mount desert island

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Sometimes I run out of things to talk about in these blog posts. So I googled one of those online quiz thingys and thought I’d answer some of them for you. Let’s see how this goes…

1. What are your nicknames? What do you prefer to be called?
My cousins on my mom’s side all call me ‘Angie’. My cousins on my dad’s side call me ‘Ang’. Somewhere between middle school and high school friends started calling me ‘Pangie’. I respond by all those names but always just introduce myself as ‘Angela’. I like it when people call me by nicknames though. It makes me feel like they’re comfortable enough with me to call me by another name.

2. What books on your shelf are begging to be read?
I’ve started all of them. I’ve finished about half. I’m mostly into self improvement books and biographies.

3. How often do you doodle? What do your doodles look like?
Not often at all but I used to all the time when I was bored in school. If I do, it’s like those line pattern things that quickly fill up the whole page.

4. What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep? Toss and Turn? Try to get up and do something productive?
I usually get out of bed and go sit on the couch or something and read until I feel sleepy enough to fall asleep.

5. How many days could you last in solitary confinement? How would you do it?
2 days max but I would need my camera, laptop (only for photoshop) and a puzzle.

6. Who performs the most random acts of kindness out of everyone you know?
My husband, Andrew for sure! He’s always doing nice things for people, even without them knowing.

7. Are you a creature of habit? Explain.
Ummm… Yes! Daily blogging, I maintain an exercise routine of M,W,F and Saturday workouts, every morning I eat the same exact breakfest, the list seriously goes on and on.

8. When making an entrance in to a party, do you make your presence known? Do you slip in and look for someone you know? Do you sneak in quietly and find a safe spot to roost?
Slip in and look for someone I know. If I don’t know anyone, I head straight to the bar 🙂

9. What is your strongest sense? If you had to give one up, which would it be?
I’m guessing my strongest sense is sight? But if I had to give one up it would be smell as long as I could still taste without my smell.

10. Which animals scare you most? Why?
Ostriches. They are the root of my fear of birds. When I was little I had a reoccurring nightmare that one would pop it’s little head out of the ground, chase me, and peck at my hair. They’re big, scary and I don’t like them.

LOL How was that? Let me know if you liked this and maybe I’ll do more in the future.

The camera settings for this image is F4 at 2.5 seconds ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II 16-35mm lens and 10 stop neutral density filter.

 

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And then there was that time I went to Maine for the first time. Man, talk about a cute place to visit and I’m sure to live. I felt so happy while being there. Everything was so nautical and clean. Everyone was so pleasant. We spent most of our time in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor but I’d totally go again to spend more time in Portland and other areas of Maine. And those lobster rolls!!! *Praise hands emoji* I definietly need to spend more time with those lobster rolls in the future 🙂

This image was taken at Bass Harbor Head Light in the southwest portion of Acadia National Park on the last morning we were in Maine. Now that I think of it, I wish it was one of the first spots we went to. This area of the park had the amazing fall foliage that we were hoping for our whole trip to Acadia and it was noticeably less crowded.

Getting down to this point of view was a little difficult. The rocks were pretty steep and slippery from the crashing waves but was so worth it. As soon as the sun rose in the sky, it casted this amazingly beautiful warm red color over the head light. (P.S. Why do they call it a head light and not a lighthouse?) My favorite is the red light being casted on the rocks on the left hand side of this image. Theres something about those dark black rocks contrasted with the warm sunlight that I really enjoy.

If you’re interest in seeing more from our trip, check out this youtube video I created. Just watching it brings back so many great memories.

The settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/60th of a second and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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One of my favorite things to do after taking sunrise pictures is to just sit and enjoy the early morning light. Sometimes you can forget to enjoy the moment. Maybe you woke up late and you’re in a hurry to get to your location or you’re trying to find the perfect composition at the time the light is hitting you subject just right. There can be a number of things that cause you to stress so early in the morning which kinda sounds odd because photography is suppose to be a fun activity. But once all of that madness is done and you’re just left with the early morning light, it can be so peaceful to just sit and enjoy. Even for 10 minutes. It is the most relaxing and beautiful way to spend the morning. I love it. I just feel so happy and calm. Its a great way to just slow down. Rarely will I even have my cell phone out.

This was taken at Otter Cliff in Acadia National Park, Maine. Just looking at this image brings back those feelings of relaxation and peace. I remember sitting on those rocks after I captured this image and watching the sun for a good 20 minutes before doing anything else. That buoy in the distance was ringing a bell every time a wave rocked it over.  Sue and I were the only ones there and barely even said a word to each other. Is it weird to say that thinking about this image and what it took to capture it makes me look forward to waking up for my next sunrise? Yes. The answer is yes.

PS Where the otters at?

The camera settings for this image is F10 at 1/13th of a second with ISO 100 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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If you turned around from Bass Harbor Head Light and looked onto the water, this is the sunrise you would have seen. Heart eyes emoji!

It was the best sunrise we had seen all week! And again, I did not use my tripod to capture this, I was balancing my camera on the rocks. I really like doing that because it makes everything in the foreground look super big. A play on proportions if you will and a way to see things that you usually wouldn’t be able to see just with your naked eye.

And in the center of the water is a boui that had a bell in it. I loved it. It was so peaceful and calming to hear the bell ring whenever the wind blew it. At first I had no idea what was making the noise but once we figured it out it was like listening to church bells on a peaceful morning.

But we weren’t the only ones on the rocks savoring this sunrise. There were a few other photographers who were there and as morning went on, more and more people started to show up. At one point this guy screamed, “look a seal” and pointed to something that looked like it could have been a seal’s back sticking out of the water. I was so excited to see it because Sue and I had been looking for seals the whole week. I even pulled out my vlog camera to try to capture it. But when the “seal” didn’t move for 2 minutes and its back was still sticking out of the water, I could only assume that I was staring at a rock and missed the seal completely. Crying face emoji!

The settings for this image is 15 seconds at F5.6 ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

 

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As mentioned in a past blog post, Sue and I spent our last sunrise in Maine at Bass Harbor Head Light of Acadia National Park. It was super fun. To get down to this spot to take this image, you had to climb down some seriously steep rocks. It was a little shady at some points. Another photographer who was already there before we arrived suggested I just leave my backpack at the top and just climb down with my wide angle and tripod. Ummm no thanks sir. I got this.

So with my backpack, tripod and jacket (that I didn’t need), I carefully got down to this very cool puddle. It was the best spot to see as much of the lighthouse as you could without having to stand on slippery rock. Seeing the reflection in the water was definietly an added bonus. Then the sun rose. It was an amazing sunrise that made everything turn a reddish orange. My favorite was seeing the light casted onto the lighthouse and making the rocks in the foreground look like massive boulders.

Thankfully, I had my camera bag and all my camera equipment with me and I was able to pull out my neutral density filter to  shoot this long exposure. With the light getting bright, it was harder to capture the color without a filter. The neutral density filter really allowed me to get that saturated color, especially in the reflection. Love how that turned out!

My camera settings for this image is 6 seconds at F4 and ISO 1000 with my 16-35mm wide angle lens and Sony A7II. Although I had my tripod with me, I did not use it for this image. My camera was stabilized on a rock so I could get as low as possible to get as much of the reflection as possible.

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Before leaving for Maine, I had the assumption that Acadia National Park was small. I’m not sure why I thought that but Holy Cow was I wrong! It reminded me of a mix of Shenandoah National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park with beautiful scenic drives and so many places to pull over and take pictures. And both places are huge. Like Yuge. There was no way we would have been able to see it all in less than a week.

So, we really only had time to explore a portion of the park. On our last day in Acadia, Sue and I decided to head over to the Southwest Harbor which was an adventure all on it’s own. We shot sunrise at Bass Harbor Lighthouse and made our way over to Echo Lake Beach to start our morning hike. The beach itself is really small but the reflections were amazing. I was having a field day with these rocks. I love how they divide the image and add an interesting focal point. Luckily, I was wearing my timberland boots so I was able to step in the water a little bit without getting wet.

I wish we were able to spend more time in the Southwest Harbor. It seemed like there were so many more colorful trees in that area than anywhere else we in the park. Our hike up Canada Cliffs was one of my favorites. It’s very steep and uphill but the view was completely worth it. I loved seeing all the trees from up above. I’ll be sure to work on one of those images soon. You’ll love it if you love fall and pretty things 🙂

The settings on my camera for this image is 1/50th of a second at F/8 ISO 250 with my Sony a7II and 28-70mm zoom lens.