My Autumn Harvest

Although I post a lot of photos on my blog, I’m not really a photographer, or a trained one, anyway. In my mind the real photographers appear here  and here, and a lot of them post here. 

 I just take advantage of the scenery around me, and try to record it, click, click, click.  Between digital cameras and cell phones, we’re all photographers these days.  I download my pictures to the computer, tweak them a little using Picasa, and voila.   

So anyway, Yankee Magazine, which I’ve read forever, holds an annual photography contest.  This year, it's called My New England and no, I'm not submitting a photo.  But the instructions have me looking around with a different eye, trying to see what makes my area special.  Fall color is late this year, and here by the shore, we don’t get much of it anyway.  But still, there’s a softness to the light as the earth slows down, gets ready for its big sleep.  Pumpkins appear on porches, the sun sets earlier leaving swaths of pink across the horizon. Farmers markets finish their seasons.  Cottages sit deserted on empty beaches. 

Last week I went out with Yankee's instructions in mind, and tried to capture some of it. 

Sunday Sigh

Last week, a talented photographer friend who is beginning her own photo business was kind enough to give me a lesson while we shot images around my town. Many of you know I have an addiction to a certain scene involving two simple dories and still water. For almost a year-and-a-half now, I’ve been stalking a peaceful causeway in town, hoping for the perfect photo opportunity.

Before we got started, my friend and I stopped into a local gallery and discovered the picture I have dreamed of taking—framed and on the wall, for sale by a professional photographer, Mike Sleeper. I sighed when I saw it, first in envy, and then awe. If you’d like to see what I’ve been dreaming about, click here.

After that humbling moment, cameras strapped around our necks, we walked around town on a day when, no word of a lie, everywhere we stepped a photo opportunity arose. She taught me more about my camera—shutter speeds, F-stops, but most of all, how to look through the lens like a photographer. As a result, we didn’t get very far, but the morning was a blast and I’m thrilled with my amateur results.

Please bear with me, but my Middle Passages posts are going to be sporadic or perhaps non-existent this week. As a thank you for your patience, I’ll leave you with some pictures from my tutorial session, though if you click my friend’s FB Page—you’ll see how a pro does it.

Oh, and happy 17th birthday today to our beautiful girl!!