"For Whom the Bell Tolls" Maine coast milky way

jsecordphoto · Jun 25, 2014

Hermit Island- Phippsburg, Maine

High up on the these cliffs, cut out from thousands of years of tides crashing along shore, was an amazing experience. I've been camping here at Hermit Island every summer since I was just a kid, and it's been an incredible place to shoot photos- day and night. Just offshore, there is a bell attached to a buoy that is one of the thing I remember the most from our trips here. Some people hate it, but I find it relaxing to listen to the bell clang in the distance as I fell asleep in my tent. I've been experimenting more with merging sky exposures and long foreground exposures for added DoF and a better looking foreground. This was a sky exposure of iso3200, f2.8, 25 seconds. Then 2 foreground exposures focused at different points, both iso1600, f4, 8 minutes. Manually blended in PS6.

Thanks for looking!

PropilotBW · Jun 25, 2014

That's a very nice shot. I like your techniques.

keyseddie · Jun 25, 2014

Nice story, excellent image and thanks for being someone who thinks before he shoots.:thumbup:

jsecordphoto · Jun 25, 2014

keyseddie said:
Nice story, excellent image and thanks for being someone who thinks before he shoots.:thumbup:

Thank you. Its been an amazing trip so far, about a week into a 3 week camping trip. Access to cell service...never mind WiFi, is difficult, but I'm excited to post more here of what love been getting.

tirediron · Jun 25, 2014

Very nice!

pgriz · Jun 25, 2014

The image, composition, and execution are excellent. The only negative to the image is the noise in the shadow portion (lower part of the image). If those were cleaned up, it would be truly a spectacular "home-run" shot. I noticed that you are apparently doing something similar to what Majeed has done with his Crater Lake shot (http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/363080-galaxy-guardian.html), although in your version the Mikly Way is more prominent. Please don't take my comments as critisism - I think you've achieved a very memorable result.

jsecordphoto · Jun 25, 2014

pgriz said:
The image, composition, and execution are excellent. The only negative to the image is the noise in the shadow portion (lower part of the image). If those were cleaned up, it would be truly a spectacular "home-run" shot. I noticed that you are apparently doing something similar to what Majeed has done with his Crater Lake shot (http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/363080-galaxy-guardian.html), although in your version the Mikly Way is more prominent. Please don't take my comments as critisism - I think you've achieved a very memorable result.

No, I appreciate the feedback. I actually noticed the noise earlier when I looked at this photo on a desktop rather than my laptop. Editing photos from my campsite has been...interesting. I was a little impatient while taking this and neglected my dark frames, so I set my camera up tonight and took some with the body cap on and in my photo bag. I'm gonna run the raw files through a program to clean up the noise/hot pixels

runnah · Jun 25, 2014

Hey I know where that is!

Ps all of Maine looks like that so come visit and spend lots of money!

Mandeep.Singh · Jun 25, 2014

WOW, just awesome, thanks for sharing.

Msteelio91 · Jun 26, 2014

Very cool spot/story and amazing shot.

JustJazzie · Jun 26, 2014

Amazing work here! I swear I could hear the bell as I was reading your tidbit and looking into the frame. Thanks so much for sharing!

ronlane · Jun 26, 2014

Cool image and story. Man, I wouldn't know how to act if I could take a 3 week camping trip.

jsecordphoto · Jun 26, 2014

ronlane said:
Cool image and story. Man, I wouldn't know how to act if I could take a 3 week camping trip.

Hah, I'm pretty much just running around like a madman shooting as many photos as possible. I really appreciate the feedback from everyone, this place in Maine is really special to me and its been amazing spending time photographing it. I'm also racking up print orders which doesn't hurt either