Gabi and I spent a few days at Acadia National Park in Maine. The park is located on the Maine coast and it is famous for its rugged coastline. Acadia preserves a large part of the Mount Desert Island and a few other locations. We only visited the main area of the national park. When we arrived late afternoon the weather was nice so we went to the Jordan Pond for sunset photography. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in just before sunset. I still took a “classic” shot of this iconic location with the Bubbles in the background.

The weather was terrible during the whole time we spent in Acadia. This park is also one of the most visited national parks in the United States, even when it’s raining, so we explored only a few of the most well known locations of the park. One of them is the Boulder Beach that features thousands of round boulders. Here, I took a photo of Otter Cliff with Boulder Beach in the foreground. These boulders are very smooth and slippery so taking this photo was an adventure.

After leaving the coast we wanted to focus on the less crowded parts of the park. The woods offer excellent photography options for an overcast day, so we went into the wilderness. We hiked a few trails and drove around some of the “hidden” forest roads looking for interesting compositions. The lush green undergrowth looks great when it’s raining, so it was an easy shot when we found this big fern.

As we were driving we saw lots of beautiful purple flowers along the roads. This is the bigleaf lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus), which is native in the western part of the continent. It was introduced to Maine and became an invasive plant that can crowd native species out. On the other hand it is a good source of nectar for insects and hummingbirds. The park tries to remove this lupine from the protected areas, but it is abundant in other parts of the island. This photo was taken outside the national park.

All photos were taken with my Canon EOS 5Ds camera and Canon 17-40mm F/4 L lens. I used my Manfrotto tripod with a ballhead for supporting my equipment. I also used my Tiffen polarizer for some of the images to reduce glare and enhance contrast.