This past weekend was very nice; Saturday we had weather in the 90’s and Sunday was more of a warm autumn day- 80’s with a crisp sporadic breeze from the North. If I could choose one season to live in it would be autumn. Fortunately, most Maine’s fall weather consists of crisp breezy days with enough sunshine to keep the daylight hours warm.

For most of the day on Saturday I stayed inside trying to stay as cool as possible. I caught up on some Xbox 360 game time, after I worked on a client’s website. Later in the evening Nate and I went to Pushaw Lake to go swimming. The water was very warm and calm. As we swam the sun began to sit behind the horizon, its rays being absorbed by the atmosphere and reflecting in the mixture of clouds and humidity in the most brilliantly beautiful sunset that I’ve seen in a long time, unfortunately I did not bring my camera with me. To remedy this issue I plan to take my camera everywhere I go from now on. Speaking of cameras, I decided to keep my Canon S3 IS., I just need to purchase or find a tripod that has a removable bracket so I can easily attach / detach the camera.

I went to Church on Sunday and headed up to Kokadjo to spend some time with dad. After eating we decided to kayak on one of the nearby ponds. When we arrived we spotted a young bull moose about 20 feet from the shoreline eating Lilly roots. I ran back to the truck to get my camera and was able to snap a few photos; unfortunately I did not have enough time to adjust the settings so the moose wouldn’t be as dark. The moose soon darted off into the woods and I followed quickly behind to snap a candid photo of it looking curiously at me. When dad and I returned to the truck we found that in our haste the doors were locked with the keys inside. We walked about a half mile up the road to another pond where he knew a lady that had some tools to open a door. The walk was nice as the cool air was filled with the scent of raspberries and pine; the skyline had a backdrop of mountains and the clear sky that went from dark to light blue.

After getting the truck unlocked we headed out onto the pond. I wanted to take my camera out but was unsure of how stable I would be on the kayak, I found that I was stable and next time I’ll bring my camera out. As soon as we were on the water we spotted 4 other moose spread throughout the shoreline. I quietly drifted towards one of the moose and was roughly 25 feet from it until it started to walk towards me. I spotted a few loons and attempted to get close to them but they dove under and swam away. Loons are beautiful visually and audibly, I didn’t realize they could stay under water for so long.

I had a really good time kayaking; I’m highly considering purchasing my own kayak from Old Town Canoe. I never realized that Old Town was so popular throughout the US and worldwide. Now that I think of it, I’ve seen Old Town canoes and kayaks in Virginia, on TV, etc. The name Old Town is actually a name of a town in Maine that’s actually 15 miles from where I live. L.L. Bean is another popular, high quality company that was started and based in Maine.

I wanted to take a panoramic photo of Mount Katahdin and was able to take a perfectly aligned photo. Mt. Katahdin is 5,270 feet high and is the last mountain of the Appellation trail. On the way back to the camp we picked about a quart of raspberries, I had to fill my camera case. I plan on baking a raspberry pie very soon. I left shortly after returning to the camp as it was getting late and I wanted to leave in time to take photos of the sunset over Moosehead Lake in Greenville.

The following photos were taken in Greenville: Candian Geese flying by, Almost there, So close, Tall shot, sunset and Sunset 2.

I purchased a new camera, Canon S3 IS, last week to replace the Z3 that died a few weeks ago in Virginia. I’ve been playing around with all of the settings and am still not used to everything like I was on my old camera- which is understandable. Although I am starting to get to know my camera better I have been contemplating trading it in for the Canon Digital Rebel XT- I have not yet made my decision. The ability to add filters, additional lenses and focus manually is very appealing to me. I learned about these options at a local photography store, Bangor Photo. I am waiting for them to e-mail me the photos I took with their XT; I want to see how photos look on a DSLR that were taken by me to compare with my S3 IS.

This week has brought warm yet humid free days; the skies are saturated with Cumulus humilis clouds with a beautiful backdrop of vibrant blue. In a few months my favorite season will be here, Autumn. I’m planning on taking few trips this fall and maybe even next month around Maine and Nova Scotia, I want take a boat cruise around some of the island in hopes of taking photos of Whales and Puffins, during October I’ll be driving around the state looking for opportunities to take photos of the foliage.

I made Pizza last night; the dough was not home-made but everything else was purchased and prepared by my hands. The toppings are as follows: Fried Hamburg, Jalapeno, Habanero, Green Peppers, Onion, Mushrooms, and Coca Cola Classic in the 8oz glass bottle. The Pizza came out well; it was hot due to the Habaneros - I think I’ll ease up on them next time. I have been reading food photography tips; I took some advice with this photo of my pizza.

This week has been very excruciatingly hot, the humidity is almost unbearable. This week at work I’m on outside service and every time I get into my car I instantly start to sweat! On my way back from one of our external sites the skies turned brown/black and rain started to pour down so bad that I could barely see while driving. The rain resembled what you would see while under water with no goggles; I could make out the smeared headlights and taillights mixed in with bright flashes in the sky. I stopped at a red light and hail started to fall, it was about the size of large BB gun pellets- there must have been two for every square inch. After what seemed to be 4 minutes the red light went out, traffic stopped and I decided to drive through, I slightly hydroplaned across the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge that crosses the Penobscot River. Once I reached the hospital the storm started to calm and I could see the lightning much clearer; I wish I had my new camera, I’ve always wanted to capture lightening. On my walk to the hospital I was hit by a piece of hail, it surprisingly stung, it felt like I was shot by a BB gun.

I’ve always enjoyed storms, it’s one of the many ways God shows the power of His creation- not only are the visual aspects of storms appealing to me it’s the science behind it, all of the molecular and chemical reaction(s) that takes place is amazing. Anyone who thinks that life just happened out of a big bang and evolution is truly blinded by the fact that they cannot cope with the fact that someone infinitely smarter then themselves exists.

Today the skies were very clear and temperatures hovered around 80. Jack had to work today so mom and I headed to Sharp Top Mountain to hike down the Apple Orchard Falls trail. The hike was all down hill, from certain segments of the trail you could see a tiny brook trickling down the mountain, the farther we hiked down the larger and louder the brook grew. The pathway was rocky and wrapped down the side of the mountain like a snake wrapping around a tree or its prey. Roughly half way down we came upon a large ledge cave, I was curious to see what was inside, when I got near the entrance mom thought that it would be funny to roar like a bear… I jumped but continued on to see what was inside- thankfully the cave was too small for a bear.

When we reached our destination I was surprised to see how large the waterfall was, it must be 150-180′ high. I climbed up to explore the waterfall and to cool off.

On Wednesday mom and I headed to Lynchburg to shop, we went to one of the malls and looked around for awhile. I purchased a few items of clothing from Hechts (Maceys), JC Penney and Sears. We had a good sized thunderstorm, the thunder was heard very clearly inside of the mall.

Thursday the skies cleared up and the temperature rose to around 85. Jack, mom and I headed towards Salem to take a tour of the Dixie Caverns. The Caverns were found in the early 1900’s by a dog named Dixie, the dog stumbled into a hole in a mountain, and Dixie’s owner witnessed this and went in after to rescue the dog. This cavern has an interesting design; it actually goes up into the mountain rather than going down into the mountain. Our tour included a group of 2nd graders and as you can imagine, they were very loud and energetic. I always enjoy taking tours of these caverns; it’s amazing the see how the Flood (the Great Flood in the Bible) carved out a cave in the ground and than water and moisture created Stalactites and Stalagmites. My digital camera unfortunately did not have a good time; I was able to snap a few shots of the cavern until the moisture short circuited the electrical components. I’m going to attempt to fix the issue myself since it’s out of warranty, if I fail- I’ll have to purchase a new camera. Here’s a couple of photos I took before my camera died: Stalactite and Wedding Bell.

Later in the evening mom and I went to Super Wal-Mart to re-print some of my childhood photos, I’ve been wanting to create my own photo album and now is a good time to start.