With the changing temperatures this week came some thick fog on Tuesday evening.  I snapped this shot on Market Street next to 100 Market as I was enjoying the foggy streetscape and the lamps marking the sidewalks when a car presented itself.  I have a love/hate relationship with this time of the year, when daylight is fleeting and the opportunities to shoot sunset are basically gone for months.  It’s a nice challenge to force myself out of the house…and it’s always nice when there’s some nice atmospheric conditions like warm weather and fog to make it a more enjoyable evening.

Thanks for visiting…stay tuned for an exciting announcement before the end of the week!

With all of the excitement from my trip out West, I thought it was time to return to our fantastic little slice of heaven here on earth with a local seacoast shot.  This is another take on the North Church’s clocktower.  It’s a familiar site, one I’ve featured often – as it’s one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Portsmouth, but I wanted to post today’s photo for a special reason.  This was taken with a very unique lens, one that’s very important to me.  I was fortunate to be given a gorgeous vintage Hasselblad camera by my Uncle Nate (Tudy) Sock.  As far as I can remember, Uncle Tudy was the first prolific photographer in our family, and I’m sure that all of our family’s appreciation and passion for photography is thanks to him.  He’s traveled the world with the Hasselblad, one of the most exotic locations I remember hearing about was one of his safaris in Africa.  I love  hearing about his travels and how much he enjoyed capturing the world around him, knowing that I feel the same rush when I am out shooting on adventures.

The camera itself is gorgeous (see below).  In a digital world, I had a difficult time determining whether it was functioning correctly…so in the meantime, I was able to find an adapter that let me use the Carl Zeiss 100mm f 3.5 lens on my Canon 5d Mark II.  Zeiss has always built incredibly quality products, with exceptional glass quality.  What you’ll notice is the remarkable clarity and color from just a single exposure with this lens.  I look forward to many more photos with this beauty…and with the camera itself now that I seem to have it working smoothly (time to order some slide film!).  Thanks for visiting.

The little garden perched above The Oar House Deck and in front of the Moffatt-Ladd House is easy to miss.  It’s this little oasis with fountains and rich colored flowers tucked right on the side of Market Street.  (It’s also often overpoweringly stinky thanks to the dumpsters at the Ceres St. level).  It’s well worth a stroll down if you’re heading towards Annabelle’s for some ice cream or towards the Decks or out for a Harbor Cruise.

One of my favorite places to visit on a warm summer evening is the Wentworth-Coolidge mansion on the waterfront of Portsmouth’s back channel.  It’s almost always delightfully quiet….with the gorgeous colors of a sunset and the rich colors of the grass and the home – it’s rarely a disappointing stop.  The little boat on the mooring added another element to the shot – and the Wentworth By The Sea is peeking out from the trees in the distance.

As I was making my way back towards home on the other side of Portsmouth from New Castle, I was savoring the orange glow that just kept getting better.  I had been shooting over at Great Island Common and was ready to pack it in for the day and was in the car planning to have some dinner…thinking the camera was off for the night.  Well, as I was heading down Route 1B towards Portsmouth again – I was greeted by a fireball of a sun just over the horizon, situated perfectly above the Memorial Bridge.  Naturally, I pulled what was probably an illegal u-turn so I could park and grab the tripod…and this was the first set of brackets (exposures) I fired off.

I’ve always liked how the road is windy and curved, and the fact that it splits the bodies of water on either side.  The power lines and the painted lines on the roadway help give this shot a very nice flow…the glowing road helps too!

The seacoast experienced a gorgeous sunset on Thursday evening.  After an event in New Castle at the Wentworth Marina – I was joined by another local photographer, Ron Risman of Cameratown.com.  We decided to head over to the sprawling Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion property on the back channel in Portsmouth…and despite the ridiculous mosquitoes that wanted us to pack it in for the night, we enjoyed some lush colors in the sky and some moonlight.

The shot above features the large yellow structure as it sits along the waterfront with some awesome summer hues.  The shot below was taken directly opposite from the sunset shot a bit later on – and features the gorgeous moonlight reflected on the water, with a little bit of jetty to spice it up.

For the camera techies out there – the shot above was a 5-exposure series (-2 to +2)…and the moonlight shot below was a 3-exposure set of brackets (-2 to +2).

The view from the top floor at 100 Market Street, from the private balcony of the 100 Club, must be the best in the entire city.  You can see across the Piscataqua River to Kittery, over to the Memorial Bridge and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard…and looking westward you can see both the Middle Bridge and the Piscataqua River Bridge towards Newington…and you can see all the winding rooftops of Market Street leading towards the North Church and Market Square.

Thanks to Catapult Seacoast and the Business Speaker Series the organization has put together, I was able to enjoy a fascinating evening listening to Chase Bailey…and enjoy a few minutes out on the wrap-around balcony that is one of the beautiful features of the 100 Club.  I’ve got a few more cool shots that will make their way up over the next week or so…but today is a taste of the eagle-eye vantage point.