I was looking out at the river and harbour in Montague. It was late afternoon in early October, and after dropping my family off at a local birthday party, I had a few hours to take pictures on the east side of the island. I was sitting in my car, parked on Station Rd, trying to decide where to go.
Outside, it was wet and blustery — great conditions for capturing captivating photos, though not ones in which I’ve done much (or any) photography in. So given the unfamiliar conditions, I decided to go back to Greenwich, a place I'm somewhat familiar with.
It was my first trip to Greenwich this year. I would have liked to get there earlier in the season (and in nicer weather), this seemed like as good an opportunity as any to go back. I had less than an hour and a half before the sun set and it was about a 35-min drive to Greenwich park, so I got going.
In the car park at Greenwich, as I organized my gear, two groups of people emerged from the trailhead and made their way back to their cars. Once they left, the parking lot was empty. Given that, I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone else but I did. Shortly after pulling out my camera to take some video of the hike, a couple walking back along the trail rounded a bend. I put my camera away again. According to Google, it's a 2.9km hike from the car park to the beach. Given the time crunch, I walked briskly and didn't stop to take any photos along the trail.
It was too late in the season for the beautiful wildflowers that I remembered from my visit in early September of last year. The flowers, which carpeted the meadows on either side of the trail leading up to the woodlands, had moved into their brown phase, and things were looking very quiet and subdued as I strode by.
I made my way quickly through the short woodland trail to the floating bridge. I would've liked to examine the post-Fiona state of the woods but there just wasn't time. The winds buffeted me as I crossed the floating bridge over Bowley Pond to get to the dunes and the beach. This is about as close to harrowing as I get in my life (admittedly not very harrowing) and I did have a few moments of doubt about whether to proceed.
Needless to say I was happy to get to the other side of the bridge where I carefully made my way along the steps of the path up the dune. Once on top of the dune (on the path), I got my camera and tripod out and started taking photos of the scenes around me. The wind had a good time blowing sand into my eyes and mouth up there, but I got some shots that I felt might be worthy of the landscape, so I moved down to the beach.
"Greenwich under cloud" (view print)
The beach was a mess and the water was *rough*. I planted my tripod near the edge and pointed it westward towards the sun, which was making valiant efforts to pierce through the heavy cloud and put on its nightly show. This was working quite well (or so I thought) until a big wave caught up with me and soaked my shoe.
I had not brought anything to cover my camera (good ol’ inexperience at work) but I felt that the few spots of rain falling on it would be okay. Substantially less okay was the ocean spray hitting my lens, which I was blissfully oblivious to. I took about 70 shots before it dawned on me that it was something I needed to tend to.
Thankfully, not all my shots were ruined, but the few shots I got with the sun poking through the curtains were nice and spotty.
Here is one of those shots
"Rough day" (view print)
Having had enough of the beach, I made my way back up the dune. At the top of the dune, I had just finished setting up to catch the final act of the sunset when the rain started coming down much harder. I quickly disconnected my camera from the tripod and stuffed it under my jacket. Luckily, the more determined rain only lasted a couple of minutes before settling back into the light rhythm it had graced me with so far.
I took the camera back out and snapped some last shots. I thought these might be quite good, but of course all were ruined by water spots because by this time, I was back to forgetting that spots were a thing.
As I made my way back across the floating bridge, I stopped to take some photos looking back at the pond and the dunes. The wind had died down a bit, and this felt more comfortable than my initial crossing. I remembered to wipe the front of the lens before taking these shots, and with them, I soaked up the last light before hoofing it back to the car.
All in all I got 40 minutes of “good” shooting time. I got a couple shots that I was able to turn into pictures I’m happy with and I learned some good lessons about shooting in wet, blustery conditions.
P.S. Here is a photo I took in early September 2022 of the wildflowers in the meadows at Greenwich. I don't really like this photo but the meadows are beautiful and I hope to do them justice at some point in the future.
