You would think that after two mostly unsuccessful times chasing winter storms on the coast of Maine that I would have had enough. This winter is not winter on the coast. The Maine coast was stuck in November until January and now it jumped ahead and is stuck in March. Either way the result is the same- cold, dreary, wet and no snow. All in all the perfect mix for miserable photography.

But last week I tried once again, this time with Brenda, and this time trying to get out in front of the storm so I could be at a location when the Nor’easter hit. That all worked out fine. The only problem was that the storm was all rain, not a speck of snow. It was some storm- 60 mph winds, driving rain, 36 degrees- and it made for truly dreadful photography conditions but it wasn’t wintery.

So what do you do when you are somewhere looking for a particular kind of shot and it just doesn’t work? You do the best you can. We shot November scenes, March scenes (they are the same) and some conceptual winter scenes. What does that mean? It means photograph scenes that could only be taken in winter even though it may not look like winter. In a Maine harbor that means photograph lobster boats with stacks of lobster traps in the background or photograph people in heavy winter clothing. Both of these imply winter even though they are not obviously so. Are these pictures as good as a winter wonderland harbor scene? Nope. but if the Gods eventually do smile on me and I get the shot I dream of then these other pictures will fill in rest of the winter story. It is the old lemon/lemonade deal. You just have to learn to appreciate lemons.

Well, I’ve been at it again, chasing the weather in hopes of getting some wintery lobstering shots. Once again a storm was forecast to come up the coast and hit the Gulf of Maine. Not a big storm but big enough. What I learned from my last trip was that even if there is snow in the air for the photograph to look ‘wintery’ there has to be snow on the ground. This means that you have to wait for enough snow to accumulate before you start shooting.

But here is the catch- you have to have light in order to photograph! I know it seems obvious but sometimes even though it is obvious to you and me Mother Nature is still in the dark. I mean literally, in the dark because when the storm hit and it was snowing hard it was obvious that by the time there was going to be enough snow on the ground it was going to be too dark to photograph.

So what do you do? It is snowing, there are lobster boats out in a pretty harbor but there is no snow on the ground and I just drove four hours to get the shot. I decided to shoot long through as much falling snow as I could to obscure the background (and its lack of snow). There were a couple of landscape shots with nice foregrounds but without snow on the close stuff the entire shot would be a bust. When the boats all lined up (from the wind and tide) I had my shot.

The harbor is Cape Porpoise, a few miles east down the coast on Rt. 9  from Kennebunkport. It is a beautiful spot with lots of photographic possibilities. Cape Porpoise is also about the closest harbor to me that has a good number of lobster boats still in the harbor in the dead of winter.

So why did I only get one shot? I got others but they weren’t as nice. Also I was losing light rapidly. When I came back in the morning before sunrise I got another shot of the snow covered dories but the sky was getting blue, the sunlight was becoming harsh and the shooting was done at 7:15. So I caught some breakfast and headed home.

There is another storm that is supposed to show up and cruise down the coast next Tuesday. Yes, I’ll be out on the coast trying to catch winter once again. This time I am going to try to find some people to include in my pictures. I’ll keep you posted.

I know that it seems ridiculous to write this but I am having a very hard time getting winter lobstering photographs. Yes I know that you all are thinking that I live in the eastern US and the news has been telling all who listen that the east has been getting nailed with snow. Well, not all the eastern US!

In northern New England we have been having a cold but very dry winter. Here in Vermont we didn’t get any snow from the last two big storms that walloped Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. In fact, I have more bare ground around my house than snow-covered ground.

What this means for the Lobstering Life book project is that it is very hard to get winter lobstering shots or I should say wintery looking shots. Wintery shots require snow on the ground at the very least and snow in the trees  at the very best. Without snow the photographs look like a very dreary day in November or April.

So I sit and wait for storms. A week ago I watched the weather maps and dashed off to the Maine coast ahead of the last storm. Forecasts called for 4 to 6 inches but when I got to the coast there was no snow! No snow on the ground, no snow on the trees, no snow in the air, no snow. Arrrggghhh!

So I went to Sanders Lobsters in Portsmouth, NH for a lobster portrait (I had to do something!) and then played with some gear on a private wharf. Both shots are okay but both can and will be done better. I didn’t really have time to shoot the gear properly (the owner of the wharf was standing there waiting for me to finish-can’t blame him, the wharf was slippery) and besides, the last thing we need is another shot of lobstering gear. The portrait was also okay but the background could be better and I think I need to  be off to the side more and not so much in front of the lobster.

And so now I sit and wait and wait. I came home after just one night. No sense hanging out and spending money when there is nothing to shoot and no weather on the horizon to give me hope. I expect some snow in a week or so. If it comes Brenda and I will go and shoot our collective brains out! Brenda is going to Monhegan Island and photograph that iconic isolated lobstering community and I will go to Vinalhaven (its warmer there) and see what I can get. Wish us luck!  I’ll keep you posted.

This is a picture of a bateleur eagle. Most unfortunately, it is not one of mine. It was taken by my great friend, Jeff Wendorff. I think Jeff is the best bird photographer out there.Yes, I know there are other bird photographers better known but the only thing Jeff lacks is an ego the size of Florida and the arrogance to tell you how good he is.

So you want a picture like this? Do you want this picture? I can do that for you. It turns out that Jeff is leading a Birds of Prey photography trip for my Photographers Alliance Workshops to the World Birds of Prey Center in Boise, Idaho. PAW is the only photography group that has permission to take photographers to Center. We are getting point blank on all the best, most exotic and photogenic birds of prey of the world. Out of their cages, in natural-looking settings with perfect backgrounds-it doesn’t get any better than that!

This is an extraordinary opportunity to get stunning pictures that no one else has. And with Jeff teaching you (PAW leaders don’t photograph on workshops), making sure you are getting the best shot you can’t help to get beautiful photos. Check out the PAW website-paworkshops.net- to get the details on this workshop.

Well, almost my new book. My new book cover!!

The process is grinding along. The schedule publication date is early June. I have gone through all the edits and made the changes or argued about how right I actually am. All the pictures have been selected although I haven’t seen any of them and most I don’t know which is which. This is because I am an idiot and I didn’t put complete file names on the images when I made my submission to the publisher. But it is also because my book is really the publisher’s. Commonwealth Editions is paying for the editing, design, printing, distribution, marketing, etc. My name is on the front cover but it is their book.

I don’t have a problem with this. This is the deal you make when you sign a contract with a publisher. It is up to you to make sure the publisher you are agreeing to work with is a publisher who will be sensitive to your ideas and your design sensibilities. If you don’t like what the publisher has done than it is your own fault.

Of course the other side of this is complete control of the entire process. This is called self-publishing and it is very expensive. I would rather cede some of the decisions (I am after all not an expert in design, marketing, printing, etc) to the publisher I choose than send tens of thousand of dollars to do it myself. That is the best way I know to get an inferior product and a no chance of profit cost.

Oh, and I like it. Commonwealth Editions even allowed me some input on the several cover concepts they had. Now I just have to wait for all the stuff that goes in between. Stay tuned, you all will be the first to know!

I have gotten some new gear lately that I thought you’d like to know about. I am not much of a gear nut. I don’t read reviews, I don’t get into the minutia of specs and I don’t really care what others think about this or that. I care if it works for me and whether it is good enough for me.

The first thing I got was a new tripod. Yes, I already have a great tripod, an everyday tripod but what am I going to do with just one tripod? It doesn’t seem right to have just one tripod. A fella ought to have at least two tripods, right? So I got another Gitzo tripod. I needed one for travel that didn’t have the usual travel tripod problems- thin legs, too short, hard to use, and just not very steady. I had spent a lot of time looking for the perfect travel tripod, that is the perfect travel tripod made by Gitzo. Sorry, but I don’t even look at other tripods. I like Gitzos, the have always been great for me for the 25 years I have been using them and I am myopically loyal. Live with it. I got the 3541LS. It is only 21 inches long when contracted and it is just about 6 feet tall with the ball head on it. I like it so much that I gave it to two of my close photography friends so I wouldn’t be embarrassed when out shooting with them!

The second thing I got was a Nikon 24-120mm lens. I should say that I re-got it. This is the lens that I used 80% of the time on my upcoming dairy farm book. It is wide enough for landscapes and small places and long enough to zoom out for details and nice portraits. I tried other lenses when my original got some nicks in the glass from hard use but none quite matched up with the 24-120. I still like the 18-200 but my go-to lens is the 24-120.

Okay, this will be a short one because I just don’t want to think about it anymore. Right now I am on vacation in Laguna Beach in southern California. We got some free tickets at a coastside resort so we cashed in and got out of winter for a few days.

Now to the point. I didn’t bring any camera gear-none, nothing, zippo, nil, nada. Why? Because I wasn’t anticipating having anything to photograph in Laguna Beach. Not that there isn’t anything to photograph there. It was more that I wasn’t going to be looking for things to be photographing.

Oops. Turns out that you don’t have to look for things to photograph, they’ll find you. So far, there has been spectacular sunsets every night. I would’ve had to decide between palm trees or breaking waves as a foreground. Yesterday, we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Nothing to photograph there! Andean Cock of the Rock in perfect light on branch at eye level with nothing but green in the background and beautiful twisting neck of a Chilean Flamingo, his eye just peaking out from under his wing- 8 feet away!!!

And just now I have walked back from the pool area where a falconer was set up. He comes three times a week to fly his birds to keep the gulls off the roofs. No one else was down there with the birds other than the handler- 3 Sakar falcons, 2 Harris’ Hawks and, just to deepen the dagger in my photographic heart, a Eurasian Eagle Owl. Soft light, soft backgrounds, still birds, happy falconer- couldn’t be better. I would love to show you the pictures I took of these magnificent birds but I DIDN’T HAVE MY CAMERA!!!!

Did I mention that the eagle owl is huge and has blazing orange eyes? Never mind, I don’t want to hear about it.

It is amazing how good cameras are these days with capturing scenes in very low light. I learned this while I was doing my farm book project and I had to get pictures inside dark barns and sheds. But I am still amazed at what I get when I am taking the pictures. The hardest part of taking these pictures is not listening to the loud part of your brain that is screaming at you for being such an idiot for even thinking about photographing in so little light. Once you can ignore all the mental noise you will be shocked at how good the pictures are.

These were taken with my Nikon D300 at ISO 1600. There is a bit of noise in the dark areas but not too much and not enough that can’t be washed out with various noise reduction programs.

The reason I took these pictures at night is because that is when the lobster boats were going out! I was in Stonington, Maine working on the book project a couple of weeks ago in mid-January. Stonington is one of the few places that actively lobsters in winter but to do so they have to go 30 to 40 miles offshore in 300 to 500 feet of water. This means 2 hours of traveling just to get to their first pot! So they take on fuel and bait at 4:30 am and come back at 6 or 7 pm.

If you want to get pictures of winter lobstering you got to get up when they do and get the pictures you can. Best dress warm because it is very cold. On this morning it was 8 degrees and there was a breeze blowing off the water. My hands got very cold but the pictures were worth it.  Besides, what else are you doing at 4:30 in the morning?

Okay, here is the full story. I have just gotten a contract to do another book. This one is going to be on lobstering in the Gulf of Maine. I have been photographing the harbors and the lobstering detritus of the Northeast for 20 years but this is the first time I am doing so with a purpose so I am very excited. My friend, Brenda Berry, came up with the idea while we were teaching a workshop in Acadia. I have no clue why I didn’t think of a book on lobstering, but I didn’t.

Brenda and I have just started seriously exploring the Gulf of Maine coast and making contacts with the local lobster fishermen (yes, there are women lobsterers but they prefer to be called either fishermen or lobstermen). This wonderful gentleman we found in Stonington, Maine. He gets up at 2am every day to work in his shop cleaning, repairing, painting, organizing his gear. (Okay, maybe not so much on the organizing.) We walked in, introduced ourselves and sat there of 45 minutes as he told us stories and kept us very entertained. He is a piece of work and I can’t wait to get back and visit and photograph him again.

I have to say that I have never found a more friendly and universally generous group of people as the lobstermen of the Northeast. Everywhere we went, always unannounced, always barging in making a nuisance of ourselves we were welcomed and made to feel at home. Perhaps it is how we go about it, perhaps it is because Brenda is with me and she is enthusiastic and happy to the point of justifiable homicide but I think it is because lobstermen are just plain friendly.

The gentleman’s name is Steve. His son runs one of the local fishing co-ops. He suggested that we go and talk to his dad. He was probably just trying to get rid of us but he did us a huge favor. Not only was his dad a character but he was sitting in a ridiculously photogenic place. Brenda and I both commented on how no one could design this workshop, it wouldn’t look right. This is from years of ‘just is.’ It was perfect!

Look forward to more, much more, stories and pictures on lobstering. We have set up a website on the book: www.thelobsteringlife.com. We are going to post pictures and keep you abreast of the progress of the book.

I met this man in Stonington, Maine while working on my next book, A Lobstering Life. What a character! I will tell you more about him in the blogs to come but I wanted to introduce you all to him. His name is Steve Robbins Jr.