Acadia Workshop 2020
When I started to plan my 2020 workshop back in late 2019 and early 2020, I had no idea how hard it would be to pull it off this year. Early on, there were many photographers who wanted to come– I had a list of about 25 who were seriously interested, and several signed up when I opened registration in February. But then as Covid took hold of the world, I had to deal with cancellations and questions about whether or not there would even be a workshop this year. Everything looked doubtful.
I kept an eye on other Acadia photography workshops to see how they were handling the situation, and one by one, they all dropped plans for a 2020 workshop. But I didn’t cancel mine right away– I took a ‘wait and see’ attitude, while telling everyone that there was a good chance we may have to cancel the trip. As time went on however, we decided to go for it. As long as we followed recommended guidelines and wore masks when close together and didn’t all drive in one van, I thought we’d be as safe as we could be.
The state of Maine required (and still does I think) that anyone coming into the state either quarantines for fourteen days or enters with a negative Covid test not older than 72 hours, so that set the bar for anyone doing the workshop. Fortunately, three of us passed our tests and the other two came from Maine and Massachusetts, where they weren’t required to produce a test, so we were off and running.
Acadia was different from any Autumn I’ve been there for the last fifteen years. For one, it was less crowded, though there were still plenty of people around. But the absence of lots of large photography workshops made a nice change! I think I saw maybe two workshops this year, down from a dozen or more in a normal year.
The other noticeable change was the trial run reservation system in place this October. With Park visitation rising, the National Park Service was testing a new system to limit traffic at the most heavily visited parts of the park, which meant that we couldn’t just go up Cadillac Mountain when we wanted- you had to sign up ahead of time and book a reservation, so Cadillac was out for us. And the Sand Beach entrance station was also reservation-only, though that didn’t kick in until 7am, so we were able to drive along Ocean Drive for a sunrise location, and I knew some back roads to get in too, so that wasn’t too much of an issue for us.
The last thing that was so different from previous years was the color. Before I left for Maine, I kept hearing how the colors were turning early this year, and even peaking in late September, about 2-3 weeks earlier than normal. I was worried that by the time I’d arrive, the color would be all gone. So when I got to Acadia three days before the workshop started, I was more than a little un-nerved to find that the foliage was very weak, with much of the color already gone. Sure, there were pockets of good color here and there, but it didn’t look good for the workshop. I envisioned spending a lot of time just taking pictures of the coast due to the lack of any color in the woods and hills of Acadia.
But then the weather changed and we had some rain, and soon there was a ‘second wave of peak color,’ is the only way I can describe it. In fact, it got better and better as the week went on, and was still great when I left almost ten days later.
We were a small band of photographers– just five of us– coming from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Missouri (but currently in Maine for work) and Alabama. I think this was the most experienced group of photographers I’ve ever had- while I was always on hand to help them out with any technical or artistic questions, they all knew what they were doing. We even went out at night three times to do astrophotography– not really my strength, but Hope had done it many times, knew where the Milky Way would be, and so we enjoyed some beautiful clear nights shooting on top of Cadillac Mountain (no reservation required after 6:30), along the coast and at Jordan Pond, all with Hope’s excellent help.
I’m happy to say that we all stayed healthy and enjoyed some great camaraderie. We met up each morning at 5:30am to head out for our first shoot of the day, enjoyed a good meal at Bar Harbor’s best breakfast restaurant, then kept shooting most of the day until sundown, got dinner in town (though one night we ordered pizzas and ate them in our cars), plus the extra astrophotography trips at night, so it was a full schedule.
Next year, we’ll do it all again, though hopefully we won’t have Covid to worry about. If you’re interested in joining me, send me an email and I’ll add you to the list of photographers to notify once I’ve nailed down the dates. In the meantime, enjoy these images from this year’s participants.
