Colors of the Dawnland
Acadia National Park in Maine is spread across Mount Desert Island, Isle Au Haut, and the Schoodic Peninsula, perched on the edge of the North Atlantic ocean. This is a place that, for half of the year, receives the first dawn light to strike the USA, and sunrise watchers abound every morning atop the highest peak in the park, Cadillac Mountain. The area was originally inhabited by the Wanaki tribes for 8,000 years (Wanaki means “people of the dawnland...”), though as has often so tragically been the case in this country and many others, the native people were driven from their land by the colonials. The mountains meet the sea here, and the park is characterized by a wild and rugged coastline, dark fir forests known as blackwoods, and colorful mixed hardwood forests, too. The mountains are rounded and often bare rock, and there are many, many lakes, both the result of glaciation. The result is a diverse, dynamic, beguiling landscape.
I first visited Acadia National Park in Maine in 2017, when I spent just 24 hours there but produced quite a few images in that short time, some of which have been published in National Geographic Beautiful Landscapes calendars. I fell in love with it for the variety of landscapes here, as well as the accessibility and tranquility provided by the carriage road system developed by John D. Rockefeller Jr., which the vast majority of visitors don’t really explore. Without much large, potentially dangerous wildlife, it felt safe, too. And the cherry on top, for me, anyway, was that it reminded me of Ireland, a place I hold very close to my heart.
…fiery red maples and soft pink skies hung with the sliver moon… cerulean blue swirling seas… green grasses heavy with glittering dewdrops… carpets of intensely golden ferns swaying in the breeze… bright orange sea sparkle under the setting sun…
So four years after my initial visit, I was able to return there, this time for a full 12 days. That felt like long enough to learn a little about it. I camped, which I always feel offers a better opportunity to connect with a landscape. As I lay in my tent at night listening to the buoy bells ring out from Otter Cliffs, I could contemplate my day and plan the next, all while having a very real sense of details such as smells, temperature, humidity, and the wind.
Beyond variety, it was the colors of this landscape that struck me. There is truly a rainbow represented here - from fiery red maples and soft pink skies hung with the sliver moon, to cerulean blue swirling seas, green grasses heavy with glittering dewdrops, carpets of intensely golden ferns swaying in the breeze, and bright orange sea sparkle under the setting sun. Every color is represented, and I got so much enjoyment out of finding all the colors and capturing them in ways I found pleasing. Typically, that means one or two colors in a scene, as opposed to a cacophony, so you’ll see limited color palettes in individual images, but a rainbow in the gallery as a whole. I’ve arranged the images approximately by color, so you can see the progression through the rainbow - ROYGBIV! I hope you enjoy these images and are perhaps even inspired to visit this special place!
I want to thank Colleen Miniuk and Mike Hudson for their fine books on Acadia National Park that served as virtual guides for me - the location information was invaluable and helped me learn about this special place more quickly so i could make the absolute most of my limited time. I highly recommend both books and have linked them below (neither is an incentivized recommendation, by the way). I also want to thank Al DaValle, a fine artist (who offers photography workshops in Acadia) and a friend I met in Antarctica a few years ago. Al kindly shared his time and intimate knowledge of Acadia with me, for which I am so grateful! If you are considering a workshop here, Al would certainly be a wonderful choice!