Rockland is a coastal city, full of fine retaurants and beautiful art galleries. While walking along the waterfront and down the Main Street, I was inspired by the colorful, textural and graphic shapes of the buildings, skylines and details of industrial commerce. I worked on a portfolio of images of many small and large details that were abstract and artistic. The clear, haze-free, blue sky of early morning provided a lot of punch and colorful contrast to my images. Because of the bright, sunlight , I was able to handhold the camera for all of these images and to control the aperture for selective focus. There were several design elements that came together for me this day and they made it a very enjoyable and successful shoot of Rockland Street Art. I really enjoyed my coffee and a raisin-pecan roll from Atlantic Bakery, too! So, head out to the waterfront or your forgotten Main Street and look for dramatic details in your urban environment.

The trick of this photograph is creating the antipasto in the first place. This was a family effort with prosciutto, sardines, anchovies, artichokes and every other delicious vegetable and hors d'ouevre that could be part of the salad. The antipasto was a holiday serving before escarole soup and ravioli. This meal was all inspired by my mom's cooking which was an ethnic, Italian delight. Garlic sauteing in its aromatic splendor; golden olive oil splashed on lettuce and tomatoes; red peppers contrasting with verdant romaine; mushrooms and radishes competing for space with hard boiled eggs and tuna. A culinary and visual delight. I hope that you enjoy the picture and will create one of these magic entrees soon.

It's time to be outdoors and looking for the special image along the coast. I found this lone sailboat on its mooring at the mouth of Pemaquid Harbor. It was a calm morning, with just barely a ripple in the surface of the water, making the reflection of the boat a little more interesting. I shot the original of this scene with a Canon 1Ds and then did post processing in Lightroom, Photoshop and Color Efex. It's always amazing the difference that I find in a place so often visited. The challenge is to never become complacent with a familiar place but always search for new details, angles, times of day, viewpoints, shutter speeds, apertures and a fresh imagination.

This is what I was hoping for today when the fog appeared earlier this morning but there was never any sun, even late in the day, towards sunset.

I made this image from an original that I took on Velvia, then scanned with my Nikon Coolscan 9000, and finally made some adjustments in Color Efex. What a great batch of plug- ins for Photoshop.

Good luck with your photography this summer. It feels like rain is the name of the game and you just have to work around it.

There are a lot of directions to follow in photography today. I have found it important to try to change and adapt. In this image, I took a photo of a road sign in Nova Scotia, then created the globe in a mapping software program and added the road sign to create a concept of confusion and direction. Which should we choose?

This is an image that I took on an assignment in Bristol, Maine last summer . I was just wandering around the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse when I noticed this garden of Lupines and the lighthouse fitting so nicely into a seam between the flowers. That is what I look for in photography. The cracks, the seams, the spaces and tiny places that get overlooked and abandoned. This time it worked for me.

Well, I just finished working with the SEO grader in Photoshelter. The constant updating of information and metadata is so important to the life of a photographer these days. At least it was drizzling this afternoon. I was very anxious with the beautiful foggy day along the coast of Maine and wanted to be out creating some new atmospheric images. But, I made great progress with optimization, so the day spent in front of the laptop was probably well worth it.

I did also manage to get into my garden and was scoping out all of the beautiful droplet images. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were scoping me out. I had to treat some of the plants with deer and rabbit repellant (made of rotten eggs and garlic). I hope it keeps the varmits out of the vegetables because it sure is going to keep me away.

I plan to exhibit my images at the Lobster Festival in Rockland this month. Last year, I was the lucky person who got to name the new giant fiberglass mascot of the festival. i won a hundred dollars and some lobster paraphenalia (I can't wait to get my lobster beenie).

See you there. have a great weekend