Down East Maine Coast Photo Tours and Workshops

East Quoddy Light

John Slonina and I led a photo tour and workshop to the down East Maine coast, and Campobello Island from July 25-28.  Normally, John limits his group size to six so that everybody gets personalized attention, plus he supplies, transportation on the overnight to was.  However, on this trip, since I was co-leading we were able to take nine participants and we utilized two vehicles.  This tour also included accommodations, but not meals.  Since part of the time we were going to go into Canada and visit Campobello Island, all participants needed their passport.

Meeting at the hotel on the afternoon of the first day, after a brief introduction and making sure that everybody had their passport we left Machias and traveled up to Campobello Island to the very top, where we had a great time photographing East Quoddy Light.  On the way back, we stopped and photographed a number of old boats stranded on the beach.  After passing through customs, we traveled into Lubec for our supper and afterwards returned to our hotel.

Group at East Quoddy Light with John answering a question

Old beached boat

The next morning, we left at 4 AM to get the sunrise at West Quoddy Light and then photographed along the trails at West Quoddy State Park, capturing the vistas of the granite cliffs and the Atlantic ocean.  During all the stops, John and I answered questions, advised people about change in their perspective and working a scene, by taking pictures, not only horizontal, but vertical, high and low perspectives and including other elements in the scene.  After we finished the morning shoot, we traveled back into Lubec for breakfast, then returned to the hotel to rest before we left to come back to Lubec to go on a whale watch.

Photographing West Quoddy Light

West Quoddy Light ( not taken this trip)

Sunrise on Coast Guard Trail West Quoddy State Park

Granite Cliffs of West Quoddy State Park

Leaving Lubec harbor on the while watch vessel, we traveled up the Bay of Fundy in Passamaquoddy Bay looking for whales and photographing the shoreline.  We had a great look at both gray and harbor seals and did see some harbor porpoises.  The trip took us up to the head harbor passage, and we were able to see East, Quoddy light and photograph it from the ocean side.  An interesting landmark was Friars Rock on Campobello.  This rock formation was created by being hit with cannonballs fired from a fort on the American side of the bay.  However, we finished the trip put out seen any whales, but, all the other sightings were great.  Arriving back at Lubec, it was suppertime and afterwards back to the hotel for night sleep prior to our trip out to mid Machias Seal Island the next day.

Friars Rock

Gray and Harbor Seals with Eastport Maine in the background

East Quoddy Light from the ocean side

Bald Eagle on the cliffs on Campobello Island

Roosevelt Memorial Bridge with Campobello on the left and Lubec on the right

 I reported out our trip to Machias Seal Island, in a previous blog.  The only problem we had on that trip was a couple of people who got seasick.  Most of the group that was on the boat with us came back and shared supper with us in Machias.

Loading the boat for the trip to Machais Seal Island

Atlantic Puffins

I am sorry to say that one of the people who got seasick on the trip was still feeling very dizzy the next morning, so we did take her to the emergency room at the local hospital where she was treated with great care and when she was feeling better brought back to the hotel and since she was feeling better and she said she could travel, I tried to catch up with the group as they were headed home, stopping at various locations such as Beale Island, a working lobstering village, Corea harbor and the Schoodic Peninsula portion of Acadia National Park.  I finally caught up with the remnants of the group at the Peninsula.

Corea Harbor in the fog

 After leaving the park, we started the trip home.  It was a great group and the whole experience was a lot of fun.



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