On the way to the city we made a brief stop to get photos of the night sky in the backcountry of Maine. It wasn’t all that cold outside as the wind wasn’t really blowing hard. There was snow on the ground though in some spots which was new since missing that in Quebec City. Our stop was in Portland, Maine on the Atlantic Coast.
The idea was to get a photo of Portland Head Lighthouse at sunrise. We wanted to check out the location before the morning, and it was only a short trip from the hotel by car. We went out at about 10 PM to see where we could possibly capture the sunrise in about 8 hours. We saw a scene that was lit brightly by the full moon above our heads though, and couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to photograph it with the stars and everything well exposed!
We also went to the Bug Lighthouse in the bay area of Portland Maine. It was much smaller, and not nearly as awesome of a subject as the Portland Head Lighthouse.
The next morning, we went out very early to capture the lighthouse at sunrise. The sky was completely overcast with clouds though, and that made the scene very flat at first. The sky opened up slightly to the East though as the sun came up. We had about a five-minute window where the sun was shining through that small gap, and I had to make the most of it.
Luckily, I was already in a good position to capture the scene in the way I wanted to. I had to get down to the lowest rocks to the water. I was about a foot away from the edge, and my camera was on a tripod inches from disaster yet again. It was a fantastic result though as the lighthouse got a brilliant red glow from the first morning light, and the skywas a faint purple hue. The sea itself turned into an emerald-aqua color that rounded it all out nicely with the rocks and moss in the foreground.
This basically ended our main trip out over Thanksgiving Break. We had to pack up and leave to go west shortly afterwards.