Category Archives: Photography

Acadia National Park

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Acadia National Park is a wonderful place to visit in Maine to experience the beauty of nature. The park is located on Mount Desert Island, which is reachable from the mainland through a bridge. Most visitors stay at the town of Bar Harbor, which is located just at the edge of the park. The park is a popular getaway destination in the Northeast United States especially during the summer months and early fall when the fall foliage is at its peak. The park is the oldest national park east of the Mississippi. It has a wonderful one-way road called Park Loop Road that goes around the park on the coastline — the landscape was beautifully designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr, who was also the landscape designer of the National Mall, the White House grounds, the Jefferson Memorial, and Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. There is also a network of old carriage roads that was financed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and now provides a nice network of trails to explore the park.

There is one cool place to check out and experience if you go to Acadia — going to the Cadillac Summit, the highest point along the eastern seaboard of the United States, in the morning to see the sun rising over the horizon. During the months of October through March, this place has the distinction as the first place to see the sunrise in the United States. The photo below was taken when I went up there to experience the sunrise on my first morning at Acadia. It’s a neat picture of the sun rising over the horizon on the left, and on the right there was a couple sitting bundled up and enjoying the view.

Sunrise at Cadillac Summit

Bass Harbor Light House

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One of the famous landmarks in Maine is the Bass Harbor Head Light House near Acadia National Park. It’s one of the most photographed lighthouses in New England, which means that if you go there to take the iconic photos at sunset, it’s very likely that you will not be the only one with that great idea. I arrived at the location about a couple of hours before the estimated sunset time, enough time to look for the spot to take the iconic shot of the lighthouse. There were already a couple of other photographers getting set up, so I found a spot on the rocks to get my tripod and camera ready for taking the shots. I thought all was great, until more and more people arrived as we got closer to the sunset time. Some were respectful of the photographers who were already there, and picked spots on the side that would not interfere with the view of the other photographers. But there were only limited room to ‘spread out’ so before long people started jockeying for positions to take photos, even if that meant obstructing others’ view. Somewhat annoying, especially for those who had come earlier to find good spots to set up. After some positional adjustments and using a zoom lens to limit the view to only the lighthouse, I was able to get some shots of the lighthouse. But then I thought of an interesting point of view — rather than ‘fighting’ the other photographers, why not capturing that very experience of having photographers taking photos of the landmark. So I took few steps back, changed my zoom level, and shot the photo below.

Bass Harbor Head Light House

New England

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After finishing the coast-to-coast road trip from Santa Monica, CA, to Brooklyn, NY, I continued on up north to the New England area. Our coast-to-coast road trip took place in early October, and since I already took several days off from work, and I was already in New York City, I thought why not continuing the trip to visit New England during its peak fall foliage time. Prior to this trip, I had only visited Boston, MA, for business trip. I had never been to the other New England states. So this was a good opportunity to do it, and I decided to ‘sample’ all of the New England states in one extended weekend.

The route for the trip was quite an ambitious one, covering Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut in only four days. But since I was traveling alone (initially I invited my brother to come along, but he had some events to prepare for immediately after getting back to New York), my schedule was somewhat flexible and I could push it as far as I could personally take. The trip ended up to be a wonderful one as I got to experience many things unique to the region — fall foliage, maple syrup, lobster, history — capping the longest road trip I had ever undertaken, around 5,300 miles covering 22 states from California to Maine in 10 days.

The photo below was taken on the Park Loop Road in the Acadia National Park, ME. I had purchased the car about one month before the trip, and this trip was its first road trip outside the DC metro area. On a morning drive through the gorgeous drive, I noticed this stretch of the road that was lined with colorful trees, and the road had a nice S curve. It was early enough that there was no traffic for few minutes, so I ‘staged’ my car and took the photo.

Fall drive in Acadia

South River Falls Trail

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Today I went hiking at the Shenandoah National Park with some friends. We went on the South River Falls Trail, a trail close to the southern end of the Central District of the park. The trail went downhill for about 2.3 mi towards the South River Falls, the third tallest waterfall in the park at 83 feet. The fall foliage was still pretty nice on the trail, though on higher grounds, the leaves had almost completely fallen. Coming back we decided to follow the fire road all the way to the Skyline Drive. It’s roughly similar distance compared to going back on the original trail, but it was a little easier uphill hike. The photo below was taken at the stream close to the base of the waterfall.

South River Falls Trail

Rose River Trail

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Another nice hike to do during the fall time at the Shenandoah National Park is the Rose River Trail. I went there last year also in October, a week after my hike to the Hawksbill Summit. Since the elevation for this trail is lower than Hawksbill Summit, the fall foliage was still closer to the peak along this trail. The beginning part of the trail was a walk through the woods, then followed with a walk along a river for quite some time, There were many small waterfalls to see along the way. The photo below was taken around the beginning of the hike. This was my first attempt at HDR photography — couldn’t resist given the wonderful colors of the foliage and the nice morning lighting.

Rose River Trail