures) was really easy for this one. It's 3 seconds of light with a 1 second gap. So you have 3 seconds to get your shot in with the light on. By contrast the Fire Island Lighthouse near where I live is something more like a half second every 5-6 seconds (I think) so you have to time that one pretty perfectly.

I got what I wanted, I enjoyed the scene for a while longer, and made my way back the car. That was my last day in Acadia, a kind of short trip but at least it's not too far from me so I should be back again. I spent the night in Augusta and headed back home the next day.

Baxter State Park October 2017

James Griffiths October 10, 2017

I decided to head up to Maine for the fall colors I hear they have this time of year. It's really only a few hours from me so I thought it was a little weird I had never explored there (other than when I was about 2 years old I think). The people who say it's a really beautiful state aren't lying, although I did get there at least a week before "peak" color when the entire state apparently explodes with the colors of autumn. There were still plenty of patches of color and beautiful scenes everywhere, it actually added a kind of fun challenge to try to get the colors that were there into my compositions.

I had driven up to Bangor, Maine on Sunday (October 1st) from my parent's cabin in upstate NY. Up until that night I was still deciding between going to Baxter State Park in central Maine and Acadia National Park on the coast. In the end I couldn't decide so I went to both, starting with Baxter because I figured Acadia was kind of on my way back home. My first day I wasn't in much of a rush, my plan was to explore the park in the middle of the day and figure out a place for sunset. I did a little research beforehand and found that a lot of people like the view of Mount Katahdin, kind of the centerpiece of the park, from Golden Road. I also figured I'd want to check out the waterfall there because those are always fun to photograph.

It's just under a two hour drive from Bangor up to the park entrance, and Golden Road turns out to be a kind of rough dirt road that isn't even technically in the park (as far as I could tell). After going down the road for a while and crossing a little one-car-at-a-time bridge, actually on the bridge, I saw why this was considered one of the best views of the mountain. The photo at the top of this blog was taken on that bridge a few hours later. Of course that seemed too easy, so I drove down the road for a few more miles and occasionally pulled over to climb through the brush trying to find a better view. There were some good ones, but not quite as great as from the bridge. I did like the view from a campground I stopped at, and managed to take a selfie there.

My selfie game is still a work in progress, but you can kind of see Katahdin back there.

The mountain didn't feel as close there though, so I just kept that spot in mind and went back towards the bridge. Still determined to find a shot that was more difficult to get than just walking 10 feet from my car I hiked into the woods along the river. There were some paths through it and you could climb down to a thin beach at some spots. The best view I found here would have been obstructed by a lot of branches unless I climbed down a dirt embankment with no clear easy way back up. I also wasn't convinced that it was any better than the bridge, so I went back again and figured I could at least say I tried to make it more difficult for myself.

It wasn't sunset yet though, and taking this shot in the middle of the day wasn't going to cut it for me. I went to the actual entrance of the park and drove about a half hour in to where the hike to the falls started. I think it was just over a mile mostly uphill and over huge granite boulders, really pretty enjoyable and maybe I'm getting into better shape because I wasn't completely winded at the end. It was a few hours before sunset when I got there, which I've found is usually a good time to shoot waterfalls. The forest darkens the area enough with the lower sun so you can easily get a long exposure but still have enough light.

Up at Katahdin Stream Falls with my proper exploration hat.

After I got my long exposure waterfall I hiked down the trail to my car and headed back towards the bridge on Golden Road for golden hour. I got there a little after 5 and with sun setting just after 6 the light was getting really beautiful and bringing out the fall colors in the area. Now the view of Mount Katahdin was great, but I loved the scene looking a little farther over to the west at another mountain (which after a little searching turned out to be Doubletop Mountain). So I shot the below panorama of that mountain before turning back to Katahdin (for the image at the top of this post).

I take a lot of panoramas, especially when I have views like this, but I don't often share them because they're difficult to display well online. I love the way this looks though so I'm going to keep it here. After I got my golden hour shots of the mountains in Baxter I went back to Bangor for the night, my plan was Acadia the next day.

Minimalist photography in bad weather

James Griffiths September 12, 2017

I've started to realize over the past year or so that one of my favorite times to capture images is in or right after "bad" weather. I don't take many photos of actual storms, I'm usually into the grand or intimate landscapes often around sunrise or sunset. What I've realized is that overcast or foggy weather is one of the greatest ways to simplify an image, and I like simple images. In these weather conditions the sky and therefore the rest of the image is more uniformly lit, and the details are softer even without a shallow depth of field or a long exposure. It's a natural way to bring in focus to the subject and has the added benefit of an emotion that is difficult to replicate with a clear sky.

The first image here is probably the first one that helped me to realize how great this kind of weather is in creating simple artistic images. It was taken on the south shore of Long Island right after a thunderstorm while the sun was setting. I purposely went out after the storm because I saw that it was breaking and thought it would look kind of interesting with the sun setting below a thick layer of clouds. I think I was right, but I honestly never really thought about this kind of image showing up there until I arrived. It's still one of my favorite images because of how simple it is both in composition and color while still having an emotional pull to it.

This is another photo that I took in the same kind of conditions several months later. Whenever there is a storm now I check to see if it's going to break before sunset to try to get similar results. I want it to break within about an hour or two of sunset so that just enough color and light are able to come through between the clouds and the horizon. Here I used a very shallow depth of field to smooth out the background and bring in focus to the beam that leads you into the center of the sunset. There is more detail in the foreground here, but I think it gives a similar simplistic and emotional feeling. The sky is simple, burning pink into magenta above the thin line of the yellow sunset. If it was just a few clouds or a clear sky it would have a very different feel. The ominous dark emotion of the sky with the peaceful light from the sun below it would not have been easily replicated with a clear or slightly cloudy sky. If this image was taken without overcast skies it may have had a similar color palette and overall look, but it probably wouldn't be as emotional and would feel more complex.

This photo is very different from the first two. It's not a sunset picture, it's in black and white, and was taken in foggy weather rather than right after a storm. I think it has a similar effect of minimalism though. The fog takes away the background so you just have a few ripples of water going into nothing. The moody emotion of this is helped out by the lack of color, but the fog is what really brings the focus in to the details of the subject.

These conditions help a lot in trying to convey a certain emotion in an image. It's often the subtle things that you might not even realize are there that can make an image, so I was pretty happy when this idea of how to use weather like this to my advantage really clicked.