Acadia was the first of my National Park photography trips (2002). When I updated my website and wrote this short introduction more than ten years later (2016), I could see the evolution of my photography. It’s even more pronounced today with the addition of my essay “Timeless Acadia” shown below, written in 2021. And while it’s tempting to dismiss the old photographs as not being good enough, I choose to keep them to remind me of my growth as a photographer. There surely are differences, but there are also early signs of my style of photography.

Timeless Acadia

I have been to Acadia four times now, but this was the first time I have been there in fifteen years. As I write this, I’m still shocked that so much time has passed - it just doesn’t seem possible it has been that long. I’ve visited Acadia with my family, with my roommate from college twice, and now with some close friends who had never been there before. With the passage of time, all those years, and the different trips… Acadia remained the same, timeless.

I’ve never felt the impact of time as strongly as I have on this trip. We marveled at the rounded granite stones on the beach that are endlessly turned and worn away by the surf over tens of thousands of years… you can even hear this grinding action as each wave pounds the rocky beach and each granite stone comes to rest in a new position on the shore. We could see the rounded granite stones slowly transition to sharper boulders, then magnificent granite cliffs cracked and eroded by wind rather than the surf, marking the passing of the years. On every clear morning, the pink granite coast glows other-worldly orange at sunrise… just as it did that first time I saw it, and for countless years before I ever arrived. And, the North and South Bubbles were still at the end of Jordan Pond, where I last left them fifteen years ago.

My photography (and the photographer) has changed over the years as well. The images I made many years ago almost make me cringe. You might not see the difference, but I do. The rocky Acadia coastline remains the primary subject, but the passage of time and my photographic growth is shown in the newer images… more refined, more simple and calm, better attention to light, and better composition. Time became the real story… told through these images of Acadia.

B Reitenauer, July 2021

Acadia Gallery