Originally we headed to Provincetown to see the whales again. We were hoping for anything from humpbacks and finbacks to common dolphins. The wind was so bad however that even the birds didn’t want to show up. We however stupidly decided to go out. Well sometimes it can be smart, but judging by the end result it could be seen as stupid. Anyway they were reporting 20-30mph winds on land. That was nothing compared to being at sea.

Whey I say the waves were huge I mean the waves were huge! The swells were so large that the captain would kill the engine before a huge crash into the on coming wave. The splash covered the top of our two decked boat. Standing wasn’t an option and you were often wearing the ocean. The light was perfect, but in all honesty I wasn’t going to introduce my gear to salt water.

Since the whale watching didn’t work out we went looking for some of Cape Cod’s famous sand dunes. After finding out they wanted 15$ for a day pass (on weekends) and with only a few hours left of daylight I passed. We went to investigate the Mass. Audubon Center in Wellfleet. It’s a great eco-friendly center with great exhibits and beautiful trails. 5$ for admission (per person) and it goes to a great cause. The place is solar powered, newspaper insulated, and naturally cooled. Really was cool to see.

The locations habitats are diverse and extremely well protected. There are expansive salt marshes, evergreen forest, and beach habitat. Tons of diversity that one day just won’t cover.

(tin type filter with NIK color efex 3.0 Silver efex pro; boosting contrast and structure a tad)

Walking out to the beach is accessible while the tides are low. When High tide comes around you will need wellingtons or waders to get around. The habitat is very delicate and is filled with fantastic creatures. One of which you can get real close to by leaning on the boardwalk (and not stepping in/on the habitat); fiddler crabs.

They come up when all appears to be clear, but when something makes a slight movement or walks in their direction they go running, scattering to their holes hiding from the threat. Really a cool phenomena that you can experience right here in the US.

We had other visitors such as this black capped chickadee…

…and this palm warbler.

As they day came to a close however we headed back for the car. We were there for a few hours and yet so much was left un-experienced.  If you have the chance I would highly recommend a visit to the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

With a clear night we headed to end the visit with a camp out at race point. A fantastic viewing area for the stars. Low light pollution and quiet. The warmer light came from the cars and the cooler light from the flash. Definitely a work in progress, but a fun exercise. The time with the shot was only 1hr. My device holding the trigger of the plato N8 ( a toothpaste cap and a rubber band) slipped and called it a night for us both.

We pulled in to Provincetown today with beautiful skies and a healthy breeze. Grub was a priority and we headed on down to our favorite place to chow down. The Lobster Pot. If you’re ever in Provincetown..GO! As for the hope? Tomorrow they are calling for 20-30mph winds and we might not go out to see the whales . Here’s hoping!

This was taken without a polarizer at -.7 exposure compensation and f/5.6. I don’t recall the speed. I saw the trolley coming for me so I quickly crossed the street and hit rapid fire with the shutter. Ran it through the Nik filters you see above and voila.

We had an opportunity to take the 6+hr drive on up to Provincetown, MA and do some sightseeing and whale watching. The main draw was to get a chance at seeing the north Atlantic right whales. There are less than 500 of them left and decreasing due to ship strikes and inbreeding. They are high on the conservationist and are in dire need of constant protection. They lumber atop of the waters and are slow moving. Making them easy targets. One of the reasons there are so few of them with us today. Unfortunately they are so rare that we didn’t get a chance to see them. We did however have some incredible experiences with humpback whales. Provincetown is just a fantastic location. From the ambiance, to shopping, culture, people, FOOD, The Cape Cod National Seashore, and a fantastic proximity to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Provincetown is much closer in proximity to the sanctuary then Hyannis and provides more time spent with the whales. Historically Provincetown is also the first place where the pilgrims first landfall occurred represented by the pilgrim monument. Oh, the irony if you know a little about the local culture.

Our trip up was a leisurely one. We stopped in Rhode Island to visit a REI store (none where I live; I know; we are deprived.) Then stopped off at Pirates Cove for a bit of mini golf. Miniature golf is another big draw all along Cape Cod. Enough about that though.

We had one night to spend there and it was definitely worth it. We woke at 8am gearing up to have everything ready to go and still fit in breakfast. Had a great meal made from scratch at the cozy Carriage House and headed down commercial street toward the Macmillan Wharf. One of the few wharfs of 54 originally left. We boarded the ‘Dolphin Fleet of  Provincetown‘ and headed out toward the sanctuary. We were a bit worried as a big storm was moving through and a precursor to the storm sure was heavy overnight. They assured us that rain wasn’t the issue, it is the wind we should be worried about. Thankfully it was the first day of the season, researches were aboard with us to collect data, and they were just as tough and willing to take on the elements. We had our waterproof shells and baselayers thinking it was all we would need. Turns out we were wrong. After the nice 20min  overcast skies heading out of Cape Cod bay we were greeted with heavy freezing rain, occasional hail, 30+mph winds, and 40 degree temperatures not counting the wind chill. It was brutal, but sure did we eat it up. As Moose has stated before, “Some of the best photography is in some of the worst weather.” It sure as heck is true. Your fingers go numb, your face is soaking wet and your determination stays strong as your gear is sticking it out with you. It was time to make some photographs!

When schools of fish were found from the air these northern gannets would dive bomb their way into the Atlantic for a meal.  Unfortunately these smaller images don’t share with you the expression of these birds, but they were hungry and not afraid to show it.

Another treat was locating a small pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins. A species that has now been added to our checklist. They weren’t up for bow riding, but a pod of 30-40 individuals were happy to say hello while passing through.

Believe it or not this is a baby calf humpback whale. Mating in the Atlantic occurs down in the tropics where the mother will nurse and care for her calf all the way toward New England and watches out for them. They continue to watch out for their calves even during the spring and summer seasons when they are feeding to make the trip back down to the tropics to do it all over again. They normally only have a single calf during pregnancy. To think how long we nurture our young until they are ready for the real world compared to Humpbacks or any other species. We are the only ones with such a long parental period.

This is the same calf as seen above. You can see their white pectoral fins through the water. This is a characteristic of the Atlantic humpbacks where the Pacific Humpbacks do not have this feature. It would be as dark as their overall skin. Keep in mind you are missing the calves dorsal in most of these pictures. There is also a fluke to follow as well. They may be called babies, but they are no small mammal. They are up 16ft when born and can weigh up to 3,000 pounds at birth! Keep in mind they grow larger as they travel and feed on their trip north.

This adult humpback came up right near the boat and tail lobbed thrashing a huge wave of water. You can just see here the huge tail muscles that are required to put that fluke (whale tail) to work and move this graceful giant.

This was a photograph I wanted to include to give you an idea of the boat rocking. The horizon was not auto corrected in anyway and this has not seen photoshop other then being created for the web. You’re looking at the rows of seats and rear of the boat shifting sideways as we cruise back ashore.

Now photographically speaking I approached this overcast sky not expecting much on the side of appealing photography. Boy was I wrong. All of these photographs seen above have only had a black point and white point set using levels and a saturation point used to boost the color of the American flag a bit. I shot under exposed by -.03 the whole time using ISO 200, WB was on auto, and aperture was at it’s lowest possible for the Nikon 80-400mm; which was used the whole time. There is a bit of motion blur on the fluke photograph toward the end of the tail due to the force that the whale was smacking the waters surface. In a last ditch effort I did put the ISO up to 320 in a want to freeze a bit more action as 1/320th of a second wasn’t cutting it. However soon after the change was made we started heading back and no opportunities arose to use the boosted ISO.

I wrote the 2nd part first and the 1st part last if that makes much sense. I wanted to separate the HDR and shutter snaps, from the wildlife photography with our trip to Provincetown, MA. One thing that I have taken from learning HDR is that it tends to enhance the overcast skies by pulling out more detail then might be visually apparent. Besides the first photograph the rest were all taken in a five frame brackets of 1-stop spacing and tone mapped using Photomatrix Pro 3. There wasn’t a batch process done. Each image really called for it’s own tweaking to find the personality of the scene.

We have been to Cape Cod two other times and for some reason never noticed the Cranberry Bogs. We always wanted to see them, but never ran into them before. Shows you how much great stuff there truly is out there. Funny thing is that as soon as we found one they were everywhere. Even in places we have traveled by before. A tad embarrassing to admit, haha. For this photograph I didn’t set a black and white point. It was one of those days where you point, click, and your done. I really wanted to find a way to make it pop and I resorted to a favorite Nik software plug-in of mine ‘Tonal Contrast’. I upped the saturation to +40 and checked off the “conventional high pass filter” to see what it would do. Through experimentation it gave me exactly what I wanted. I shot this in a road runner and the wild coyote style I think.

Provincetown is a place of acceptance and a love of expression. It really is a great to visit in the ‘off’ season to avoid the crowds. The ‘off’ season as I write it isn’t the off season for us. It is the perfect time of the season! The spring thaw is bringing a period of nutrient turn over due to temperature gradients in the water (water is heaviest at 3degrees celcius so as the temperatures change the water moves basically dragging nutrients with it due to the water current cycle and thermoclines in the ocean)  in the oceans attracting high quantities of fish and zooplankton which is the main reason the whales come to this thriving location. If your smart you’ll go from late April to early June and avoid those crowded tourist months.

Great food is another item that is never in short quanitity hear. The Lobster Pot is a famous restaurant located in the heart of commercial street. It is two floors, faces the ocean and makes some of the most amazing, mouth watering food you could imagine. The menu is huge, accomadates food lovers of all kinds, has the freshest catch and you can keep on coming back as you couldn’t finish the menu in a week if you tried! Just one of the many great places to chow down.

One more version of the Lobster Pot. I think it gives it a more of a fisherman’s town feel. Also shows the dreary day that had set in toward dusk. I did try to make this photograph more of an illustration by boosting the strength of the HDR effects and also boosting the saturation.

On our way home we tried to stop at as many locations as possible. After going numb trying to shoot in the storm by the shore I moved to a spot I thought the waves would really be raging. Turned out I was wrong and the waves were more spread out rather then crashing the shoreline. However; leaving nauset beach we lucked out with photographs of the Nauset Lighthouse. It was still pouring and I was taking on fresh water both in the car and on my lens, but I kept firing my bracketed exposures to get the images I wanted. The second version I applied the Tonal Contrast filter and boosted the saturation and contrast in the shadows just a bit more. I really love how it spikes the detail in the shingles and the side of the house. (Used the Magic Cleaner microfiber cloth to remove the water and found it to be perfect. It is incredibly absorbitive compared to your average cloth. Very happy with it.)

If I can find a moral of this story when it comes to this two part series (sorry for tense issues with writing this backwards ); it is to always keep an open eye to multiple avenues of photography. It is definitely good to have your photography concentrated so you can focus your strengths in your work, but all too often we can get stuck in a rut. Moving ourselves to see other things in common places can aid not only your enjoyment of the location your visiting and take back more memories with you, but it will also expand your photography and bring it to new levels.