PAW 2006 - Wk #34 - Dr. Ralph Stanley

My dad and I scored tickets to see Dr. Ralph Stanley at Carol Noonan's newly opened Stone Mountain Arts Center (SMAC) which is in Brownfield, just down the road from my hometown of Denmark.

Last night's show was the first major act that has shown at SMAC and it sold out pretty quickly. I think Ms. Noonan has a sucessful venue on her hands.

All societies need beautiful places to foster art and performance, more especially rural societies where community tends to play such an important role in people's lives, but SMAC will also be a venue for weddings in the area (which is sorely in need of quality wedding venues.) I welcome the possibility of lessening my own carbon footprint (especially at $3.10/Gal!) and to maybe once in a while not have to travel so many hours each week just to work my own craft.

SMAC is a lovely timberframed entertainment facility situated deep in the forested hills of small town Western Maine. One of the charms of our region of Vacationland is that it is no more than an hour from the Atlantic, no more than an hour from the greatest contiguous alpine area in the United States east of the Mississippi, but still wonderfully located in relative seclusion of wooded hills and lakes! Don't let anyone know that though. We've got enough folks here to enjoy it all already.
:)

PAW 2006 - Wk #33 - Burnt Meadow Mountains

No Haiku on this one at the moment. Just thought it was a great scene. These last five weeks of Summer are always my favourite of the season. We are headed into Fall -which is my favourite season- the light is fantastic, the weather is perfect and the bugs have subsided enough for us to really enjoy the warm days and cooler nights.

PAW 2006 - Wk #32 - Angela's Wedding

I don't usually post any wedding work here as I have an entire business site devoted to that, but this one was even more special than the weddings that I get to document on a weekly basis. This is a photo of my little sister's wedding (and just about everyone who was there) at Ft. Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, ME on the 6th of August.

Congratulations!
Best wedding wishes to you.
May your lives be rich.

PAW 2006 - Wks #27-31 (Random Order)

I'm steady with weddings until late October and am trying to spend some time with family as well as updating my personal projects such as this and the book ideas that Tracey and I are working on. Here are some of the personal photos that I've made since my last post in no particular order...


It was a very hot day and Beth found this one way to cool off.


Window light from the '2 Cats' in Bar Harbor.


Scene from the entrance to Mt. Desert Island.


Downtown Bar Harbor on a Summer's night.


Nick flying a kite at Ft. Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, ME.


Beth reading a book with Starbuck in the early morning Summer sunlight.

PAW 2006 - Wk#26 - Beth's Sunset Shoot

a Naples sunset.
a camera of her own,
Beth makes some photos.

Elizabeth just turned 8 years old. I gave her my little Canon SD300 as a gift. She sees much the way I do and enjoys making pictures, but has so much more opportunity as a kid to do something about it than I did that Tracey and I really wanted to encourage her to follow the passion as far as she wishes to just as her older sister follows her passion and talent for graphic arts. (At 9, Nicole has a much better talent for drawing things to proportion and acurate rendition than I do at 39.)

This is one of the photos that Beth made as I photographed her above...I did a little framing and such in Photoshop, but the basics of the image are hers alone. We printed a bunch of 8X12s on the Fuji Frontier and she is very proud. I'm allowing her to enjoy the process of image making first before we geet into the more detailed notions of exposure control via ISO, WB, Shutter Speed and Aperture.

PAW 2006 - Wk #25 - Portland Museum of Art

One of the jewels of Maine is the Portland Museum of Art. We have just joined as a family as both of our grrrls show as much interest in things artistic as Tracey and I do. I've photographed a few weddings at the museum and it is a great space regardless of the art that is there displayed.

These are the steps leading from the basement cafe to the main gallery.


General Grant's sword.


Portland's native son (and one of my distantly related ancestors via the Wasdworths) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


Heavily PhotoShopped, but I like it even with the banding on the wall. My grrrls admiring, Leonardo's earlier version of La Gioconda.


The painting itself.


The museum's explanation of the exhibit. (Capitalising on the popularity of Dan Brown's work doesn't hurt...all publicity is good publicity.)