Some weeks take on a theme. This past week was all about moving.

Sunday morning started at sunrise on Cold Storage Beach where a fishing boat, dead dolphin and a Coast Guard Buoy all filled a 50 yard section of beach. A pair of cranes rumbled down the beach and spent the better part of the morning getting the fishing boat Ruth and Gail turned bow out and moved down to the water line. Time and tide combined in the afternoon along with a companion fishing boat to finally undo what a broken rudder and rough weather had sent ashore a week earlier.

Thursday arrived as the big day for the house move down the steep incline of Corn Hill in Truro. Rain arrived at the same time the house got to the big hairpin turn on the road. Some chain saw manicuring of underbrush and a pair of shovels working the high ground on the road’s berm got the house around the bend. The three bedroom home made it past a telephone junction box near the bottom of the hill and was safely on its way.

The week’s final move was just south down Route 6. Marine mammal rescue crews were literally up to their waists in mud. Sixteen white sided dolphins were stranded in two Wellfleet locations. The muck was almost impossible to move through, let alone try moving several hundred pound animals across.

Team work paid off for the rescue crews who worked for two solid days getting the living animals off the mud flats and moved up to Provincetown for release into deeper water.

Another northeast storm bears down on our peninsula this weekend. What will nature deposit on our shores next?

Steve Heaslip

“The only constant is change.” Nowhere is that more true than the ongoing cycle of erosion which continues to move our peninsula around. The current weather trend of ocean storms which blow up the coast have moved a lot of sand this winter.

The break in North Beach keeps pounding away along Pleasant Bay and Nauset Beach is about to lose their boardwalk as you can see by the above view from Friday’s big blow. Cape Cod Bay beaches in Truro down to Eastham are also taking a big hit.

For the photographer this is exciting imagery. Most aspects of geology move at a glacier pace. Here on the Cape we watch as storms take away ten or twenty feet of beach in a season. The hardest part of photographing this is giving it a human scale. The above photo without the person loses most of its impact and would probably end up in the out take file, not published in the paper.

Thankfully for the photographers at the Times, Cape Codders are a hardy lot and don’t mind setting out in all kinds of weather to keep an eye on the ocean. Because to paraphrase a time worn quote, ” Those who ignore the weather are condemned to experience it.”

Steve Heaslip

The weather gods blessed us with a day of spring today, sunnier and warmer than most days in April. So, like the groundhog, I went searching for my shadow to foretell how much winter remains. This time of year it is easy to find many different micro climates. Head into the woods, look north and the snow still covers the forest floor in many spots. Find a nice south facing patch of land next to a foundation and there are probably already daffodil sprouts coming through the ground.

A blade of crabgrass caught my eye as it seemed to have burned a hole in the snow pack. A circle of snow had melted around the blade giving way to perhaps an early spring for the front lawn.

No matter what the forecast this time of year, depending on your frame of mind you can find six more weeks of winter or an early spring if you look not at the shadows but into the sun. As for my front lawn, it looks like another good year for the crabgrass regardless of the weather.

Steve Heaslip

Last week’s agenda included a 24 hour stint to Oklahoma and back, Operation Boss-Lift. The trip took a group of 35 employers of Massachusetts National Guardsmen and local civic leaders out to Fort Sill to get an up close look as they are training for an upcoming deployment out of country.

Our wings for the whirlwind trip were provided by the New Jersey Air National Guard who flew us out in their 1962 KC-135 tanker. The plane based on a Boeing 707 airframe has a boom at the rear which extends down to re-fuel other aircraft in flight, a traveling gas station. Strong head winds from flying over the winter storm slowed us down but we arrived in Oklahoma at mid-day and were quickly rushed into action.

Our stop for the remainder of the day was a simulated forward operations base, FOB. The encampment is what you would find out near the front lines in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was there we met up with the Massachusetts Guardsmen. The ongoing artillery practice in the background and rimmed perimeter of concertina wire gave a very realistic feel. A guided tour of the I.E.D. “petting zoo” showing us the various forms of roadside and suicide bombs, most triggered by cell phones, was a sobering way to end our first day on the base.

After a hearty army breakfast served up in the mobility cafe, we made a stop at the motor pool and then out into the field for a simulated convoy run with our guardsmen. We donned flak vests and kevlar helmets but were spared the 40 pound plates usually worn in the vest. A steady snow was falling to add even more gloom to the flat muddy landscape. Climbing up nine feet into the cab of the H.E.T., heavy equipment transporter, we waited our turn in line. The convoy lined up and headed out into snow, top speed 45 mph, our mission to keep an eye out for roadside bombs. We did see one simulated munition, not sure how many we missed. Our convoy trip lasted about an hour but the ones in Iraq can often run into nine or ten hours long.

A couple more stops and then it was back on the tanker for our mid-afternoon flight back to Westover Air Force Base. Our time with the soldiers was brief but I haven’t stopped thinking of them since I’ve been back. They have a long road ahead.

Look for the photos and story in this coming Sunday’s paper.

Steve Heaslip

I spent the better part of last Friday and Saturday surrounded by the sounds of music. The Cape and Islands Music Festival practiced hard and then performed its 50th annual concert this year hosted at Barnstable High School.

Over 300 high school students from across the Cape and both islands came together to make music, performing in an orchestra, band and two choral groups. Photographing the making of music is always interesting. For an old high school alto sax player it brings back fond memories of the days toiling away in the school auditorium trying to make music.

Covering the festival is best if you arrive on Friday morning. You get to hear the music evolve towards the final product, Saturday afternoon’s concert. By the time of the show’s finale, a group effort with all the students performing “America the Beautiful”, it was time to put down the cameras and just take in the music. A nice perk to my job. Thanks also to the music minded viewer who emailed with a note about the kettle drums. He corrected my caption, the drum is also called a timpano in the singular form and timpani in the plural, not the timpanis as I had called them. Thanks!

Stay tuned this week for live blogging from Operation Bosslift which will take us to Fort Sill Oklahoma on Wednesday to meet up with a group of National Guardsmen from the Cape training there to head for a deployment to Iraq. I will keep you posted.

Steve Heaslip

Its always exciting when a big story comes to town. Such was the case on Tuesday when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rode into town with his cowboy hat on to give Nantucket Sound a look see. We tried to stay one step ahead of his press secretary, she was always trying to limit his photo opportunities, we were always looking for a better photograph. So we started our coverage at 6 a.m., following them down to New Seabury for a sunrise meeting with the Wampanoags. The press secretary won that round, kicking us off the beach despite the fact we were at least 100 yards away.

So it was off for a four hour sea voyage aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Ida Lewis, named for a lighthouse keeper if you were wondering. The secretary appeared on the ship’s bridge for a brief time, another photo opportunity, again chased away by the press secretary. Our next viewing came as a free for all media event played out on the ship’s bow as we stopped alongside the Cape Wind test tower out on Horseshoe Shoals. This was the classic bump and grind media event, TV and radio up close and personal for better sound, the still photographers bobbing and weaving among the crowd. This lasted for about 40 minutes as concerned Coast Guardsmen did their best to keep us from falling overboard.

Landing back to shore at the Woods Hole Coast Guard station Secretary Salazar went before the cameras again for his last “press event” for the day. This time a band of protesters outside the gates added some background sound for the audio folks.

The 12 hour day ended with a couple photos picked out for the paper and a lot of out takes for the cutting room floor. So it was a pleasure today to head up to a quiet Provincetown. A few photos of a presentation at town hall and then a stroll along the wharf where there wasn’t another media person in sight. Just a merganser sending out a wake passing alongside the docked fishing fleet. The calm of winter returns.

Steve Heaslip

The annual Cape and Islands Orchid show has again given us all a little hope of spring this past weekend. This year’s show in Hyannis was a fashion show of flowers. The displays were rimmed with photographers looking like the euro photo pack lining the runways of a Paris spring collection fashion show. Every manner of imaging equipment was out in force, video, camera phones, point and shoots, even a guy with a high end ringlight flash unit. All aiming at the orchids as they posed in their finest.

The hard part of getting good close ups at a show like this is having an uncluttered background. A wide aperture and patience are usually the best tips. The bottom photo of a lady slipper like orchid, sorry not its real name, was made when a couple in dark sweaters drifted into the background, finally giving me a nice out of focus dark backdrop. That is where the patience part comes into play, you are all focused on your favorite orchid but the background crowd is giving off bad color vibes. Two solutions, bring you own friends dressed in black or wait.

I left the show with a color palette of images on my memory card but I couldn’t help but thinking how much more fun it would have been if the little Allen’s hummingbird had been there to test out some of the blooms. More information on Cape Cod’s stray hummingbird this week.

Steve Heaslip

The theme for last week was birds. We got word on Wednesday that the now famous Allen’s hummingbird was found with iced up wings at its adopted home in Harwichport. It was taken to the Eastham wildlife rehab center Wild Care. Director Lela Larned gave us a glimpse of the tiny bird as it fluttered in a small contained cage. It’s diet was being supplemented with insects which had been missing from its menu since the cold weather arrived. She said the recovery prognosis looked good. I offered to drive it back to California once it was went through rehab. Stay tuned on that road trip.

Saturday’s mild weather proved to be a perfect backdrop for the release of a male and female mute swan couple which met in rehab at the Cape Wildlife Center in Cummaquid. The couple was taken to the edge of the water and released where the male flapped his way out into the salt marsh following his new mate.

The crowd pleasing part of the show was when the pair flew back over the assembled group in a low altitude flyover close enough to hear the swoosh of their wings, like a pair of F-15’s flying in formation.

Its always hard to predict the week ahead in the world of photojournalism. But with a big election on Tuesday and news this afternoon that the MMA training ship is heading to Haiti to help in the relief effort with its senior class aboard, the week ahead looks very interesting indeed.

Steve Heaslip

Winter has settled in on the Cape. We have had snow cover for almost a month. So when the call came in to go and photograph a hummingbird it was hard to believe. But not just any hummingbird, this was an Allen’s hummingbird which is usually only seen on the west coast.

Christine Omar usually takes her hummingbird feeder down the first part of October, this year it stayed up a bit longer and she was certainly rewarded. Since then she has played host to this small, about two inches, bird which is an almost constant visitor to her feeder. She has hung Christmas lights all around the small feeder to keep the sugar water mixture from freezing.

She was the perfect host. I waited inside her sliding glass doors about four feet from the feeder for over an hour. Usually when the camera comes out the animals go running. But the small bird showed up soon after I arrived. I raised the camera and it flew away. Too much motion Christine warned. So I took a seat, raised the camera to my eye and waited. A few minutes later he arrived again and this time settled in for a long drink. I fired away, not moving. The camera noise didn’t seem to bother the bird, but the slightest motion sent him on his way.

These birds move so fast they just appear. I had two more audiences with him before he headed off for an extended period. I was lucky that the sidelight just glanced across his face. The digital age saved the image. I was shooting through a glass sliding door. The lighting was very harsh and small Christmas lights were all around the feeder. I needed a shallow depth of field and a high shutter speed. I ramped up the ISO to 1000 and put an extender on the 80-200 zoom to get more magnification. After that it was up to the bird, he arrived, I laid onto the shutter. When it hovered I was able to stop its wings with the high shutter speed, but when if flew off it was just a blur.

I’m not sure how this little guy will fare over the winter, but its definitely one tough bird. Imagine being two inches long and flying from California to the Cape. He should give us all courage as we battle our way through another winter.

Steve Heaslip

Sometimes all you have to do is keep your eyes on the sky to find an interesting photo. Tuesday I was driving through Sandwich with my feature glasses on looking hard for an enterprise photograph. I was around the Sandwich Boat Basin, usually something going on there even in the winter. I noticed a Coast Guard helicopter circling over the east entrance to the canal. As it dropped lower just above the horizon it looked like more than a training flight. I headed toward Town Neck Beach. I saw the cutter Ida Lewis about a half mile off shore.

Heading toward the beach I finally looked up the shore line and there was a scene right out of Gulliver’s Travels. A huge beached channel marker from the Cape Cod Canal dwarfing about ten Coast Guardsmen working to get a line attached to the buoy so the cutter could tug it off shore.

They worked swiftly and about 40 minutes later a line was attached, we all backed away in case the line snapped, the ship pulled and the giant buoy was once again floating. An interesting morning at the beach for the small crowd that had gathered to watch.

As the buoy floated back towards the ship the group dispersed and I vowed to do a better job of keeping an eye on the beaches after big storms. You don’t usually get a Coast Guard helicopter to guide you to a feature photograph.

Steve Heaslip