Its time to head home.

With some relief that the week is over given the poor weather we’ve had for the past couple of days, but with equal sadness that the photography trip is over, we packed the car and headed out.  After having a good breakfast, we leave MDI for the 6.5 hour drive home.

We decided to take a route that brought us from Ellsworth through Bucksport, Belfast, Camden, Rockland, Wiscasset, and Bath to end in Freeport where we would pick up Interstate 95.  Somewhere along the way we bought lobsters to bring home to our wives for dinner that evening – a gift that’s better than a T-shirt, I guess.

We stopped for a short time in Camden so that Steve could get a feel for the town.  Its a quaint coastal Maine town with a small, classic New England downtown area and a nice waterfront.  I was surprised to see a number of boats still in the water in Camden Harbor.  The water and weather at home in Rhode Island are much warmer than in Maine, yet its seems like most Rhode Islanders take their boats out of the water shortly after Labor Day.

Camden is a very photogenic town, particularly in autumn where it is less crowded than in summer.  The town library is on a hill at the head of the harbor with a nice little park across the street a little further towards the harbor.  The view, especially during the summer months where there are many wood sailboats in the harbor, is fantastic.  About a mile north of downtown is Camden Hills State Park that has an auto road that takes visitors to the top of Mt. Battie, which overlooks Camden and Penobscot Bay.  We were anxious to get home, so we didn’t take the auto road this time, but I wish now that we did.

[SinglePic not found]We did spend time in the harbor area shooting some of the boats remaining, but there is a lot less activity in the harbor than in summer so I mainly tried to look for abstract compositions. I happened to walk past a restaurant where some polished aluminum chairs were stacked and you see an image of those chairs here.  This image was the last one I made in Maine on this trip.

Those reading this who personally know me, know that I’m very anti-duck-photo (and this includes cats, dogs, squirrels, pigeons, and seagulls unless they happen to be part of a larger scene I’m photographing). My thought on these subjects is that if those things are the only things I  can find to shoot, then I’m not looking hard enough.  With that said, the duck image presented here is the one and only duck image I will ever post on this site.  It was made simply because I found the odd duck – the black duck surrounded by the three white ducks – somewhat interesting and amusing.

Overall, it was a good week and I was able to get some images I’m proud of.  I hope the weather is more agreeable next year when I return, but its good to be home.

© 2009 James A. Fraser