Based in Brunswick, Maine (just east of Portland) I am a professional location photographer specializing in documentary photography for editorial, education & commercial clients. My photography takes me from my home in Brunswick to wonderful places all over Maine and New England.
With an an ever-expanding collection of Maine stock photography, I am known for evocative images that use strong color, exceptional light and careful composition to create impact.
I belong to the American Society of Media Photographers, the Maine Professional Photographers Association, and the Professional Photographers Association of America, and was one of ten Maine photographers selected to participate in the America 24/7 project.
Thank-you for visiting my blog, and please also visit my main web site.
Congratulations to the Bowdoin College women’s basketball team, which advanced to the Sweet Sixteen of the of the NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball Tournament with two wins this weekend.
This will be the sixth consecutive Sweet Sixteen appearance for the Polar Bears, coached by Stefanie Pemper. Pemper, who is in her eighth year at the Brunswick college, was named NESCAC Coach of the Year.
The smart and athletic Polar Bear team played before a packed house on campus.
With a comfortable 73-54 win over Colby-Sawyer Friday evening and a 59-56 nail-biter over Brandeis on Saturday evening, the 26-2 Polar Bears set the New England basketball record with 70 straight victories at home, surpassing the record formerly held by the UConn women.
Tournament play continues Friday on the University of Southern Maine campus in Gorham. Bowdoin takes on Mary Washington at 5:30 p.m., while host USM takes on Bridgewater at 7:30 p.m. The winners will square off Saturday at 7 p.m.
One of my favorite Maine web sites is Maine Harbors. With just a few clicks, I can find out when the tide will be high at the Bass Harbor Headlight or when the sun will set at Popham Beach. It’s an invaluable planning tool for the Maine photographer.
Now I’m fairly certain that John Standish wasn’t thinking about photographers when he set up his web site. Based in Cape Porpoise, one of Maine’s loveleliest nooks, Standish most likely was thinking of the legions of boaters who ply the waters off Maine’s 3000+ miles of coast. But, photographers are just as interested in knowing when the Royal River will be an ugly mudflat. Or when it will be too dark to make out the cliffs at Monhegan.
Photographers know that the light around sunrise and sunset is the most photogenic light of the day. We call it “magic light” or refer to that time span as “the magic hour,” though it could last longer–or shorter–than an hour. The magic comes from the sun being very low in the sky, casting shadows that are long and soft; in a very short period of time the sun will usually go through dramatic color changes casting orange, gold, red or even pink hues over everything in sight. These are picture-perfect shooting conditions.
Because the conditions are so fleeting, it’s important to be in place and ready to shoot as soon as the magic light starts. Usually, that’s at civil twilight, roughly thirty minutes before sunrise.
That’s where Maine Harbors’ tide charts come in. If, for example, I am shooting an article in Acadia National Park, a quick look at the sunrise time in tomorrow’s tide chart for Bar Harbor and I know how to set my alarm.For those who have some flexibility in scheduling, Standish’s charts can even help us pick the days on which to shoot. If I’m shooting a story at Popham Beach State Park, I’d like to get as much of the sand exposed as possible, so that means shooting at low tide. I can scan the tide charts to see when low tide coincides with sunrise and sunset. That way I’ll get my magic light and a wide expanse of sand. Or, if I’m shooting the Bass Harbor Headlight and would prefer to have the rockweed and barnacles on the lower rocks covered by water, I will plan to shoot on a day when high tide coincides with sunrise and sunset.
The Maine Harbors site displays six months worth of data for coastal spots from Maine to Connecticut. Looking for sunrise or sunset times more than six months in the future? Check out the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day. Looking for the tides in another region? Consult SaltWaterTides.com.
Postscript: In the years since this post was first blogged, Maine Harbors discontinued tide charts and instead began pointing folks to the Maine Boats Homes & Harbors web site for Tide Charts.
Okay, so we will probably never compete with Hawaii, but we do have our own surfers in Maine.
And, we’re not talking the kind that navigate a keyboard with ten fingers. We’re talking ten toes on an honest-to-goodness surfboard.
My assignment yesterday was to accompany a trio of Bowdoin College students who would make their college mascot (a polar bear) proud by surfing in icy waters before their first class.
I met the trio on campus before sunrise and we drove to an undisclosed beach–Maine surfers zealously guard the location of their favorite beaches, so I’m not going to give up their secret. The photos are slated to run in a future issue of Bowdoin Magazine.
Nevermind that yesterday was the first day of February, that the wind chill was 13 degrees, and that when I gathered my gear the night before I couldn’t find the handwarmers that slip into my winter shooting gloves. Nevermind that when we got to the beach we found the access gate temporarily closed, leaving us with a half-mile jog down a slippery ice-encrusted road to the water. This is Maine surfing at its finest, in the winter when waves peak, so you ignore the “challenges” and simply forge ahead.
As crazy as it might seem for anyone to hit a Maine beach on the first day of February, much less stick a toe in water as cold as 34 degrees, two other surfers joined the Bowdoin trio about 9 a.m. And, we saw a handful of walkers on the beach. All to prove that Mainers are a hardy lot!
I’m hoping to catch up with the trio for more photos next time they go out. I’m also hoping that next time my ten fingers will hang a bit more comfortably; as soon as I got home I surfed over to LLBean to order more handwarmers. Here’s hoping they arrive before the next big wave.
Laura Segall-Wow! That is crazy, I love how they are walking through the snow with their surf boards.
May 20, 2009 - 6:40 pm
michelestapleton-Thanks Laura. You’ve been a photographer in Maine, so you know the drill: great photo opp taking place and your fingers are screaming “take me some place warmer than this.” I couldn’t believe they were going in the water in that weather!
Even though I’ve been shooting pictures for publications since 1988 (newspapers for the first ten years, and magazines since 1998), there is still something special about that first time I see each of my photos in print. Perhaps it’s being able to let go of a bit of anxiety over crops or color reproduction as every photographer wants her work displayed at its best, but mostly it’s excitement about seeing the words and pictures finally come together in the completed piece.
So, with that usual bit of anticipation I have been waiting for the latest issue of Maine Boats & Harbors to arrive so I could see the article on the Phippsburg cottage I photographed for the magazine back in late October. It was the first architectural shoot I had done for the magazine, and I wanted it to look good!
The issue arrived earlier this week, but with a bit of a surprise: the magazine is now sporting a new name. As the letter from publisher John Hanson explained, a combination of factors led to the magazine’s newly expanded name of Maine, Boats, Homes & Harbors.
Of course there have been dozens of home stories in the magazine before mine, but it was sort of fun to note that I photographed the first home to appear in the magazine after Homes was officially added to the masthead.
It was a beautiful house, a fun assignment, and the article turned out lovely. I hope many more follow.
If I can take a minute for a purely personal issue, I’d like to encourage everyone to microchip their cats and dogs, especially if your pet is apt to be outside / beyond the bounds of a fence.
Last Saturday, a darling black lab was roaming at large in our neighborhood. He was friendly, well cared for, and neutered–obviously someone’s beloved pet–but no one recognized him and he had lost his collar, so we had no way to get him to his home. Brunswick’s animal control office was closed until the following Tuesday, so it looked like this dog might be separated from his owner for at least three days.
We live only one block off busy Maine Street, so if the dog stayed at large, there was the chance he might get hit on Maine Street, so Gail next door grabbed him and put him in her fence until she was able to track down his owner.
The story had a happy ending: the dog was reunited with his owners later that day–a family that had just moved into the neighborhood. Someone had left the fence open by mistake. But, the incident got me moving quickly on an idea I’d toyed with for a while, getting my own Scout (photo below) microchipped.
Scout had an appointment that Tuesday for his yearly shots, and when I asked the vet about microchipping, I was surprised at how easy and inexpensive the process is. The microchip, about the size of a grain of rice, is implanted without putting the dog to sleep. The vet uses a syringe to place the chip under the dog’s skin near his shoulder blades. And, the total cost was under $60 including registering the chip’s ID number with Home Again, which maintains the database of ID numbers and a 24-hour hot line for reuniting pets with their owners.
Now if Scout slips out of the house–he has once in the past year–or if he slips his collar while on a walk–he has once in the past year–we have the chip as an extra precaution against losing him.
by mstapleton