Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IT PROBABLY seems a little bit of a misnomer, to start a “Baltic” cruise, in Amsterdam. I think the primary reason for that is that our cruise lines (Generally Celebrity or Princess, but I expect HAL and NCL probably also) originate a lot of their cruises out of Amsterdam. Our British Isles cruise in 2019 – though it originated in Dublin, Ireland – finished in Amsterdam. This time we started and finished in Amsterdam. But, situated just north of the English Channel on The North Sea, it is a long way to the Baltic Sea. Our route took us through the “North Sea Canal” all the way west and into the North Sea, which took a couple hours. Photographically, I totally blew this one. I should have researched a little better. We left in the afternoon and the landscape was beautifully lit. There was a lot of interesting photographic potential off the ship, and I essentially missed the opportunity. But I was socializing with some of our newfound friends and really didn’t pay enough attention to this. We came back in during the nighttime hours. If we do it again, I will be ready.
North Sea Passage Amsterdam, Netherlands [Copyright Andy Richards 2022]ONCE IN the North Sea, it is a long trek up and around Denmark and back down into the Baltic. Consequently, our first day was “at sea.” By the time we got into scenery around Denmark, it was night again. My first photographic opportunity came in the morning, as we made our first port, Warnemunde, Germany.
Starboard Pier Light; Warnemunde, Germany Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
IT TURNS out that that was probably the best part of Warnemunde. For sure it was the best part photographically. I have noted in prior posts that one advantage to the larger cruise ships is that they afford a nice high vantage point from the top deck, making for unique photographic opportunities that cannot be made from the ground. And often the advantage from the cruise ship is an uncluttered, clear view.
Lighthouse Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IN WARNEMUNDE this was especially good, as the lighthouses and the Ferris wheel present significant perspective challenges from ground-level. From the ship, I got some shots I liked. I especially appreciated being able to frame the church within the Ferris wheel.
Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]THE STATELY old lighthouse in town is pretty photogenic, and now is right in the middle of a plaza near the beach promenade. Designed by Friedrich Kerner, it replaced an older “storm lamp” in 1898. I was able to get an o.k. photograph of it from the ground level with my standard “kit” zoom at about 35mm equivalent. Photoshop’s perspective correction tools work wonders on shots like this (but perspective issues are still evident to the experienced eye).
Warnemunde Light Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WARNEMUNDE IS essentially a very small, but busy, beach resort which is popular with Germans. The nearest city is Rostock. The cruise line touts this stop as “Warnemunde; for Berlin.” There is an express train that goes from right at the cruise port into Berlin. But it is a 3-hour or more train ride each way. To us, it didn’t make sense to spend 6 hours out of a port stop that was barely twice that duration, traveling. We didn’t feel that we would get the most out of Berlin. Someday, we will travel there – but it will be by air or land and will involve a multiple day stay.
Train to Berlin Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]A LOT of people also took transportation (bus or train) to nearby Rostock. There is a university there, as well as some museums. Again, we didn’t see anything about it in the literature that really excited us, and we knew before the cruise that we would probably be getting off the ship and walking around the little town and re-boarding. This didn’t figure to be a “major” stop for us.
Commercial Tour Boat along the canal (note the name: a sure thing to make the kids laugh – though actually the word in German means something like “went” or “traveled” 🙂 ) [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]BUT I had read about the canal coming into town, with boats, bars and restaurants. I had also read about and seen photos of the beach and the wide, nice promenade that parallels the beach. The best view of the beach, in my opinion, is shown in the very top image here, coming into the port. As you can see, this is a rather affluent beach/vacation spot which caters to tourism.
Along the Canal Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WE WALKED down the canal, over to the promenade, down to the beach, and “people-watched” for a while. I found a few photos. But I still think the best were from the cruise ship.
Promenade Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]Canal lined with boats Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]TOPOGRAPHICALLY, ANOTHER interesting point about this port is that it is in a wide canal that goes all the way to Rostock. There appears to be one bridge over the canal, about half-way between Warnemunde and Rostock. But there is quite a residential development directly east and across the canal from the main downtown area of Warnemunde. We saw a lot of this throughout this entire trip. The most common way to get back and forth is by ferry. I watched the small car/bike/pedestrian ferry with interest from the ship deck for quite a while.
Canal Ferry Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]I MADE one final image as we walked back toward the port and reboarded our ship. It gives some perspective on how small Warnemunde is. We looked forward to “more” from the upcoming stops.
Celebrity Apex Warnemunde, Germany [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]
Nubble Lighthouse Cape Neddick, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
FOR SOME years now, I have thought about a trip to “mid-coast” Maine, primarily to shoot lighthouses, but also some seacoast and harbors. This year in April, my buddy, Rich, helped me make that trip possible. An executive in a Michigan Company that has one of its divisions headquartered in Yarmouth, Maine, Rich makes frequent trips to the Portsmouth area. Also an avid photographer, he has traveled the coastal areas of Maine a fair amount. It was really fun to join him and have him serve as chauffeur and guide.
Nubble Lighthouse Cape Neddick, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
ON MY list were 3 prominent lighthouses: Portland Head Light, Nubble Light, and Pemaquid Point Light. I cover Portland and Pemaquid in separate blogs. But I mention all three, because they are probably the most often photographed (Portland Head is perhaps the most photographed light anywhere), and I had seen them in print a few times. In terms of importance to me, they went in the order ascribed above. The good news was our hotel was just 15 minutes from Portland Head. So we were able to get their early easily a couple times. The others were over an hour from us. We did, however, make it to Pemaquid at sunrise one morning.
Nubble Lighthouse Cape Neddick, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
THE NUBBLE Light is certainly iconic. In seasons, it is decorated and lit accordingly. I would love to visit it after dark, during the Christmas season. I have seen shots with the complex lit up with decorative lights, and even reflections in the water in the middle ground of the image. But its orientation meant that a sunrise would (especially at this time of year) would probably yield nothing more than a silhouette. All of our research suggested that the time to photograph this lighthouse was late afternoon into evening. So the morning we visited Nubble, we started at Portland Head at sunrise, and then worked our way down toward Cape Neddick. As you can see, every shot here was made late in the afternoon (note that the light is on in a few of the images).
Nubble Lighthouse Cape Neddick, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
WHILE THE day dawned partly sunny, it deteriorated as it went on. We did find a couple nice harbors, including Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, and Cape Porpoise in Kennebunkport. But the light was capricious that day, every-once-in-a-while suggesting rays of sun, only to ultimately disappoint. We made the best of it, finding colorful scenes in which we could exclude backgrounds, or shots that I later used Photoshop “replace” sky, to create images I think “could have been.”
Cape Porpoise Kennebunkport, Maine My “take” on a sunrise that could have been. Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
WE DID have the pleasure of having my co-author on the Vermont ebook, Carol Smith, drive up from Boston (with a couple photographer friends), and we spent most of the day with them, including a warming and social breakfast break near Cape Neddick.
Perkins Cove Ogunquit, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
BEING THAT the light wasn’t conducive to shooting – we took a side trip to Cape Neddick to “scout” the Nubble Light and look at composition and viewpoint. We then “hoped” for clearing – especially toward the end of the day. We returned around 5:30 p.m. to grey, overcast, and very windy conditions. It was the first (and only) time I was cold during the trip. The Boston Group (all of whom had photographed the lighthouse in the past), left about then, for their trip back, knowing this wasn’t going to be the “magic” afternoon/evening. And it wasn’t. 😦 My composited image below is the way I might have imagined it to be on a relatively clear, sunny day, at twilight.
Nubble Lighthouse Cape Neddick, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
THING IS, I am getting older (every year 🙂 ) and running out of time, with lots of places still on my horizon. I don’t know that I will ever have another chance at this one. So, we persevered, and hung around until just before dark. We probably should have stayed longer, but we were tired, hungry and had over an hour to get back to our hotel, with plans to be out early again the next morning. Just as it began to get dark, the sun finally teased us with some patches of blue and brightness against the clouds as things cleared from the west. And as the last image demonstrates, sometimes perseverance pays off.
Nubble Lighthouse Cape Neddick, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Bristol, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
I HAVE had a few times where I had a lukewarm first impression of a subject, only to visit (or return at a different time) and find that I was really, really wrong. One of my favorite images from Vermont last fall was one of those; where a friend had “found” it the prior year and showed it to me. I was underwhelmed. Until I shot it and processed it, that is. In the case of Pemaquid, it wasn’t my impression. It was my buddy’s first impression of the Pemaquid Point Light.
If your only view of the light was the opening image, you might be inclined to agree with his impression. Just another “ho hum” lighthouse.
IN EARLY April, I joined long time best friend Rich for four days in mid-coastal Maine. If your only view of the light was the opening image, you might be inclined to agree with his impression. Just another “ho hum” lighthouse. Having a significant part of his work in the area, Rich is pretty familiar with the photographic potential, and had been to many of the places we visited – some of them more than once. As I nearly always do, I spent some time “scouting” the areas online. Tools like Google Maps and The Photographer’s Ephemeris make that research pretty fruitful these days. I have been wanting to do the Coastal Maine thing for many years now, my appetite whetted by my trip (with Rich and our spouses) to Acadia National Park and vicinity about 15 years ago. But for me, the draw this time was the Lighthouses. We visited and photographed 6 of them. 3 of them were on my “bucket list,” but one other turned out to be a favorite, also. I will cover them in upcoming blogs.
Pemaquid Point Bristol, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
BUT FIRST let me say that the Pemaquid Point Lightis my hands-down favorite, andperhaps the most photogenic Lighthouse and surroundings on the coast of Maine. Maybe even anywhere I have shot lighthouses (which includes California, Canada, Coastal Carolina, and the Great Lakes, so far). When I was doing my “scouting” and proposing a loose agenda for our days, my buddy opined that if we had to exclude anything, he had been to Pemaquid and was not all that impressed. First impressions. We visited it two times (a morning and another late afternoon during the week). I would bet that Rich has revised his opinion of the light and would agree that it is one of the best we have photographed. Not only did we get some spectacular images – but had some excitement playing in the waves. The “rogue” wave on the left in the picture above, completely swept and swamped an area we were standing and photographing just a few minutes before. The rock formations along the shoreline and leading up to the lighthouse grounds are spectacular. They have been carved by relentless tide and wave action over hundreds of years, and provide a wonderful graphic lead-in to the lighthouse. But they are also dangerous. In the early morning at near low tide the morning before, with calm seas, we could have climbed out to an area in front of the large rock at the rear of the image. But this evening, in addition to a spectacular, blue-sky sunset, the waves were thunderous.
Pemaquid Point Light Bristol, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
THE RECEDING tide and waves leave behind wonderful little tidal pools in the rocks, some of which are large enough to create the reflection seen in the shot above. I had seen this done here, and at the Bass Harbor light, and hoped one day to be able to make my own reflection photograph. On the evening we were there, following a full-on rain start to the day, and a mostly dull, gray, dreary remainder of the day, Mother Nature serendipitously treated us to a final hour of full sun and clear skies, before and during sunset. When we decided to return to Pemaquid earlier that afternoon (it is a bit of a hike from Portland, where we were staying), we were going on faith in The Weather Channel, which predicted the possibility of sun very late in the day. As the afternoon progressed, and as we approached Pemaquid Point about 90 minutes before sunset, things didn’t look so good. Not only had we only seen hints of some sun trying to push through, but fog was developing as colder air approached. But we persisted, and as we arrived at the light and began to set up, the sun did punch through and we had a spectacular end to the day.
Pemaquid Point Light Bristol, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
WHILE I thought the warm. early sun on the light from the east in the morning was nice, I think the sunset, with just a hint of the ocean behind the light is a nicer image. The ground fog rising behind the light from the west added ambiance to this final shot of what turned out to be a very good (albeit short) photographic day. Just before making this final lighthouse image, I followed the advice I have been given several times (and perhaps unfortunately, don’t always follow) and turned around to look behind me, seeing the moody shot of fog and dusk meeting over the rocky shoreline.
Pemaquid Point Light Bristol, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
IN MAINE, I have shot the Bass Harbor Light, Portland Head Light, Cape Neddick (Nubble Light), Pemaquid Point, Marshall Point, Owl’s Head and Cape Porpoise. It gives me some basis for comparison. I would like to return to Bass Harbor one day and try again. On the Maine Coast, these lights mostly sit on rock formations that have been carved over hundreds of years by the relentless waves of the ocean. Photographically, that makes for some pretty nice shape, color and line leading into the lighthouses themselves. While I am one who likes to get in tight on many of my images, the rock formations invite wider shots – often so wide that the lighthouse complex becomes a relatively small part of the image. In at least two places I know of, there are often tide (or wave, as we discovered at Pemaquid) pools down on the rock formations which provide for very cool reflection opportunities. Pemaquid is probably the most well-known such opportunity (I have seen reflections of the Bass Harbor Light also).
Pemaquid Point Bristol, Maine Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
MOST OFTEN when I am on a trip of any kind, I am “the guy behind the lens.” And I am not a “selfie” kind of a guy. As such, it is pretty unusual for me to be in a photo on one of these trips. So, when you get one, you have to use it. At the end of the afternoon at Pemaquid, I chatted with Dave, a talented photographer who happens to live in the area. He was out on the rocks with us, shooting with his Medium Format film (what’s that, you ask? 🙂 ). We had a nice conversation about the area, and he gave me some tips about shots on and around the rocks (for my next trip). He is an Instagram guy. I have an Instagram account, but haven’t used it much recently, but we were able to connect on that app. A week later, he sent me a message, with the attached image he made of me, below. I will probably use it from time to time – with his permission – and his attribution. For some nice imagery, go to@itsalifeinphotographs
Author in Deep Concentration Pemaquid Point Bristol, Maine Copyright @itsalifeinphotographs 2022
LightCentric Photography Blog 