Rainy Morning at Portland Harbor

From our hotel window, I could see the small sailboats chasing each other in the bay and knew it was windy. I had a photograph on my mind, so when we packed up to go home, I said I wanted to make a quick picture. I drove the block to this spot. I had seen these old pier pilings last year and the light was all wrong to make a photo. Jumping out in the rain with the x100s on the lightest tripod I own, I made a few quick frames. I remembered the camera's built in ND filter and with a push of a button, I had the slow shutter speed I was looking for. In my head, looking out the hotel window, this image was black and white all they way. It's funny how sometimes, the photograph just isn't what you thought it would be. I did a b/w version, but I was surprised that the luminance of the color version was the one that caught my eye.

Portland Harbor
Portland, Maine

Another Spring for this Chevy Special Deluxe

Emerging from the snowpack to see another spring is this rusted up old Chevy Special Deluxe. Somewhere near Gilead Maine.  The car has a sticker on the vent window from the Newport, Rhode Island Naval Base in 1955.   Imagine all the winding roads this car took in 60 years to go from Newport to this field in Gilead, Maine?  There's amazing story in there somewhere.

The Beauty of Imperfection

The Panorama is way too wide, perspective is distorted and there are all sorts of artifacts from the four shots stitched together. But, I love it. 

Pine Point, Maine
iPhone, Pano processed in Lightroom 5 

A Coke and a Canoe

Cornish, Maine

Flow

After days of rain at the old Bobbin Mill
Parsonsfield, Maine

Simple Things

This benefit of seeing...can come only if you pause a while, extricate yourself from the maddening mob of quick impressions ceaselessly battering our lives, and look thoughtfully at a quiet image...the viewer must be willing to pause, to look again, to meditate.
Dorothea Lange

iPhone 4s

Lighthouses

Mountains are in my blood and my photography portfolio reflects that. But last week, with time on my hands, I chose to ramble the coast of Maine for three days to explore the ocean. Of course, that meant light houses.


Bass Harbor Head Light
Bass Harbor, Maine Acadia National Park


Bass Harbor Head Light
Bass Harbor, Maine Acadia National Park


Pemaquid Point Light
Bristol, Maine


Pemaquid Point Light
Bristol, Maine

Rainy Day Birches

A rainy day bushwhack paid off when I found this amazing birch glade in Maine's Acadia National Park.

The Lesson of Tag and You're It!

This blog typically isn't about photography advice or instruction, but today I sold an image and it was a great lesson to not be a lazy photographer.  You see we all love to go to interesting locations, make beautiful pictures and play with cool gear.  Some of the geekier among us even like to spend hours in the software that has become the bane of the digital photographer.  After all that, it's awfully easy to forget about an important housekeeping task... tagging your images with captions and keywords. 

Captioning and keywording is electronically assigning descriptive words to your image.  The who, what, where of an image as well as the attribute, emotion or feeling it evokes are all keyword examples.  It isn't exciting, it doesn't make you say "wow" or give you that rush you get when you've made an image you love.  But, if you're putting your images on the web, tagging is one of the strongest tools you have to get your photos seen because keywords are part of the secret sauce that make the Google world go round.  I've sold two images in the last couple of months thanks to keywords, captions and good old Google images.  Check your website and your blog and make sure you're doing everything you can to help people can find your good work!

For Deeko

While I never played organized hockey, many of my earliest and best memories of growing up revolve around the sport.  Berlin, New Hampshire is just a Sunday drive south of the Canadian border and has historically been a paper mill town with a predominantly French-Canadian population.  Hockey is a foundational part of the place.  For many years, the south end of Main Street was spanned with a sign made up of two huge hockey sticks and an equally large hockey puck replica with white letters that said "Berlin, NH   Hockeytown USA".  Friday nights was always ice skating at the Notre Dame Arena.  Pick up street hockey at St. Joseph's School and ice hockey at the outdoor rink behind the police station was a daily ritual. Usually a freezing cold daily ritual.  Frozen tennis balls hurt like hell when you take a slap shot in the thigh.

This is a picture of the Berlin High School Hockey team from around 1950.  My dad, Richard Viger, is the handsome guy with the sporty hair second from the right in the first row.  Everybody called him Deeko... a take off on Dick (back when this was still an acceptable nickname).  Folklore says that Deeko was a pretty exceptional hockey player with full ride scholarship letters.  It's probably true.  I've had people I didn't know recognize my unique last name and ask if he was my Dad, following on with a comment about how they loved to watch him play in high school.

Deeko ended up signing a different type of acceptance form and the Navy got to enjoy his athletic skills instead.  Despite his time on an aircraft carrier, my dad retained his love of hockey through out his life.  Memories of my Dad are memories of hockey and vice versa.  He was always a fan and would take me to high school games for as long as I could remember.  The Berlin Maroons were a semi-pro team in my home town and we'd take in their games as well. 

My Uncle Romeo and ma Tante Grace ran a small gas station/convenience store on the West bank of the Androscoggin River where the James Cleaveland Bridge now stands. Dad and I would often visit to sit in their little office and watch the Canadiens on a 13 inch black and white television that was up on top of a tall file cabinet.  Romeo was a Canadiens fan and would only watch hockey on the French-speaking channels we could get from Montreal.  The patter of the announcers in a language I didn't understand, the pale blue light from that TV, Guy Lafleur's smooth command of the rink and sitting at my Dad's side with a thick, curved 10 ounce glass bottle of Coke in my hand are still vivid memories to me.  I don't know how old I was... maybe five.

While Uncle Romeo liked the Canadiens, at our house, it was the Bruins.  Located just about midway between Montreal and Boston, the whole town had a similar split allegiance.  People were passionate about it... the kind of stuff that bar room fights are made of.  The Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 1972 when I was six.  This was the era of Phil Esposito, Gerry Cheevers, Terry O'Reilly, Derek Sanderson, Ken Hodge and other iconic Bruins players.  And of course, Bobby Orr.  A Bobby Orr biography was one of the first books I remember checking out of the library as a kid.  The Sher-wood hockey stick I bought at the arena, my Bobby Orr waste paper basket and an autographed Johnny Bucyk postcard were prized possessions at the time.  

My Dad and I made an unbelievable trip to the Montreal Forum for a Stanley Cup game with the Bruins... it must have been during the 1978 finals.  We were only a few rows off the ice and it was amazing.   That trip gave me quite a story to tell my friends when we stopped at Gagne's store on the way to 7:00 pm Catholic Mass... also in French.   No wonder we spent the 50 cents our Mothers had given us for the church's donation basket on hockey cards.  Despite the strong French Canadian Catholic influence in the community, hockey was religion and Catholic charitable salvation seemed insignificant compared to the chance of getting a Rick Middleton or Jean Ratelle. 

By the time I hit junior high, my interests were elsewhere.  Maybe it was part of teenage rebellion for something that such a big part of my Dad.  As an adult, I can I say enjoy hockey, but I don't follow it all that closely.  In fact, I'm betting I could name more players of that early 70's line-up than of the current Bruins roster.  Last winter I took my young sons to their first high school game and it felt like closing a circle.  Our garage was renamed "the Garden" because of our evening hockey games and soon they were wearing Bruins winter hats.  I had a great time watching the Bruins win the Cup last season.  It seemed the way hockey should be played.

A few weeks ago I was sitting with a new friend and was invited to take pictures at a Stanley Cup event.  At first, it didn't sink sink in.  But driving home I was taken off guard by how excited I was.  When I thought about it, I knew why.  The Stanley Cup is the ultimate hockey icon and, for me, hockey will always represent home and my Dad.  Spending the night with the Stanley Cup three feet from me was like re-visiting my childhood... it was like having my dad by my side.  I haven't heard his voice in a long time now, but when I reviewed the almost 1,000 photographs I took that night, His slow, second generation Franco-American twang would sometimes pop into my head saying "Hey Joey... you got to touch the same Stanley Cup as Bobby Orr."  Awesome!

On with the photography...

Joe Ricchio from Food Coma TV

The fantastic crew at Krista's.  I was in their way all night long and they were so nice to act like it was their fault, usually offering to get me something to eat or drink in the process.

If you are ever in Cornish, Maine, make sure you visit Krista's Restaurant.  And even if you aren't in Cornish, make a special trip.  It's a really wonderful place with exceptional food and people.  Special thanks to Krista Lair for asking me to make these photos of a special night for her and the town of Cornish.  Also, thanks to Jim Bednarek for his generosity in bringing the most amazing sporting tradition to small town New England hockey fans!  

Krista Lair and Jim Benarek

RIP Dad.  

RIP Gardner. 

Waiting for the Next Premier

Never let it be said that bar talk is idle and unproductive. I was enjoying a killer piece of rare tuna at the completely awesome Krista's when I overheard that a young guy had bought "the theater in Porter and was going to work on re-opening it". I never even knew that the little village of Kezar Falls/Porter had a movie theater, but I was intrigued. If you follow this blog, you know I like to photograph local things, off beat things... old things. I immediately thought "I want to make photographs in that place before they clean it up". So, I got involved in the conversation and before long RJ did what all good bartenders do... he hooked me up.

I met Silas Hagerty for the first time when he drove up to meet me in front of his very own movie theater. Formerly called The Playhouse Theater, and a host of other names, the building in the village of Kezar Falls was most recently a discount store. It hasn't shown a movie in years.



Silas was leaving for the Philippines in the morning but agreed to meet me and was generous with his time, showing me around his new purchase. I've driven by this building many times and never knew that behind the asphalt shingle siding shell is a pearl of American culture.



Silas is a movie maker himself with Smooth Feather Productions and his enthusiasm for this place is inspiring and contagious. He told me about wanting to use the building as a studio and a place to teach. He talked about wanting to show movies for the community again. As Silas handed me the keys and told me how to get them back to him, I was still trying to mentally piece together everything he had shown me in this non-descript building across the street from my dentist's office. I lost all sense of time and stayed in the building making photographs for almost four hours on this warm night. This is an amazing place that can offer so much to this small town. Good luck Silas!


This wallet was found in the theater. It belonged to a 17 year old local boy who apparently still lives in town.














These projectors still work and according to Silas can run modern releases with minor modifications.