It's great to be back. I haven't shot a sunrise since December, 2017. This past weekend I went with my girlfriend up to Portland, Maine. This was from Sunday morning.

From a couple weeks ago, I hadn't gotten around to processing because my wacom drivers had gotten messed up, but it's all good now.

Castle Hill Lighthouse is in Newport, Rhode Island. It's one of the better sunset locations in New England. Being on the east coast, those are hard to come by. I had hope for more spectacular sunset fireworks than this, but the light was still decent to work with. There was thick haze just before the sun went behind a cloud bank, and it filtered the light pretty well.

This is a blend of several exposures for depth of field, and one extra shot for the sky.

Went to a new spot this morning, Loblolly Point in Rockport, MA. Although the sunrise forecast was pretty solid here, at first I was worried because I saw only clear sky. These clouds swept in pretty fast, though, and it ended up being pretty interesting.

Originally my intention was to get closer to the water and get some of that wave-crashing good stuff. But the water was pretty mild despite the wind, and I saw these pools that appeared to complement the clouds pretty well, so this is what I went with. I'm pretty happy with the result.

This past weekend I drove down to Beavertail State Park for the first time. I've heard a lot about this place and seen a lot of impressive images, so it was time for a visit. It did not disappoint. It was a challenging place to shoot, though, mostly because where you might want to be is often inaccessible due to the cliffs. My usual strategy of getting low to the water was giving me some trouble, but I did eventually find a spot where I could do this. I think next time I may simply try and approach the shot differently.

The last of my shots from Piers Park on Monday. Large cities like Boston glow so beautifully at night.

This was about 140 seconds or so. Something like that.

This was once my most popular image on Flickr, and it still ranks pretty high in that regard. One-of-a-kind lighting that day, never been able to get anything quite like it after this time.

Nikon D50

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8

ISO 200

Exposure: 1/13 sec

Aperture: f/16

Filters: Hoya Circular Polarizer, Lee GND (5 stops total)

This is one I've been eager to work on for a long time, but couldn't find the time to for a while. There is little I could have asked for in terms of getting better conditions (perhaps a tad more water). The light this morning was ideal, and the Autumn foliage was as good as it gets.

Bash Bish Falls (they could have totally called this Sharktooth Falls, IMO) is, in my opinion, one of the most photogenic waterfalls in New England. I have another angle from the same morning that I think will turn out just as nice, when I get around to working on it.

I've seen very few photos of this one. But it was a short detour on the way back to Boston after visiting Twin Cascade. This is actually only half the waterfall, but the other half, to the right of this, was mostly dry. With all the rain we've had the past couple days, I can only imagine that both halves are running pretty strong right now. There's a road crossing the brook almost directly above this, but the angle I picked here fortunately makes it not visible.

Hey, so I'm not dead. It's been over a year since I last posted any new images. First things were derailed by Covid-19, as I'm sure they were for many. I chose to self-isolate for a long time due to concerns about my respiratory issues. I very much did not want to catch Covid. After that, I found that the outdoor locations were severely overcrowded to a level I haven't seen before, so I chose to stay away from the outdoors for a while. Then I was caught up in moving. That's right, I'm finally out of Boston and hopefully for good! I now live in scenic western MA. This waterfall is 15 minutes from me.

This is the lowest tier of Roaring Brook Falls, on the side of Mount Toby. I have previously captured the more unique upper tier, but I haven't really gotten a decent shot of the lower tier until now. This falls can dry to a trickle in the summer.

Hopefully this image represents the start of a new renaissance of photography adventures. Due to my new location, I foresee a lot more waterfalls and fewer beach sunrises (sorry, the ocean is now a minimum of 2 hours away).

Here is another from Singing Beach at the sunrise yesterday morning. This one actually shows the rocks at the southern end of the beach. I'm hoping that this is my most successful attempt yet at keeping the image dark without looking too dark.

Also, images I put up are going to be larger than they used to be from here on. As monitors have gone up in resolution, my previous images started looking smaller and smaller.

Here's another shot from Twin Cascade the past weekend. This is the left side. The fall colors were a little past peak here, but there was still a lot spread out on the ground. The water was also at low flow, but I was able to find a composition that worked with it.

I believe the left side of Twin Cascade may be one of the highest waterfalls in Massachusetts (it looks higher than Tannery to me). This is not counting Race Brook Falls and Doane Falls, both of which have significant flat areas in-between their numerous drops.

Changes are coming soon to my website, you can check it out and get a sense of what's coming.

Of the maintained gorges in the area, Havana Glen is one of the shortest, with about 1-2 minutes hike on the trail leading to this waterfall. What I especially like about this falls is that, unlike places like Buttermilk Falls and Watkins Glen, the end of the trail at the falls leaves you free to explore where to set up. You aren't stuck with one composition by angry signs and stone walls. This was also definitely one of the more graceful and elegant falls in the area.

It's not the tallest in NY, nor is it the largest by any category, but it definitely is in the running for the BEST. There are not a lot of new comps to be made for this falls, but I hope this one works well.

Although I had to contend with sun the majority of my trip, I was able to shoot this right around sunset to make sure there was no sun on the falls.

Here's another from Buttermilk Falls State Park. This is a bit above the main falls at the bottom of the gorge. There are loads of smaller waterfalls like this here, although this is one of many parks that limits you quite a bit as far as where you can stand. In most places it's a bit of a drop from the walking path to the brook, and they kind of frown on people doing that anyways. This was one of the few places on the gorge trail where I could do this.

I recently reprocessed this image from scratch using newer techniques I've learned, desiring a slightly more ethereal misty look for the city lights. I also straightened the horizon in a way that produces much less resolution loss than the method I used back in 2009.

This is, in my opinion, a view of Boston that should be an iconic image that every skyline photographer in Boston aims to get. Although I was originally hoping for a dramatic sunset, the fog clouds ended that wish and produced conditions much more unique after dark. Years later, I returned here to get the sunset I had wanted.

I'll try to get something new up later.

This is probably one of the most-visited places in The White Mountains, which is surprising since most other places don't cost any money to visit and this does. That said, it's a pretty amazing place. I visited here years ago with the old D50, and wanted to come back and get a new image with the D800. This was taken on the final day of the Vermont and New Hampshire fall trip, around the beginning of October. At the top of this huge eroded basalt dike is a waterfall, which will be the last image from the trip. There are a couple other waterfalls in this park but they didn't work out this time around, so I'll have to come back.

That's really the name of the pond. I think this is Medford, not really sure. It's about a half-mile north of the Alewife station. EDIT: Okay, apparently this is East Arlington.

Great sunset tonight. I'm a bit behind on checking up on contacts, but I promise I will sit in front of the computer all day tomorrow and catch up on everyone's stuff.

Nikon D50

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 @ 17mm

ISO 200

Exposure: 2 sec

Aperture: f/16

Lee GND filters, 3-stop + 2-stop

small Curves adjustment in Photoshop

Another shot from Nickerson Beach & Chapel Rock park in Quincy, MA. This shot is over by the Chapel Rock area. The chunk sticking out in the foreground is an example of that volcanic conglomerate I was talking about in a previous post. Behind To the right, as well as behind me, are steep drop-offs into the water.

This was shot almost exactly at sunset and is facing towards Umass Boston.

Nikon D50

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8

ISO 200

Exposure: 1 sec

Aperture: f/16

Filters: Lee 3-stop ND grad, Singh-Ray 3-stop Reverse ND grad

Much came together right for this shot, taken back in early October. The fall colors in southern NH had finally reached peak, it was a chilly morning providing some mist on the water, and the forecast showed strong potential for sunrise. And there was some great color indeed, but almost all of it was behind me when I took this shot of Mount Monadnock behind Perkins Pond. Still, there was a nice patch of it right over the mountain, and I generally like what I came away with here.

30 images went into creating this final product, which may be a new record for me. This waterfall along the MA/CT border is sometimes one of the best in the state, however the flow was pretty mild when I was here. Also, the sun was out, which is why it took so many images. Although the processing worked out okay, I still feel like this isn't the best I could get from here. A cloudy day with recent rain would get me what I really want.

This begins the last bunch of images from back in October. A week after I took the previous shot, I went to western MA for 2 days. I have a lot more images from this trip.

Shot from Otter Cove in Acadia National Park. I'm not really sure what this circle of rocks was for, if anything. They surround on of many glacial potholes in the park. Seriously, these small pits are everywhere. I found them all over the upper parts of the mountains. They were formed by waterfalls pouring off high glaciers (8000 feet!) thousands of years ago.

Nikon D50

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 @ 17mm

ISO 200

Exposure: 1/60 sec

Aperture: f/8

Filters: Lee GND 2-stop + 3-stop

From a few weeks back with Justin. Weather's been garbage lately for the most part, so no shooting. And the few times the forecast has looked good, I'm unable to get out. Bah.

Along with Lower Purgatory, one of the better waterfalls within an hour+ of Boston. Stopped by here Saturday after my afternoon suddenly freed up. My buddy Justin had invited me here last weekend but I couldn't make it. After hearing how cool it was, I figured I'd try to make up for missing out and checking it out myself.

Most shots you see of this are head on, capturing the two tiers well. I spent a good couple of hours here trying all sorts of different comps, trying to come up with something fun and creative. This was the best of the bunch. Oh, and for a sense of scale, that lower tier is probably ten feet high. The entire height combined is 50 feet; there are other smaller tiers above what you can see here.

Side note, I probably should have used a 17mm instead of 14mm so I could throw a polarizer on, but there wasn't a whole lot of room behind me and I already had a couple of close calls with slipping on wet, angled rocks and nearly killing myself, so closer-to-the-wall-on-fairly-dry-ground-so-no-polarizer it was. Did what I could to kill some of the obnoxious reflections on the wet rocks.

This is just off the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire. I've been here once before a few years ago, but always wanted a better shot. This was taken back in early October.

In other news, I was promising a New Years update, and I have that now. Visitors to my site will see that I'm now doing portrait/pet photos. They won't be on my Flickr page, and I'm keeping the two sections of the website separate. So if you or someone you know is local to Boston and is interested in finding someone to do that kind of work, you can send them to my site for available times.

Whittier Falls is located in the Castle in the Clouds area of the Ossippee Range. I'm not sure it would be a named waterfall if there weren't two much larger ones downstream. Still, it's a pretty scene, made more interesting by fresh snowfall and a pervasive fog that lasted the entire day.

I've been on another kinda hiatus for a bit, had other "life" things to take care of, but I was really glad to get out this past weekend with my girlfriend and head up to Portland, Maine. I've wanted to shoot this lighthouse for like a decade but just never really had the chance. I made it up here once before but it was completely fogged in to the point that you couldn't even see the lighthouse.

This is from sunset Saturday night. Unfortunately, they kicked everyone out about 15-20 minutes before sunset. I did manage to get some shots showing how the light was headed, but at the time of this picture the color was still very muted, so I decided to do black and white here.

I have another shot from Sunday morning on the other side of the lighthouse, which was quite an impressive sunrise. I'll have it up tomorrow. There are at least two other shots from here I want, including this view at sunrise (probably in the summer when the sun rises as far north as possible). Navigating to this spot in the dark before morning is a little sketchy; there's a spot where you have to kind of cross a chasm.

I think the yellow flowers are wild parsnips, according to google. This is my last shot from that evening a few weeks back up in NH. I had some pretty great lighting conditions.

I need to get to work on the waterfalls from that day next.

I haven't been to this one in a very long time. In fact, looks like... 2011 was the last time. That was on my old Nikon D50. That day was one of the first times I spent a whole day doing photography. Here's a link to the old shot: www.flickr.com/photos/justinsmith_photo/6510429249/in/alb...

This is Bissell Covered Bridge, which goes over a brook just downstream of Mill Brook Falls, which isn't a true waterfall but an old stone dam.

Here's a pretty obscure trickle-falls. I'm actually not 100% sure this is Rollo Falls, but it's the one I was looking for and it's about where it was supposed to be, it just doesn't really look like the pictures I've found online of it.

The plants in the foreground are pretty common in the woods here, and I'm not sure what they are called, but they made for a decent balance with the falls.

Bears Den is a small gorge in an obscure area north of the Quabbin Reservoir. As a waterfall, it's pretty small stuff, but it has one of the best spiraling pools I've found in the state.

For some reason the circular polarizer was unable to completely eliminate the reflection in the water.

This image is originally from back in the fall of 2010. I've learned a lot of new processing techniques then, and I saw an opportunity to revisit this image. This new version features stronger blue-orange contrast ,and generally feels more dramatic, as the scene felt in person.

My second time visiting this icon of NH. As unique and beautiful as it is, it is rather challenging to shoot to satisfaction. The place you really want to shoot is directly in the flow of the brook, but it's really sketchy there and you could go over the larger falls below pretty easily.

While I like this shot, I have ideas for this place that will be much more interesting. Some other time...

Earlier this month, my girlfriend and I went on a week-long road-trip through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, to see the fall colors and a lot of waterfalls. This was taken at Daicey Pond in Baxter State Park after our first night camping out. Well, this one wasn't really camping, as we stayed in a cabin. This campground only has cabins, no tent-sites.

In any event, this place has one of the best views of Mount Katahdin, and is well-suited for sunrise. The cold morning air combined with the water that still had some residual warmth from summer created some nice conditions for mist.

You can see the rest of the images from the trip on my website: www.justinsmithphoto.com/galleries/recent

This past weekend I made a trip up to Sugar Hill, NH with my girlfriend for the lupines that are blooming at this time. My goal was a sunrise shot, and this is it, taken from the small patch of lupines just opposite Polly's Pancake Parlor. We stopped there for breakfast shortly afterwards.

The sunrise color was limited to some clouds that were close to the horizon, so I swapped the wide angle for the 85mm, which allowed me to bring the clouds and mountainous horizon closer. This one doesn't have as much processing as most of my other images. I found that many techniques I often used didn't contribute positively to this image, so there's no Orton effect, no darkening of the midtones, no added light glow, just a couple stacks of images focus blended in Helicon Focus, and then brought together in Photoshop, plus some selective dodging of the flowers to make them stand out better.

My website is really behind. I'm in the process of building a new one using Wordpress.

I found dozens of my favorite little dudes when I did my waterfall trip a few weekends ago. These are juvenile red-spotted newts, called efts. They come out after rain, and although they are probably actually one of the most common salamanders in New England, I always love finding them. Of course, I had to waste a lot of time moving every single one off the hiking trail so nobody would step on them.

After this, I will have the 2nd batch of waterfalls from that weekend. I also have some new exciting stuff coming from New Hampshire captured this weekend.

Also, I really need to get a proper macro lens and stop trying to do macro with my wide-angle landscape lens.

Here's a shot from Annisquam lighthouse from a few weeks ago. Could have had better clouds, but at least the extreme haze allowed me to shoot the sun directly. To my eyes, the sun was a very dark red and could almost feel comfortable looking at it.

Actually, the reason I am uploading this is to announce that I'm having my first sale on October 8-10. So if you're in eastern Massachusetts, you can stop by at the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA. I'll be there for all three days of their annual craft fair.

Monday apparently was "bad air quality day" in Boston, but it did have some interesting effects on the sunset.

Not HDR or DRI, used gnd filters...

This is only a small part of Garwin Falls. Behind me, there is a low, wide cascade into a deep pool. To the right and left of the waterfall in this shot are side cascades. And above this are higher parts. It is a really great waterfall, probably my favorite in Southern NH. I'll have a different version up later showing the full thing.

I'm not sure how well this composition works; it will be interesting to see what people think. I'm pretty sure Arethusa Falls hasn't been shot this way before. This is a crowded waterfall and I got a lot of odd looks as I put my waders on and went in up to my waist to be able to get this little cascade in the foreground. The fall colors weren't quite ripe yet, but I did like the birches in the background. This was another tough clear-sky waterfall, but sun was fortunately not making its presence known yet.

Photo processing has been slow lately because I've been getting a lot of web development work done. The site is now updated to be mobile-friendly, and there are further tweaks to come soon. Also, a big announcement for the business that is still scheduled to be released on January 1st.

One from this morning in Scituate. I've been here a few years ago but the light wasn't ideal. It was better this time, however the real show was to the south in Rhode Island and the Buzzards Bay area.

It's great when the forecast for a sunset or sunrise delivers everything promised. This past Sunday I went to a fairly hidden spot in Rockport and saw one of the best sunrises I've ever seen. It was so impressive that I felt bad about not being able to fit all the sky I wanted, and I ended up taking extra shots so I could pano them together into the 4:5 ratio you see here.

When it turns out like this it really makes you want to go out and shoot every day.

Last weekend I visited Niles Beach in Gloucester. Pretty cool beach. It's mostly sand but in the middle there are some nice rocks. I have a bunch of shots to put up from here, then it's back to more waterfalls and autumn foliage from October.

This was taken a bit before sunset. There was a lot of haze in the sky so the lighting got good early.

Here's another from Niles Beach in Gloucester. I didn't get too many "crashing wave" shots, but I did get this one.

Just upstream from the main waterfall. I love this kind of carved out rock and pools. The water here is a silty gray color, which is really unusual for New England. Usually the brooks here are clear or tinted brown from decaying leaves. Since we have no glaciers to produce glacial silt, I'm not really sure what is in this water. Maybe some kind of clay?

This is the first shot taken on my week-long photo trip through Vermont and New Hampshire a couple weeks ago. Although it had rained a few times this day (and absolutely poured the next), the weather settled into an ideal "post-rain" weather for waterfall photography while I was here.

I guess this is the iconic view in Watkins Glen, showing Rainbow Falls on the left and the bridge across the creek. I've seen a lot of shots of here, but of course I had to have my own. Another blend of several exposures to handle the tricky lighting here, and also for depth of field.

It's been a while since my last image, but I've had several unrelated crisis events in my life that have kept me busy. I'm not sure when I'll get to go out and do images like this again, but fortunately I still have a backlog of photos to work on.

Beginning with this one, which goes back to mid-October when I went to western Massachusetts for a weekend. This is Race Brook Falls again, but a different section. One of the reasons Race Brook Falls is often so highly-regarded among MA waterfalls is that it is actually several significant falls separated by relatively slow sections of the brook. This one is up above the previous shot, but it's really just as nice.

There are a couple other falls above, but based on images I have seen, I decided trying to get to them wasn't a good use of my time for that day.

This weirdly-named waterfall is located at the bottom of Filmore Glen in New York. As a whole, this glen wasn't nearly as exciting as the others in the area. There is one other significant waterfall at the distant top of the gorge, and much of what is between is a pretty forested valley that lacks the high cliff walls, waterfalls, and sculpted rock formations common in other glens.

This was a pretty brutal blend of images, as the foreground rocks were in bright sun that turned them white at normal settings, and the shaded background was black. In processing this, I wanted to capture detail in the foreground while still maintaining the sense that there was bright sun on it. The sun was also in a position that threw a large amount of glare over the upper right corner of the lens even though the sun was not in the photo. For this image I took each shot while using my hand to block the sunlight hitting the lens.

So I promised a different perspective on this waterfall, and here it is. I made use of my waders to get waist-deep in the pool below the final cascade of this waterfall. I think the fall colors came out a lot better here as well.

This is a surprisingly awesome waterfall in southern NH. Had to deal with some tricky light here but I think I came away okay in the end.

Thanks to Chris Lazzery for the crop suggestion on this image.

I have to say, I find series of cascades like this generally more photogenic than powerful high waterfalls. It was only about 10-15 minutes between this image and the previous image of Colosseum Falls, but it was enough that the sun went behind some clouds and the lighting became much easier to work with.

This was on the way up to Arethusa Falls, which I shot but I'm not sure yet if I like the shots I got.