On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
JanieM
Until I took up with Steve from Mendocino, I mostly took pictures ad hoc as I went about my daily life, except for fall color, sunsets, lake reflections … well, okay, I did make some special efforts to take pictures. In the past couple of years I’ve stuck with the habit of keeping a camera in my pocket at all times, or grabbing it and going outside when comthing catches my eye. But I’ve also greatly increased the number of excursions devoted specifically to taking pictures. 1, 6, 8, and 9 in this set are from trips like that. The rest were caught in passing.
Note on names: I tend to give names (lakes, towns, roads, etc.) for the sake of anyone who might live around here, or visit, and wonder where the pictures were taken.
Thanks to Steve from Mendocino, as always, for all his help, editing and otherwise.
Another take on the lake at dawn.
About half a mile from #1 by water, this is the little extension of Maranacook Lake on the west side of Route 41 at the boat landing. Besides the nice bits of color, I was drawn by the textures and of course the reflections.
This has been a favorite spot for picture-taking for the past couple of years because it’s on the way to where my daughter was living, and it has a crude boat landing with places to park off the road. Now that my daughter has moved, I won’t have any reason to go that way unless it’s deliberately to take pictures. (Maybe I will!)
The spot is in Monmouth (or maybe Winthrop?), on the west side of Annabessacook Lake, where the road passes over a one-lane bridge. People often fish off the bridge or along the edge of the water, and sometimes I see other people besides me taking pictures. In this one I love the layering – clouds, blue sky, strips of land and water, reflections. Basically I love the quiet.
Near the East Side Boat Landing, with the Memorial Bridge looming up behind and above me, out of the frame. It was March, so despite the snowcover, winter was on the run.
The Cultural Building, which houses the Maine State Library, the Maine State Archives, and the Maine State Museum. The whole place is closed right now, and apparently for a long time to come, for major renovations that include asbestos removal. The Library and Archives are functioning in temporary quarters; the Museum may not re-open until 2025. That’s too bad; it’s a great place to visit.
School Street, bordering Gardiner Common.
My house is half a mile from a high school and middle school that serve Readfield and three other towns. Most of the land between us and the school is wooded and criss-crossed with trails for walking, cross-country skiing and running, and snowmobiling. This was taken just off one of the trails when most – but not all – the fall color was on the ground.
This was taken on May 15, 2021, the first time I had gone to the coast – or pretty much anywhere – since the pandemic started. Innocent me, I thought we were on our way out of the worst of it. I sat at one of those tables on a beautiful spring day and ate my lunch, musing about the relationships between couples where one was masked (outdoors) and one was not. Little did most of us know that we were nowhere near the end of it.
The Androscoggin River looking south from the Auburn end of the Longley Bridge. My son played basketball in Auburn as a teenager and my daughter went to Bates College, so I spent quite a lot of time in L-A over the years. One day this fall I thought I might make it part of my quest to get more comfortable taking pictures in urban settings.
Hard not to gravitate to water, though.
Back home. Yet one more dramatic sky.
mrmoshpotato
That tree screams “Ba-BOOM! IT’S! AUTUMN!”
Van Buren
Very pretty, I especially like the last one.
cope
Lovely pictures, thank you. The tree in #1 is amazing.
Kristine
Beautiful photos. I agree with cope about the 1st shot.
Madeleine
Some friends an I will spend a few days in Rockland this summer. We’ll be reconnecting with a friend from grad school who has a B & B there. Thanks for the introduction to the town.
dp
Lovely post.
eclare
Beautiful lakes…
The Castle
No place like New England, anywhere. The thing about those red maples — they are loudest, and first.
I am really intrigued by the boat launch pic, I can’t place where that is. I can tell it’s late in the winter, because it’s “bright” snow rather than “gloomy” snow from the high sun angle, plus you can almost see the sap rising in the trees. The promise of spring…which is another month or 6 weeks away, truly.
The yellow-green of the next to last pic screams May, while the last pic’s is quite a bit darker, maybe June.
The Rockland photo is a zinger. In the first house on the right is a funky place called Cafe Miranda. Last winter I ate there, outside, where they had set up fire rings for people to gather around in their parkas, hats, and mitts. An experience I will never forget.
JanieM
@The Castle: Sadly, Cafe Miranda closed last summer. Their website suggests possibilities of occasional events, but doesn’t give any hint of reopening full time. It was a fun place, and it’s too bad it went under. I ate there sometimes when I went to Rockland; my other option was usually the Home Kitchen Cafe.
The last picture was indeed taken in June. The next-to-last was actually October, but I can see why you might think May, especially since the vivid colors don’t really come through WordPress intact.
The “boat launch” one with the snow and the blue-green shed was taken somewhere in the area around Augusta’s East Side Boat Landing — the little park/playground behind City Hall. Above the shed you can just make out the silhouette of the old hospital, aka the Ballard Building — if that helps place it for you.
StringOnAStick
Funny you should mention asbestos removal in Augusta; my dad was born there, became a mining engineer and for a large part of his early career he ran an, wait for it, asbestos mine. A mine that is now a superfund site, and mentioning asbestos removal and remediation has always been an easy way to trigger a long angry RW rant. There’s a reason I am a liberal, and being allowed to play in the asbestos pile at the mine has so far not led to lung disease, so I’ve got that going for me.
Gorgeous photos, as always. It’s been fun watching and reading about your development as a photographer, and your collaboration with Steve from Mendocino.
stinger
Wonderful pictures, rural and urban alike. Don’t know why I always want to pick a “favorite” in a set when I like them all (and I see I’m not alone in that), but those Readfield clouds — wowza.
My niece and her family just moved to Brunswick, where her husband is a college librarian. I hope to visit some day!
way2blue
JanieM, my favorite of this set is the second one. Love the interaction of the reflection on the lake and the submerged leaves (?) / water plants (?). Exquisite. You’re getting me to think about paying attention to the craft of photography rather than simply point & shoot…
JanieM
@way2blue:
I’m glad. That’s the core of what Steve has done — is still doing — for me. Part of the fun, and satisfaction, is that the quest is never-ending. There’s always something new to learn, and there’s always something new to take pictures of. Even — as I’ve said before — if it’s only that the light is at a slightly different angle today compared to yesterday.
J R in WV
@StringOnAStick:
There are six different minerals [As fibrous silicates, asbestos minerals are broadly classified into the serpentine (chrysotile) and amphibole (crocidolite, amosite, tremolite, anthophyllite, actinolite) groups…] which are identified generally as asbestos. Some are far more likely to cause health issues than others.
I grew up in a newspaper publishing environment back when that involved molten typesetting metal, mostly lead, and lots of asbestos, as it is resistant to heat, required to keep the metal molten.
So far, no lung disease here, also too. My whole family worked in the newspaper business, but lung disease has been quite absent from causes of death related to asbestos exposure in the family, as opposed to smoking tobacco.
Janie, love the great Maine photos, sorry to post a completely off topic comment, but people are generally not aware that there are different kinds of asbestos…
JanieM
@J R in WV:
It wouldn’t be a BJ thread if the topic didn’t wander…..
@stinger:
Unless I’m confused, I think you’ve mentioned that Maine is the second prettiest state after Virginia, where she moved from. Someone on another blog said recently that Maine is the second prettiest state after Alaska. If this keeps up we’re going to have to subject this topic to ranked-choice voting! Also, I may do a lighthearted post one of these days on “Maine superlatives,” which I have been collecting from various news and online media for years.
If you visit, we should have a meetup…..
@Madeleine: See above re: meetup, although if you’re here to reunite with friends, you probably have other priorities. Anyhow, I’ll put in a plug for our old babysitter’s bookstore, hello hello books, which is right downtown in the same building as the Rock City Cafe. The Farnsworth Museum is lovely too. Rockland is my favorite of the coastal towns — pre-covid I used to go there two or three times a year.
stinger
@JanieM: I did say something along those lines — based on my experience of having been to Virginia once, and Maine not yet!
I will let you know if I do get to Maine–a meetup would be grand!
mayim
@JanieM:
Replying to a dead thread [which is why I mostly lurk ~ only get a chance to read well after several threads have died].
I worked in the cultural building in Augusta ~ let me tell you, removing the three agencies [archives, library, museum] was a major undertaking! No idea when we’ll be moved back. We were originally told the work would be finished in the first half of next year but it’s clear that’s not happening. I’ve maintained from the start that I will be pleasantly surprised if we are back and functioning by August 2025, which will be 5 years from when we were told we’d have to move.
In the meantime, we carry on in our temporary location as best we can.
If a meet-up happens, I’d love to join in!
@stinger: guessing if I haven’t met your niece’s husband, I will at some point ~ the library community in Maine is rather small. We may be a poor state but we generally do libraries well.