Jennifer Steen Booher

The Blue Hill Fair

Welcome to the Blue Hill Fair! Held on Labor Day weekend in lovely Blue Hill, Maine, the Fair marks the official end of summer in these parts. The kids start school the day after Labor Day, so this is their last hooray.

I get dizzy on the rides that go in circles, so I let the kids go on and I hang out and take photos.

The only livestock that caught my kids attention long enough for me to take photos was a stall full of piglets.

This year my daughter and I went back for the fireworks show on Sunday night. I brought my tripod and had lots of fun playing with long exposures on the Midway.

If you do a long enough exposure, you can make people disappear!

And if you do a long exposure during the fireworks, you get this:

Summer really did go out with a bang this year!

By Jenn | September 16, 2011 | Maine, photography | 2 Comments |

Crown of Maine Balloon Fair, Presque Isle, Maine

The fair was wonderful. The weather was perfect. The balloons were pretty and it was not at all crowded. Unfortunately I took at least 1500 photographs. It has taken three full days to select the ones worth editing, and my eyes are red, bleary, and kind of crossed. I’m also heartily sick of balloons, photography, and my Mac. OK, my original post was a little cranky. Sorry about that! What I really meant to tell you about was how beautiful Aroostook County is. I hadn’t been north of Machias since our high school trip to Quebec City, oh, twenty-something years ago. Presque Isle, the site of the balloon festival, is about 4 hours north of Bar Harbor. Not much further on to Canada from there! The countryside is lovely, and even though Presque Isle is a good-size city that includes a University of Maine campus, the farms and fields seem to go right up through it so it feels rural almost everywhere. Ironically none of my countryside photos came out, probably because I took them from the car.

I went to the fair hoping to get lots of shots of balloons floating together in a deep blue sky, something like the one above,

but I found myself much more interested in the assembly and inflation process.

As a photographer, I was also intrigued by the translucency of the balloons, which led to all kinds of tricky lighting situations. Faces illuminated by flames, balloons backlit by the setting sun…

The afternoon sessions had us lined up along a fence shooting straight into the sun. I learned a lot this weekend, oh yes I did.

The number one thing I learned, and it took a while, is walk around. Move!

I have a great zoom lens, and it makes me lazy. I can get shots from clear across the field.

But to get the light where I wanted it, I had to actually walk around and try different vantage points.

Another thing I learned is that at 5am it can be seriously cold, even in August. I’m talking fleece and jackets and gloves sort of cold.

Also, note to self: if you’ve filled the 16MB memory card, you have enough photos.

There are a lot more photos of the balloons on my Flickr stream

By Jenn | September 1, 2011 | Maine, photography | 4 Comments |

A Change of Focus

Time Pieces

Several months ago, my sister’s former mother-in-law sent me a large package of pocket watch mechanisms to photograph. (I traveled to India with her, so we now have a friendship that transcends those broken family bonds. Once you ride an elephant together, you never forget.) At any rate, I finally tackled the watch parts.

Deconstructed Pocket Watches

There weren’t quite enough to make a square, so I dug into my own collections, and was amazed at the amount of stuff in my “Clocks” box. I filled in the square, and then went on to take two other photos of clock-stuff.

Clock Faces

These were all taken on the new lightbox contraption, and I will say that metal is an absolute bear to light. I struggled for ages with trying to adjust my (extremely primitive) set-up so the lights would not glare off the glass faces or burn out the edges of the (highly reflective) metal cases. I’ve jury-rigged an inexpensive lighting system that works well for a very simple and specific type of photograph, but does not adapt easily to new directions. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with reflections, since the ocean does a wonderful job of sanding, weathering, eroding, rusting, and dulling all the shiny things that fall into it. Betcha if I threw all my clocks into Frenchmans Bay for a few weeks they’d be much easier to photograph (and believe me, by the end of this session I was tempted!)

By Jenn | August 23, 2011 | collections | 4 Comments |

Lamoine Beach, August 9, 2011

Lamoine Beach, August 9, 2011 (Beachcombing series No.48)

It’s been a busy week, catching up with the piles of flotsam from the summer’s beaches. My Photoshop skills have improved dramatically over the last 6 months, and so have my photography skills. Funny thing is, I still don’t like any of my photos instantly. I sort of take it on faith that they’re decent, and it takes a month or two for me to see them for what they are, rather than what I meant them to be. I have to put them aside and not think about it for a while. On the other hand, I kind of like this one. Something about the grass and the feathers appeals to me.

I find very few feathers in the winter. I suppose there are fewer birds, and they are holding tight to their warmth! In summer, there are feathers everywhere.
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August 17 addenda:

Lamoine Beach. Not enough sand to make my daughter happy, no waves or rocks to please my son. Beachcombing wasn’t too bad, although I only had a few minutes.

By Jenn | August 14, 2011 | beachcombing, collections, Maine, photography | 1 Comment |

Indian Point, Bar Harbor, Maine; July 27, 2011

The Blagden Preserve is a piece of land out on Indian Point that is managed by the Nature Conservancy. I’d heard that seals often bask on the rocks, so I packed up the family to go check out the beach.

You park just inside the entrance off the Indian Point Road, and walk down a paved lane to the shore. There are some paths through the woods, but we took the easy way. You can see the kids have run way ahead of slow old Mom here. They weren’t happy about having to walk – it can’t have been more than a mile, and took about 10 minutes. I forbade whining until we were out of sight of the parking lot. It was a lovely walk, with moss-covered stumps and fern glades in the spruce forest.

The beach turned out to be very pretty, mostly small stones with some huge outcrops. It was sunny and warm (in the high 70s), with a light breeze, and the most amazing towering cumulus clouds.

The water was surprisingly warm. The kids wouldn’t swim with me, though, because the seaweed was pretty thick. At high tide it would be a better swimming spot. No seals showed up while we were there, but there were plenty of crabs!

This little one has red legs. It is hiding inside the bladder-pod of a seaweed.

I couldn’t stop staring at the clouds. They were surreal!

On a beachcombing note, this is the place for smooth periwinkle. It’s only the second place I’ve found them, and they were everywhere.

By Jenn | August 12, 2011 | beachcombing, collections, Maine, photography, sea glass | No Comments |

Valley Cove, Southwest Harbor, Maine; August 1, 2011

A friend and I dragged our children out for a walk in the woods. You go over Flying Mountain to get to Valley Cove, but then around it to get back, so it is a little bit of a hike in parts, but a short one, and an easy walk back.

There’s a gorgeous view along the top:

It was a beautiful sunny day on the mountain, but the fog was moving in through the mouth of Somes Sound far below. Can you see the way it swamps the little point of land at the center, almost like a big wave?

When you get down the other side of the moutain, there is a lovely cove. The water was pretty darn cold, as usual. This is one of the girls trying to swim without getting salt water on her peach. I had about five minutes for beachcombing while we prodded the kids to dry off and get their shoes on. Looking forward to school starting for them, and longer beachcombing sessions for me!

By Jenn | August 12, 2011 | beachcombing, collections, Maine, photography, sea glass | No Comments |

Hutchins Camp/Donnell Pond, Franklin, Maine; July 23, 2011

We went out to Donnell Pond in Franklin to have dinner with old friends. A sunset cruise in a classic 60s motorboat, chauffeured by our 10-year-old daughter (who drove very slowly, with an occasional burst of speed that toppled us sideways) followed by food, wine, and conversation…life is good.

One advantage to put-putting along with a new driver at the helm …

the loons were not troubled in the least, and let us putter right up next to them.

My girl drove slowly, but not quite slowly enough for a hand-held camera at dusk, so I didn’t get many clear shots.

I’m still obsessively photographing water, especially waves.

Can you see the clusters of black dots on some of the leaves?

The water striders were resting at the end of a long day.

There were plenty of empty leaves, but they seem to like company as they were all crowded onto a few leaves.

As I was beachcombing just before dinner, this little guy hopped out of my path just before I stepped on him. Granted it was dusk, and the light was dimming, but I was beachcombing – looking intently at the ground by my feet – and I still didn’t notice him until he moved. That’s some pretty effective camouflage!

By Jenn | August 12, 2011 | beachcombing, collections, Maine, photography | 2 Comments |

New Photo Technique

Aquamarine Sea Glass

I’ve been using a new photo technique I thought I’d share with you. I got the idea from this very useful (and short) video by Bryan Peterson, but I didn’t want to run out and spend four or five hundred dollars on flashes and wireless. So, as usual, I cobbled together my own version.

I built a box of foamcore, put 4 lamps in it with Ott Lite (daylight spectrum) bulbs, and topped it with a piece of white acrylic (the kind used for making signs).

I line up my subjects on the acrylic, and voila, no shadows, and lovely backlighting on the sea glass.

For your entertainment (as opposed to edification), here is the full setup. My flat files are in the center of the room, and I put my tripod on top so I could get farther away from the lightbox. I put a piece of plywood on top of the flat files so I don’t dent them when I stand there. It isn’t elegant, and my “studio” is packed to the gills and will never be featured in any magazine, but I get a LOT of exercise jumping up and down from this contraption!

Olive Green Sea Glass

Pretty, ain’t they?

By Jenn | August 11, 2011 | collections, photo setup, photography, sculpture, sea glass | 4 Comments |

Back Beach, Bernard, Maine, July 16, 2011

There are THREE photos from this beach because I found such pretty things I wanted to focus on their details.

Feathers: Back Beach, Bernard, Maine; July 16, 2011

Feathers and stones and pine cones! And the day’s adventures:

Beach Stones: Back Beach, Bernard, Maine; July 16, 2011

My daughter finished her scuba certification course this spring, and will do her Open Water dive in September to earn her certificate. (We’re waiting for the warmest water we can get, because she is such a thin little thing without an ounce of insulation.) My husband, who is also a diver, and my son, ditto, agreed that she should practice moving around in a wetsuit before trying to dive in the ocean. The wetsuit is very awkward and constricting, and both of my guys hated their first dives outside of a pool. It takes some getting used to. Me, I am not a diver. I’d love to get down there with a camera, but feel claustrophobic in the mask.

So to jump straight to the point, we went over to Back Beach to let her try things out snorkeling.

It was a gorgeous day, 83 degrees F, a deep blue sky scattered with puffy cartoon clouds. We got there as high tide was beginning to ebb. Back Beach is a great place for stones – nicely weathered, rounded cobbles of granite and basalt. It is popular, but not over-populated. There were two rambunctious families with water guns and one blonde sunbather in a bikini who looked as if she had dropped in from some other universe entirely.

My husband and son helped my daughter into her wetsuit, which is quite the athletic process and involved a lot of screeching and complaints. It was an old suit we had borrowed for the afternoon, and was awfully stiff and rather too big for her. The water was quite cold (it usually is, up here) and apparently it seeped in through the gaps and chilled her quickly. They snorkeled for about ten minutes before she struggled out of the water declaring that she hates diving and is never going back in the water again. I think we need a better-fitting and more flexible suit. Why do my children’s favorite sports require expensive equipment that has to fit well? Why can’t they just play tag? At any rate, we’re looking for a 7 mil wetsuit for a 10 year old girl, if anyone’s got one hanging around.

By Jenn | August 5, 2011 | beachcombing, collections, Maine, photography | No Comments |

Update on Jesup show

The Big One is back from the frame shop and hanging in state at the library. Look at the size of this guy! He makes the 20×20 print on the next panel look itty bitty.

It’s kind of awesome to step back and say, ‘Whoa, I made that.’

By Jenn | August 5, 2011 | Uncategorized | 4 Comments |