Our third visit to Mount Desert Island and the famous Acadia Magic still rules this landscape.  It is easy to feel of another time and place; strolling Rockefeller's genteel carriage roads - built to avoid the intrusion of the automobile into this quiet beauty, or reaching for the next iron rung impaled into the pink granite to pull ourselves onto Champlain Ridge where the views across the terrain out to the ocean are so unspoiled it seems we are looking through the eyes of the native americans who traversed these paths and ponds for centuries before European explorers came under their spell.  While acknowledging the thousands of truly amazing and eloquent photographs and essays which detail this grandeur, these humble efforts are offered to express some measure of our singular experience.

Stars

My first attempt at astrophotography - the pristine black sky of Maine gives a big assist, no light pollution, but there were high clouds - my expectations were low but I had my new fast lens and my tripod and had figured out the math for a long enough exposure to capture light - but not so long that star trails appear. When I tripped the shutter my eye could see only three stars - with the magic of long exposure - voila - a sky of many stars. My first attempt-and so I am proud and need to record it. Another example of why this blog is for my own enjoyment.

Carriage Road - Acadia National Park

The locals say the fall color is past its peak - but these trees seem to have decided a different schedule. My good fortune.

Room With a View - Sunrise, October 27

Bass Harbor Lighthouse

If high tide had come any earlier I would have been soaked to my knees, instead of just my ankles.

Another Fazio picture. While we were waiting for the birds to cooperate for photo ops, which never happened, we looked down and all around for other opportunities to take pictures. This was also dragonfly mating season. I have pictures of the dragon flies mating but it seems less than discrete to post them. I would just say that they were gossamer helicopters on a very important mission. As a consolation - here is this amazing neon dragon fly, barely two inches in length. In my imagination he is catching his breath awaiting his next opportunity for an encounter.

My first trip to the Fazio Wilderness, and for the most part the wildlife did not cooperate with my need to take pictures- i.e., the sighting of the rare blue heron, while imprinted on my brain, is not imprinted on my camera because he was so shy about any human presence. I like this picture of a much less coy inhabitant (though I admit ignorance as to his identity) for many reasons, there is a glint of light on his beak - which is why I took the picture, his reflection in the water is glorious, in this parched California he is standing in water, and for birders, he is a harbinger of the magnificent influx of wildlife we are about to receive here in Northern California

My macro lens helps me communicate my appreciation of the beauty of small things. This is a flower in the Fazio Wilderness west of Sacramento. The 80 freeway is less than a mile away so you can still hear traffic - if you are not concentrating on a beautiful flower. This flower was less than an inch in diameter. You can see its companions blurred in the background.

Frog Lake - on the trail to Round Top Lake (my profile picture) - Carson Pass on Highway 88 in the Sierra. Almost 9,000 feet elevation which explains snow on the ground on July 1.

One of my most enjoyabe hikes because I decided late in the day on a Tuesday that my light calendar on Wednesday justified a mid-week get away. A guilty pleasure highly recommended.

A double rainbow at Bridal Veil Falls - Yosemite Valley.

A trip to Yosemite late spring to see the waterfalls but it's impossible to resist El Capitan's demand for attention.

Jackson Town Square Color - October 2008

Fall at Gros Ventre - Jackson, Wyoming