Just want to wish everyone from the USA a Happy 4th of July! Enjoy the day everyone!

I took this photo this past weekend at Hampton Beach, NH. There were not many people around because of Hurricane Bill. Luckily the Hurricane missed New England for the most part.

Well its the week of July 4th and here in MA it has been one of the rainiest and coldest Junes I can remember! I thought this photo was appropriate considering the dreary weather.

If you have been visiting my photoblog for awhile you may remember that last year I posted alot of photos from the annual Hampton Beach Sand Sculpture contest.  This past week the 2009 contest was held. I was sadly not able to stay to see any of the finished designs but I was lucky to of least see one of the artists in the very early stages of creating his sculpture. If you want to see the photos from the 2008 Sand Sculpture competition check out the ones I posted here  last year.

I kept processing this shot and could not decide on the best way to present it. Finally I settled on this b&w version. I think it gives these waterslides a different feeling than seeing them in color.

Nothing better then Shaved Ice on a hot day! This was taken at the Hampton Beach Boardwalk in Hampton, NH.

Wonder if he found any buried treasures?

This dog, that I assume belonged to the owner of this small store, was watching intently as each person walked by or came into the store to browse for souvenirs.

This photo of the Seagull with his reflection in the wet sand was taken at Hampton Beach, NH.

This was taken that same foggy day at the beach as the Life Guard Photo. I was just taking a general shot of the beach with the fog and it was not until later that I noticed this woman in a red dress who seemed to be posing for a picture. Maybe someone else was taking her photo the same time I took mine? In any event I thought she really stood out in her red dress compared to everyone else in bathing suits. This photo has been heavily cropped and I also desaturated most of the colors except for her.

Here is another shot from Hampton Beach from a couple of weeks ago. I got down on my knees to try and show some of the incoming waves at eye level. Granted the waves are not very big but I still liked the shot.

I took this photo the same day that I took the photo of the foggy sailboat race that I posted last week. I am sure the lifeguard had to pay extra close attention to the people in the water with this thick fog.

Believe it or not this photo was taken on the same day as the sand sculpture photos I have been posting. A thick fog rolled in later in the day and you could barely see in front of you. There was a sailboat race going on that day and just minutes earlier you could see them clear as day but could barely see them at all once the fog rolled in. If you want to see a clear shot of the sailboats before the fog to compare it to after the fog then click here.

I could post these sand sculpture photos forever if I keep posting only one a day and I don’t want people to get bored. So I decided to make a gallery with the the rest of my favorites so I am not only posting sand sculpture pictures for the next month! Hopefully everyone has enjoyed these sand sculpture photos. Just click on the thumbnails of the photos in the gallery below to make them bigger. » Continue Reading…

Here are the master sand sculptors hard at work.

There was an advertising area for sponsors of the event that all of the sand sculptors worked on together in between working on their individual contest entries. This is one of my favorites of the sand ads! This is the final form of the monkey that I posted last week. It ended up alot different then I would have imagined based on the early version. I had no idea he would be riding on an elephant!

On Saturday I went to the annual Hampton Beach sand sculpture contest. The works of art that the sculptors made out of sand were amazing to say the least. This one of the sun I think was my favorite sand sculpture of the contest.

Over the next few days I will be posting some more of my favorite shots from the sand sculpture contest so be sure to come back.

Well I just got back from Hampton Beach again. I ended up going back to Hampton Beach today because I really wanted to see how the sand sculptures turned out that I posted about last week.  I took so many photos of them that I don’t have time to go through them right now and pick one to post. I still wanted to post a photo so instead here is one that I really liked from today of  a lifeguard station on the beach. I really liked the intense orange color against the blue sky and ocean.

I will start to post some of my favorite sand sculpture shots starting tomorrow so stay tuned.

At Hampton Beach they are having their annual Sand Castle competition this week. The day I was there the contestants where just starting to make their sand castles. This partial sand castle featuring a monkey was the only one that had a recognizable shape on that day. If you want to see some of the amazing entries from last year check out the official Hampton Beach Sand Castle Gallery.

I went to Hampton Beach in NH over the weekend and took a few shots of the boardwalk. This hotel in particular i thought had a cool old fashioned sign. It is right across from the beach so it is prime real estate.