Bridge To Nowhere, Or The Way Off This Crazy Island?. Martha's Vineyard, Ma. (gotta title it something- what would you call it?)

I've got nothing more to add for the day- hope you're well.

-Nate.

Old Timer Lobsterman. Made this photograph last year, I just needed something to lead off story hour here.

Right then- where were we? Yes, yes I wanted to tell you guys (at least my loyal 10 or 20 or so readers) about my cool new gig- guess what it is? Give up? Well- I'll just tell you: I'm now a Sternman on a lobster boat out of Bass Harbor Maine! Yeah! I'm going lobstering- how crazy is that!>? I know, I know you guys probably thought I was going to say something like: I'm the new L.L. Bean catalog photographer or something :-) ? Ya right, but no, I'm not really a big time pro dog photographer, I just play one on t.v., or the interwebs, or whatever. Actually I make photography because I love it and it's my passion, but it's never been my sole method of supporting myself. I do make a bit of money from making pictures but when you really get down to it, it really doesn't disappoint me that I don't make my living through photography- that way I can keep doing it only for the satisfaction and reward of doing it and not have to confuse passion for profession. At least that's my excuse! So I have to work other jobs to buy gear and pay bills.

Here's how I ended up here- not the long story that goes: my mother met my father in Brooklyn N.Y. in 1947... but the short one where: as of January of this year I was supposedly hired on to an awesome photography job that involved lots of traveling through the late spring and summer and beautiful locations, and great gear, and great people, and I was totally psyched for it- then, two Fridays ago I was informed that the whole thing was cancelled. Cancelled! In a nutshell- I was crushed. But I'm a tough guy so I only cried for a day and a half. After that point it was time to make a new plan. Quickly! The thing is that since I had such big plans for the summer and my life was going to have had been so exciting and interesting, at least different(?) I definitely didn't want to go back to doing something that I'd done before- I didn't want to replay the old me, I wanted something new, and interesting, and exciting!

So, going to the neighborhood store Sunday morning of two weeks ago to buy my soothing pack of cigarrettes for the first time in a month. Ya, that wasn't really working out for me, the whole nicotine abstinence thing, I came out of the store and stood there puffing on my smokey mc'pacifier and ogled the bulletin board and there was the sign for 'Sternman needed'- and right off I emailed myself the phone #. After living over here on "The Backside" of the island (Mount Desert Island) for the last 6 years, which is the heart of lobster country USA- I've learned that sometimes lobstermen will hire inexperienced people to train as sternmen because they can be trained from the ground up like, no previous bad habits or such. So I figured that I'm healthy, still young enough (almost), and at least like to get up early and I like boats and love the ocean, and my whole family (except brother Andy) has gone to sea, so maybe I had a chance. Therefore the next day, after considering a couple other mostly lame options, I called the fella. He answered the phone on the dock and after some questions and some further follow up questions by his fiance (mostly to check my reputation it seemed) I ended up down at the dock on Friday morning of last week at 5:55 am (I showed up a bit early)- (and 5:50 AM is pretty late for this time of year, so he must have been going easy on me for that day). Met him as he was pulling up to the dock at the time which is good because he didn't have to wait, he said come on aboard and I said, which was redundant at the time, but I just really wanted to say it- "permission to come aboard Captain?". A couple guys in the boat over on the other side said something about breaking in the new greenhorn, a couple chuckles later etc, and we were off. 

A dock on Bass Harbor last Friday morning n the fog.

Fishermen's memorial. Then you walk by this.

Captain Dan at the wheel. I'll introduce you to him proper later on. 

Motoring past another lobster boat at anchor.

My whole life I have been a fickle dood- for the first part of my life I wanted to be an Air Force pilot, then I wanted to be a professional windsurfer, then I went to college to be a jazz musician and composer, then I became a chef, then I worked as a carpenter, then I was a truck driver all over Maine which led to finding all kinds of excellent locations for photography, then I was a glassblower, then I discovered making photography. Not to say that any of those things I didn't love enough to keep doing them forever, just for one reason or another I moved on. Photography has sustained me for the last 13 years now though because I can always find time for it on my own time and I don't need to depend on anyone else for any part of the workflow to achieve creativity. Photography is something that has always been just all mine. I guess one of the big reasons that I've never tried to "strike out on my own" with it though is that I learned being a musician that it's extremely discouraging to have to find jobs all the time. I just never had enough faith to work for myself and always wanted to work for someone else and then later go and create for myself. And as far as being a fickle guy, change is good- and that's why Maine is such a great place to live: just about the last job you'll end up working at around here will be in an office, therefore experiential life moments become par for the course. You work a day and feel alive for it, not the opposite. Not to compare anyone or any job or to say that this is better than that- and I'm sure there are a number of office jobs that I would thrive in- creative ones in some kind of way or other, I'm just wicked psyched for my new office out on the ocean off the coast of Maine.

Here's a reality check: it's not a pleasure cruise out there! We're not waterskiing while drinking beer with bikini girls playing Jimmy Buffet songs casually plucking lobsters like cherries off the waves- no. Do you like fish? Are you a cat? Then you'd loooove my job! I get to scoop up handfulls of dead herring into bait bags- a couple hundred bags so far per day- all day.

Sardines anyone?

Fishnet stockings.

Oh and day starts at 04:30 am, so I get up at 03:30 to pound coffee and sit there reading PetaPixel crosseyed. The nice thing is that my commute is all of 4 minutes from leaving my driveway to parking at the harbor, I leave at about 4:20 to get there early. So on the steam out to the first string I bait bags up then the Captain gaffs the first trap leader and pulls it up in the block and hauls it aboard. Then I grab the pot and drag it down the rail, whip open the door and remove the old bait bag (either nothing but bones or a stinking gelatinous gumball) replace with a new bag, then I pull out the lobsters and put them on the sorting/bait table, meanwhile the Cap'n is doing the same on his trap as they come up in pairs usually. We chuck the bycatch out and the baby lobsters and muck out a couple handfulls of seaweed, close the doors and he steams aways till he knocks them back over. Meanwhile I'm checking them for size and to see if there are any egg bearing or v-notched females (the Cap talks very fondly of the females), banding their claws so they don't destroy each other, and then I get to make more bait bags! The whole time the boat, which is 36 feet long, is totally rolling and rocking literally and sonically to classic-rock so if you can't ride on a subway car without holding on to your straps you probably wouldn't enjoy being out there very much. There's no real time to be sea sick or eat or pee or really anything else but keep on pulling pots but the air is fresh and the ocean is a beautiful place to work. Also, where part of me fantasized about somehow turning this into a working-editorial in photos, I knew before I ever stepped out onto the boat that that wasn't a likely scenario. There's always something that needs to be done on a boat. The only way to ever make serious photography on a lobster boat would be to go out with a crew and only shoot. A number of times I have tried to turn on my iPhone to make some quick snaps and the thing won't even slide to unlock as apparently Cupertino has built in a 'will not recognize a fishy finger' feature. So I've got a few here for you here for now but that'll have to suffice until I make a day of it with just my kit and a clean fish-free hand. 

Traps on the transom.

A fogbow.

Landscape from the sea.

Rail and sea abstract- feels like a Google maps sat view of a beach and waves. 

Tools of the trade. Lobster banding pliers. (I've got a real bad story concerning these- ask me later)

iPhone wanted to make this image without asking- I agreed later. 

Insurance policy. Analogous to a UV filter for a photographer (really doesn't do crap but makes you feel glad that you have it?)

Haulin' Traps 1

Haulin' Traps 2

Haulin' Traps 3

Bugs waiting to be banded.

Gulls looking for a handout.

Yours truly. Since it's becoming obvious that the only camera I'll be using will be my phone I really feel the need for a better phone camera than my iPhone4. I figure I'll get a GoPro at some point which will be cool, so maybe that'll be the answer.

By the way I can still feel the boat rocking if I close my eyes, even if I don't close my eyes it's still rocking-

And, maybe, if we hit it hard and make a killing I'll even be able to go to Iceland AND buy myself something nice like that new Canon 200-400 with 1.4 converter on it or some Hartblei Tilt-shifts of something :-)

We'll see. Wish me luck and maybe I'll even run a FREE LOBSTER GIVEAWAY or something sometime this summer!

Have a good one my flatlander friends- Nate!

Eagle Lake Driftwood in the fog. Yesterday morning: 70 seconds at f/8.0, iso 200. 17 mm on Canon 17-40 f/4.0, 5D mkII, B+W ND 110.

Happy spring everybody! We're deep into one of my favorite times of year here in Acadia for photography, the spring fog season- yay! Fog has such a great way of wrapping everything in cinematic drama and mystery and makes the ordinary look extraordinary. At least that's what I think. Fog also has a great transformative potential of changing the look of this small big island that I have been photographing on for the last 13 years- just when you think you've photographed everything: the fog rolls in like a team of gifted Hollywood set designers and the stage is transformed and the images just keep on coming. That's the beauty of any weather to a photographer, weather is the spice that makes the jambalaya, weather is the window dressing, weather is the soul of landscape imagery. And fog is my jambalaya! The other reason, and most important one to me, that I love love love fog is that it really helps to simplify a scene. The floating mists will help keep distracting details and elements to a minimum and tames some of the chaos that is nature, and I can pursue more minimal landscapes and then play the #MinimalMonday game hosted by my good buddy Olivier Du' Tre over on the Google Plus. Good times! So this one was a driftwood stump that I found out on the shores of Eagle Lake yesterday morning going for a walk in the fog looking for minimisma- I photographed this stump and shoreline here for a good 30 to 45 minutes standing up to my knees in the lake making little changes as to how it was laying on the stones, good times!

Right then- that's it for me for now, have a fine week everybody, stay safe out there, and make great work whatever it is you do. Stay tuned for my big-time announcement of a crazy new and exciting job I signed on for just last week after my previous big plans suddenly changed- Crazy! New! Exciting! -Bye for now, Nate!

Pygmy Shrew Forest- in Acadia over near Seawall.

Hey now! So I meant to get to the drawing yesterday but life got in the way- you know how it is, anyways in order to make the drawing the most impartial- I wanted to get my doggy in on the whole bit. And I figured I'd put it on video so you could see that there were no shananigans or tomfoolery involved. Here though I should make some explanation: my doggy is a crazy erratic and happy go lucky real-time maniac of the highest order, and to think that he would just play along without any complications makes me the fool- cause as I loaded up a hat with the individual numbers of the commenters who entered: Grover the Dog went and chased the hat before any of the numbers this time, cause he's a crazy Maineiac and this was only the second take, and I didn't want to make any more! But I got him back on track and into the game and he grabbed one real good which was

Grover Picks the Winner!

#13: Nancy Mize- who said something like "it would be lovely to have a piece of your vision of my heart's home. Especially when the rest of me is hundreds of miles away." Aw, that's wicked nice Nancy- and I'm glad that you get to be the lucky winner= I hope that you're a nice lady and that your luck somehow makes the world a better place! Or just go and hawk the print at a pawn shop and buy some nips at the corner packy- whatever! Do what you want to do! And that's all there is for that. Well, I had a great time doing this and there are more where that one came from, so after I let the grass grow for a bit longer then perhaps I'll make another print giveaway before too long. So in the meantime- save a place for me and have a nice day, Nate from Maine, Usa.

P.s. This was an effort to drive traffic to the site, and it worked, in the area of advertising fees and costs I think it was a reasonable expense in the long run to have had the traffic that I did over the past couple days. I already had the print, I already had the shipping tube, so then the only outlay was taking time to do it and the 5 bucks or so that USPS will charge to send it (good luck getting it anytime too soon though Nancy- I would never use USPS for anything urgent!) once the USPS took 6 weeks to deliver a print only 350 miles away. Ouch. Double ouch- Ouch Ouch! Right then- bye.

You (random name goes here) pick one of these if you'd like-

Here's the print giveaway that I've been leading up to throughout the week- the reasons and motivations to do so are one (1.) I've been printing up a storm over the last month and going through all of my old prints- and two (2.) my life sucks just as much as yours does and this is an attempt at making someone feel good and then it can go around to the rest of us maybe, and three (3.) I've seen other photographers do this so I figured Wot the H.e. double hockeysticks! Tell you the truth I can hardly afford to even ship the thing- just got to get it out of my system. So these are 16"x20" black and white prints on 17"x22" Epson Ultra Smooth Fine Art paper printed with K3 inks. Limited to the continental United States if I pick you (randomly) you pick one (1.) of these and I'll send it to you in a tube and you can do whatever you want with it then- just leave your name in the comments here and I'll have my doggy point at one or I'll shake one out of the hat, utterly randomly as of Monday May 6'th at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard time of USA in America, Earth, Milky Way, Everything. Yes! That's right! I do want you to be that winner! 

Hens and Chickens. Found out in the dooryard- I just love the textures. Canon 100mm 2.8L IS USM Macro at f/4.0. 1/200 sec at iso 1250 handheld. For handheld macro you've gotta breathe like a sniper and shoot between heartbeats.

So I was thinking the other day about style in photography, and the way I see it is: content aside, ones style has to do with your individualistic representations of three things (3.) which are one (1.) Contrast- how hard are your gradations from blacks to whites, do you like shadow detail and how much. Two (2.) edge definition and sharpening: are you the halo master or are you the subtle soft spoken type? Do want crunchy goth sharp beard stubble and razor edged leaves or are you more of the romantic seeing through a gauze veil sexy with frankincense burning and John Tesh rhapsodizing kind? and three (3.) blacks and whites- how black do you want to go, how dark are your dayshots? and how white is too white. If your idea of a beautiful day is a cold front churning dynamic sunrise to thick fog til noon then a nice downpour around 1-2:30 that will get the waterfalls flowing and there is a proper nap time, then more high clouds keeping the glare off the late afternoon and making some nice underlight for sunset then you probably like your images a tad darker like I do. And I know of some imagineers who hardly ever pop near whites into their images- their face of the sun will still be 18 percent gray, so, you can't just say they are wrong- it's just their style. Here's an aside by the way: fog has no true whites or true blacks, but that's just a technicality. You all know what I mean: when you look at a thing you think right off "do I like it" and then if you like it enough you look closer and fall into the image- if you don't like it then something is obvious. When something sticks out and exposes the process as being "the process" you aren't seeing the thing anymore- you're distracted by the process. There's a bunch of anecdotes that could be made here resembling that remark how bout- look at fine dining and gourmet amazing foods: you don't want to hear "oh the supple virgin boar was maimed on these freekin precious cherry wrought grates or whatever" you just want your delicious sopressata. How bout super cars: you don't want to hear about how the NASA engineer who designed the airfoil that keeps your $250.000.00 car on the road while going 130 miles an hour around a corner was raised with 4 sisters and no brother and was forced to put on makeup and wear high heels too many times in elementary school and now lives in a too expensive penthouse apartment in the city and is suspiciously unreachable for 128 hours of the week. Or this little gem: where's your Ipad come from, or your cell phone, etc. See: nobody wants to think about the process. The process can be our little shop talk thing but we should hope the potential customer just and only thinks: "they like it".

 All I need to do now is create a scale that factors in these three qualities of a photographers vision and make a multiple choice questionaire so that you too can see where you end up compared to the average, etc. But you already know who you are. Whattaya need me for? Have a good one- N8.

Stand by, stay tuned, and keep on comin back for the sometime this week: FREE Print Giveaway! Because it's there!!

Acadia in Moving Pictures.

There's nothing like being there- but sometimes I'll remember to roll video on the place that I was just photographing to try and feel it again later in that way and although it's never like the real thing I always wish I did it more. This is something of a best of from a recent trip through my hard drives to clean up the dust balls, figured to throw together a best of kind of reel. I could have kept editing on this and on and on but just wanted to keep it a short project. Musics are: Nick Drake, "Black Eyed Dog" from the album "Made to Love Magic". Have a good one and check back for a Big Time Free Print Giveaway!!! sometime this week! :-) That is to say: keep on comin back now, ya hear?!

Four Skiffs. Seal Cove, Maine.

The island is waking up. People are shaking off the cobwebs and taking the shutters off the store windows and a bunch of people who aren't here for the cold season are walking around looking for summer jobs and such and those who've been here for the whole thing are still wearing there beanies even though it's 60 degrees f out- out of fear I figure. You really get used to those "security blankets" of the winter and when you've lived around here for long enough you know that another cold snap is just a gust away. But it's definitely almost summer now and time to turn on the machine that is the tourist industry that which pays for us to live here even after they've all left for the off season. Tell you what- there's nothing like winter around here, I really love it- you feel a tough kind of camaraderie with the people who live here then, a kind of bond of "if you can do it, then I can do it" sort of thing. Everybody waves to each other driving to the store and there's never any traffic driving over to "the big city" of Ellsworth to go to the proper grocery. From here on out most cars on the roads will be from out of state and nobody knows where there going and they crash right into you making 13 point turns to go back to the lighthouse which they missed three miles back. Oh my word how they love that silly little lighthouse! The fishing season will be in full swing and the bait trucks will be leaking their stinky sludge on the way to the docks (that is truly the nastiest smell, a bait truck can stink up the road for a whole day sometimes especially if the breeze is blowing right at ya.) But for all the inconveniences and ridiculousnesses I think most people enjoy it- I approach it like something like a battle, a 5 month long battle- I take multi vitamins and I deal with them wave after wave and they haven't got the worst of me yet. Or is it the best? That remains to be seen. Anyways, here's my formal invitation to all ye listening: come on up to Maine, "vacationland", and get away from the heat and the craziness of the rest of the world and have some tasty lobster (I'll have only about two a year myself- rather get some excellent pizza from "Rosalie's" in Bar Harbor). Go for a hike in  Acadia and take a bike ride around the carriage trails, get some pop-overs and cappuccino at the Jordan Pond House and maybe take a paddle in a kayak on one of the ponds. And most definitely at least once get up for sunrise and go to Eagle Lake or up Cadillac Mountain (at the lakes you'll here the loons calling though which is absolutely priceless) and when you see me with my kit on my tripod please try to stay out of my shot: I'll usually be shooting wide so anywhere behind me will be fine, thanks in advance on that! And if anybody wants a proper photo tour of Mount Desert Island send me a communique and I'll be glad to take you around and tell you where the best lobster bakes are etc.- for a small compensation I'm sure. Right then. Have a good one friendos! -N8!

P.s. 5 days left on the big '30 percent off any of my prints' sale! Get em while they're inexpensive!

Window on Vineyard Haven.

Since I'm on a 'recommending movies that have amazing photography in them' kick make sure to put it on your list to see "Which Way Is The Front Line From Here" -a documentary about the life of the well loved and respected humanitarian and combat photographer Tim Hetherington by Sebastian Junger, he who co-made "Restrepo" with Tim which itself was nominated for an Academy award. It premiered just recently just days from the anniversary of Hetherington's death. 

This is "Restrepo" if you've never seen it- which is an most amazing contemporary real-life war movie about troops in the Korengal Valley serving in Afghanistan. 

and this is Sebastian Junger talking about making the documentary about his late friend and cohort Tim Hetherington-

And lastly here's a bit of my own housekeeping: the 30 days at 30 percent off all of my prints sale ends seven days from today- which is to say as of May 1'st it's back to full power!@#$ -Get em while they're cheap to help me continue to fund the summer gallery season's printing frenzy! And as usual, have a good one- Nate from Maine, Usa.

Scupper Low Wharf. No idea where that title came from, have to name it something though. 

Here's what I recommend: if you are (1.) -a photographer then you should definitely check this documentary out. If you are (2.) a resident of the Earth you should most certainly pay attention to this documentary and seek it out however you may find it, I saw it on the cable t.v. on the National Geographic Channel this past last weekend after the whole terrorist fiasco drama in Boston had been seemingly mostly been resolved. And (3.) if you  like fantastically produced and jaw dropping beautiful imagery and video then this is a must see: "Chasing Ice" by James Balog. I'd first heard of it on the interwebs with an accompanying shot of a glacier calving event that was the size of Manhattan and to see the whole thing was truly fascinating and just like the Al Gore movie certainly an eye opener. Whether or not you believe in "global warming" you'll be amazed to see this film. Links: 

and this one which is the "world turning upside down" scale massive event that leaves me with doubts of if I was there filming it or shooting the event: would I be able to summon the courage not to flee or just lie on the face of the mountain hugging it with fear for my life because this is too gigantic, too much to even comprehend-

And with that- have a good week champs! Don't forget: theoretically you too could make a difference. ? 

Boston Patriots

Back to business in Beantown. So glad they got those guys- couldn't imagine if that suspect #2 had actually escaped, kept imagining him breaking into my parents home and holding them hostage etc, they live about 70 miles from Boston which was way too close until they got him. It's been a terrible week down there and in a bunch of other places around the country but perhaps the best thing to come of it all is the chance for a new solidarity and pride and we'll be stronger and more vigilant and resilient than ever. Here's to Boston, here's to America, and here's to us for a safe and happy and prosperous future. 

Guy on a Path, Washington D.C. -Found this old image the other day while bushwacking through the 2008 folder, Sophie made this one (I can tell because Nikon stuff is in the Exif) and I tweaked it to black and white. I like the path and the form of the guy, I don't like the light area in the clearing above the trees- maybe I should crop that out. Whatever.

So, I just haven't been feeling like continuing on with the same old photo drivel here since Monday and those dumb bombs in Boston (I'm from there, and I lived pretty much lived right there where it happened for years while going to school.) I guess I just can't get over what a horrible thing it is to attack innocent people in that way- people who had nothing to do with anything other than being the face of a cheering crowd. What a cowardly and pointless thing to hurt so many people like that and by the sound of it, he wasn't even with his bomb when it went off- he fled the scene after dropping the bag. And what's the point ultimately? Whatever happened to hanging a giant banner illegally off a building or something in order to get a message across, and otherwise nobody has "claimed responsibility" as far as the vindictive or militant popular groups are concerned- so what then was the point? Is it that that's the way the world is now? That we have a massively horrific violent civil calamity every 2-4 months? Since when has that become a routine part of everyday life? Editors opinion: since box stores and all their sundry cheap crap came to America. Don't hold me to that- just my feeling of when it all started to go down the tubes. 

here's some of my other random and unimportant opinions: the guy or group will be caught who attacked Boston. And they will probably wish that they stayed with their dumb bombs vs what the American people will do to them once they are caught. I'm hearing about absolute "witch hunts" on the internets at places like Reddit and 4chan where the crowd is handling the crowdsourcing of the images and hackers are going where they want to get information and it's just a matter of time, the police and FBI hopefully will get to them first. I've heard of people vowing to come and support the marathon next year en masse and to "join together to rise above" kind of thing. Other people are adamant about not being put off of our American ways and showing solidarity to not let the fear mongers win- to not affect our way of life. Either way I wonder how those two spots of impact on Boylston St will be dealt with and if people ever again will stand on those spots to celebrate the finish of the marathon or if they will be sites of remembrance and respect with monuments of love and faith and hope and humanity to keep their place there. Monuments that would expose malevolence as a quick selfish meaningless act and contrast that with the solidarity of good that mankind stands for. Times like these are times when you forget all about your dividends and investments and two-for-one deals and think on and remember "what is it all for", "what is it all about"- and I would posit that it is not all about hunting- but may be all about gathering. Love thy neighbor. Live and let live. "Do what you do when you did what you did- to me." -Jermaine Jackson, 1985. That's the most r+b way to put: do unto others as you would do unto yourself. 

And with that- have a good day, Nate from Maine, Usa.

Out of Town News, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Boston.

Boston.

Here's to Boston. Boston is my home- I live in Maine now and have for the last decade and a half, but Beantown will always be my home. So when I heard that the Hub was attacked I couldn't help but get a little emotional. I used to live On That Street- Dartmouth Street, I used to live about 1000 feet from there for a few years and I went to college On That Street- Boylston Street, 1000 feet in the other direction. Who would possibly want to attack the Boston Marathon- and certainly this isn't the first time that someone has pointed this out, but: what a cowardly an absolutely despicable way to fight a fight! What ever happened to hanging a banner on a building or a monument to get a point across, why is it necessary to resort to violence? My heart goes out to those that sufferer and the victims and the city of Boston. 

edit: an ongoing reportage is happening in the comments here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/boston-marathon-explosion_n_3086665.html

Ship Harbor Sunrise, Acadia National Park. Technical notes: 24mm f/3.5 ts-e. 99 second exposure at f/7.1. Iso 100. B+W ND 110. Canon 5D mkII. Me standing there slack jawed in awe and just trying not to screw up the photograph. 

I don't always make color photographs, but when I do- there's usually a good reason for it. Is that meme getting too old to enjoy anymore? How bout this: I don't usually photograph at sunrise, but when I do- the sunrises are rarely as good as this!! Or how bout this one: I rarely post in the morning these days, but when I do- I'm freeking out at how much I love this sunrise image! Yowza~! Sometimes you get lucky!

And with that- have a good day my friends! -Nate.

Also I don't mean to be a pest about this if you have already heard it, but: the 30 percent off all of my prints sale continues until May 1, 2013! Get 'em while they're cheap! 

(I would be remiss if I didn't sometimes make an extra effort to sell my work, forgive me, but selling prints helps me continue to make new photography. You know the drill. Thanks -N8)

Little Round Pond Winter Cattails. 3 shot 'shift pan' made with my 24 ts-e.

Today I'm Wicked psyched to have just met the UPS guy out in the street to receive my new pack of Epson Exhibition Fiber 17"x22" paper. I'm like woot! See, ever since I first heard about this "Signature Worthy" paper, as Epson calls it- I've wanted to try it bad, real bad. I knew I would love it but it's particularly premium expense made it a little hard to justify using. Usually I like to print any 'serious' work on Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper- John Paul Caponigro talked me into that choice and I still love that paper and would still rather print some images on that vs this Exhibition Fiber paper but this week I found a sweet sale on the EEF paper at B+H here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/528348-REG/Epson_S045039_Exhibition_Fiber_Paper_for.html for about a third of the price that it normally is (99.00 American bucks versus the typical 150.00 American bucks) -so that was a "shoe in". 

The description on the box is: "Designed to have the look and feel of revered silver halide, F surface, air-dried prints, this paper offers the highest Dmax and a wide color gamut for stunning color or neutral black-and-white prints." -Sounds sweet!

Now the one big reason I like the Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art (USFA) paper is that as a matte paper there are never any reflections coming off the print from light sources, it's the most archival of all Epson papers (therefore arguably the most archival of any paper period), there is hardly any texture which gives it massive detail, and I'm really familiar with using it so I can get predictable results. The biggest downside to the USFA I think is that it's really a pretty fragile paper so handling is a real concern and it's only safe after being properly put behind glass. Not to say that the EEF is a paper that I would dance on after making a print on it but it seems to me that the surface is a little more resilient. There is a low gloss surface on the Exhibition Fiber that could reflect light sources (unless it's behind that anti-reflective museum glass) but after making the first few prints the blacks are off the chart and the prints just really have a classic look and feel to them. The one thing that did initially disappoint me (especially in that this is such a premium and expensive media) is that the first sheet I took out of the box did have at least 5 "inclusions" of specks of schmuck in the paper- nothing that is visible after printing the first black and white prints but still, the USFA is 99 percent perfect in my experience so this is a little off putting but sometimes I guess maybe I should just relax and let the world be the world. Nonetheless it's not wrong to expect perfection when you pay top-dollar (yeah yeah it was a big sale but still this is their most expensive paper, so come on!) if Epson were here they would have given me a new sheet that's for sure. Anyways- perhaps I'll talk on this more later but for now I'm going to go fume up the room and make some more prints! Yeehaw! 

Reminder: 30 percent off all my prints until May 1, 2013- get em while they're cheap! 

And have a good one, Nate from Maine, Usa.

Old Coast Maine. Off Corea- Downeast.

All I've been doing for the past two weeks it seems is printing and matting and signing and bagging for the summer season here on the island. I'm trying to get a proper jump on it this year because last year I was a little flat footed out of the gate on the whole bit but this year have a better idea of how to make the most or the best of it. The first thing is that I have three sizes of prints going to the galleries this year: a small 5x7" matted to 8x10 ( I know the ratio is kind of funny but the mat cutter lady kind of lost it in the translation and cut 40 of them like that so might as well go with it) a medium 11x14" matted to 16x20" and the large 16"x20" matted to 24"x28". Thereby a whole new range of price points and wall sizes have been introduced which should make the potential buyer do the super happy monkey dance and help make next winter better than this last. In a weeks worth of time I will have gotten 88 matted and signed prints out the door and into the territory of the art buyer and I'm going to do that twice more before Memorial day so long as I can bear the repetitive and absolutely mundane work of putting prints and mats together. 

Anyways: I figured that as a public service announcement for any of my photographer friends who make their own prints like I do-  whom may have never experienced this particular printing malady (because I hadn't up to this point) this is what a clogged print head looks like:

See how it kind of looks like a negative- that's because my matte black ink wasn't firing. My Epson 3880 has 4 kinds of black inks and what had happened is that because of the super low humidity of winter one of the heads had clogged and it really freaked me out when I first looked at this. I ran a print head check and this was the result:

See how there is a missing segment of the grid pattern at the upper left- that's indicative of the clogged print head. A print head cleaning did the trick after that but I figure I probably burned through at least 20 bucks in ink retesting and recleaning the printer before I was thoroughly satisfied that everything was once again dorey hunky- and that was just running the process through 3 times- but I could see by the ink capacity readouts that it bled a bunch of inks through that process. I have actually heard that some people leave a damp sponge under the plastic dust cover to the printer to help alleviate potential clogs in the dry season- there's just something about that though that strikes me as being crazy for some reason. Nonetheless, hope this helps anyone who does their own printing who hasn't seen this before. In the almost two years that I have been making prints on my Epson 3880 never before had there been a clogged print head. Right then. That's all I've got for today- hope you're well and have a good one- Nate from Maine, Usa.

Cape Cod Low Tide at Coast Guard Beach. Technical notes: 119 seconds at f/11, iso 100, 24mm Ts-e with B+W ND 110 on 5d mkII. Lightroom 4, Silver Efex, Ps Cs5, and back to Lightroom. Have a nice day. 

The '30 percent off all of my prints sale' continues until May 1, 2013. Get em while they're cheap! 

Boys of Summer. Chicago 2008.

Only today did I become convinced that summer would happen again here in Maine this year. All the signs were there- from the bridge repair to the leaf blowers and all the cars on the roads from New York and New Jersey. See, where the rest of the world has probably had some significant blooming spring by now, we here in Maine have only just started to see any real greening up of the grass under our construction debris out in the dooryard- the rest just gets put back to sleep by the morning frost. But today it really finally turned here where we are- and, in celebration of that and according to the coincidence of recently finding these old shots from 2008 made in Chicago of these cute kids playing in this crazy fountain in the hot of summer: have a good one! - Nate!

P.s. The 30% off pre-summer print sale here continues until only May 1, 2013.- email me and include the phrase '30 percent off' or just tell me I'm sooo good lookin'- and we'll get some proper photography art prints headed your way! 

Cape Cod Dunes Happy House- Closed for the Season. Camera settings: tilt-shift lens tilted on the vertical axis, tripod, proper exposure acquired using camera and chimping, Lr4 for contrasts and shadows boost then Ps cs5 for a lightening center and darkening edges routine and some distracting elements cleanings with healing brush. Oh and cropped to 4x5 to fit in the nearest standard mat and frame.

Feeling a touch of the old miasma today- would probably be wise to take a multivitamin around about now. Anyways: have you camera nuts heard about that new MoVi camera stabilization system- sounds wicked cool especially because it makes no sound and is a super light weight rig that uses crazy gyros to do the dirty work or whatever: http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2013/04/04/movi-a-revolutionary-handheld-stabilized-system-takes-flight/  

Wow- how awesome is that! 

Check out those links for more info- I must have one!

MōVI in Action (Quick Video) from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.