“Into each life some rain must fall.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The weather on the day following my arrival in Maine was cold and rainy, so I mostly scouted for locations for when – or if – the weather got better.  Towards the end of the day I headed up Cadillac Mountain to see what I could find to shoot.

When I opened the car door at the top of the mountain, there was a noticeable temperature difference from the lower elevations.  It didn’t matter, because I was there to shoot and shoot I would.  Grabbing my camera, tripod and a wide zoom lens, I headed towards lee side of the summit, as the ebbing storm’s winds were still quite strong.

I shot for about an hour until I had exhausted my compositions, the light got a bit too flat, and my hands were a bit too cold.

Many of my images from this shoot were less than perfect, mostly because it was close to impossible to keep water droplets off the circular polarizing filter I used.  However, in a few instances, like the one here, I managed to keep droplets off the filter long enough to make a few clean images.

Rain is the bane of many a photographer, but for the hardy souls who can brave this kind of weather – and the challenges it brings – it can be a very rewarding experience.  The rain had saturated the rocks and plant life, which rendered their colors incredibly brilliant.  What you see in this image is pretty close to what I saw.

This was one of my favorite shoots of my entire week in Acadia.

© 2009 James A. Fraser