Mastering Seaside Photography with Cape Cod's Betty Wiley

In this episode of the Big Photo Hunt Podcast, I sit down with Cape Cod photographer Betty Wiley to explore her expertise in seascape photography. Whether you’re capturing beaches on Cape Cod or traveling to summer destinations around the globe, you’ll benefit from Betty’s insider tips for shooting breathtaking summer landscapes.

We dive into Betty’s journey as a photographer, her deep-rooted connection to Cape Cod, and how she honed her skills in seascape photography. Betty also shares her favorite local spots and offers practical advice on capturing stunning beach scenes and summer shots this season.

If you’re passionate about summer photography, the natural beauty of Cape Cod, or simply want to learn from a true photography legend, this episode is a must-listen!

Transcript

 And then the other thing I think manage expectations, you know, I live here so I can go out all the time and I have to tell you there are times I go back for five a dozen times until I get kind of the shot that I have in my mind.  You may not get that perfect shot the first time you go out. It takes some persistence and some dedication to go out to, you know, same spot four or five, six times to get the shot you want.

But when you do, it's definitely worth it. 

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt Podcast, a show where we talk with aspiring and professional photographers to help us all grow and improve our photography together. I'm your host, Ken Deckinger. If you're one of our community members and you'd like to be a guest on the show, please visit BigPhotoHunt.com for more information. 

Hey, Big Photo Hunters. I think we need a new jingle. This one is cool, but it's kind of smooth jazz. 

I've got a big personality. I know this. So I thought a smooth jazz jingle might help like balance me out a little bit, but I don't know. I'm just not feeling it. Let me know what you think. Maybe something a bit more fun. I feel like we should be dancing by the time the jingle ends. Anyway, my guest today is Betty Wiley.

Betty is a Cape Cod photographer who specializes in landscape and nature photography, primarily coastlines, seasides, and lighthouses. And she does it brilliantly. Her work can be seen in magazines throughout the region, including Cape Cod Magazine, Chatham Living Magazine. Falmouth living and South Shore living.

Those are all the big ones. For those of you unfamiliar with Cape Cod, it is a peninsula off the coast of Massachusetts, about 70 miles southeast of Boston. If you look at a map, it's the thing that looks like an arm flexing a muscle off the northeast coast of the United States.  One of the things about Cape Cod is that it is summer.

Beaches, sand dunes. Lighthouses, seafood, most of it fried, which makes it delicious, but not the best for you, but delicious. So today with Betty, who happens to be one of the nicest photographers you'll meet, we're going to talk about the Cape. We're going to talk about some of her favorite locations to shoot on the Cape.

And we're going to talk about tips to benefit your seaside photography this summer, whether it's Cape Cod, Long Island, the Outer Banks in North Carolina, or any similar summer type destination around the world, what we talk about today will definitely apply. Oh, and for me, I love this episode because I spend my summers on the Cape.

And so I'm jumping out of my seat, excited to learn from Betty.  Here, wait, I'm going to start record here. Okay, I'll behave myself. No, no, don't behave yourself. No. Okay. I haven't behaved myself once. And so far people still listen. So there's no behavior allowed. All right.  I think the best place to start is to tell everybody who you are.

Who's Betty Wiley?  Oh my gosh. Well, I'm originally from Las Vegas, Nevada. Went to school there, went to college there and lived all my life, you know, early years in Las Vegas. We lived in Texas, we lived in Florida, even in California, but we've been up in New England for 22 years, I think. So I consider myself now a New Englander. 

I was originally in biotech, but I've always been a photographer. My uncle was a photographer, and my mother was a photographer, and my uncle was semi professional. But my mom was more of a hobbyist, so some of my earliest memories are with a camera in my hand. Like we would go out into the desert, just kind of explore, and I look back in pictures that, you know, I have when I was growing up as a young girl, like seven or eight years old, and I had cameras in my hand.

I always remember having a camera.  So when we moved to New England, my husband gave me a digital camera and they were terrible back then. It was like 1997. I remember he bought me a Casio, a digital camera. And I was so excited because I just thought, wow, this is really cool. You don't have to go out and buy film.

But lo and behold, you know, back then they weren't even a  megapixel. The image quality was absolutely terrible. And I remember uploading images and looking at the computer. I was just so disheartened. They just look terrible. But I knew where it was going, and so I started learning Photoshop back in 1997, 98, because I knew it was going to get huge.

And sure enough, every year I would get a new digital camera with more megapixels.  And here I am, not only shooting digital camera, but I'm now using solely mirrorless cameras in my photography. And, um,  yeah, you know, I've just been kind of growing with it. Isn't it ironic that there's a trend now to go back to film? 

It is, you know, and I've thought about it, but I don't know. I just love the digital technology so much. You know, I love the editing process, which I'm happy to talk a bit more about.  But I really like that aspect of it. I love the editing almost as much as I love being out. And I wouldn't necessarily want to give that up.

I really enjoy the digital darkroom.  Can you tell people listening to this podcast who aren't familiar with Cape Cod?  Oh God, what isn't it?  Of course, the beaches are beautiful and so many people come down just for the beaches. And I think they're amazed to see the diversity of the landscape and seascape, I guess, if you will.

I mean, we're surrounded on three sides by water. So obviously we have a lot of beaches and there's a lot of water, but we have wonderful lighthouses. I mean, we have a lot of lighthouses on the Cape. I think one of my Favorite aspects of living on the cave would be the salt marshes because they are amazing in the fall.

You can go up to Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine and get beautiful color up here. But what people fail to realize, the salt marshes in, in, in the fall turn this beautiful kind of gold green color. And when the light hits the marsh grass, it looks like somebody took a match and lit the grass. It's just on fire.

It's just beautiful. So we have, you know, lots of salt marshes, which are really interesting, their own little ecosystem. Also, we have sand dunes. Whale watching, if you're into wildlife on the Cape. Birding is huge here. A lot of birders on the Cape.  Interesting terrain where, like, if you went up to Provincetown, which is at the very tip of Cape Cod, it would look totally different than where I live. 

Each little town here on the Cape kind of has its own unique kind of character. One of favorite places people like to go would be Chatham and Chatham is unique. We have some beautiful homes. 

Hey, it's Ken. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Big Photo Hunt podcast. I hope you're enjoying my conversation with Betty. I wanted to take a moment here to make sure that you've seen the Big Photo Hunt online. As an amateur photographer, I've been focused on improving my photography skills.

And the best way for me to do that is to be with other photographers who are in the same boat as I am. We're able to share our photos, get inspiration from peers, and just be part of the bigger picture. Pun not intended as a group of aspiring photographers. It's what helps me grow as a photographer. So that's why I built it for us.

Check it out and let me know what you think. It's at bigphotohunt. com. Now back to the show. 

A working fish pier, which is really interesting. You see the boats come in, but they're catch and the seals coming in, following the boats. And it's really interesting to see all of that.  It seems to be everyone's favorite place on the Cape, especially if, if you have deep pockets, I should say. And then there's Provincetown, you know, interesting history.

It was a Portuguese fishing community, beautiful sand dunes, a couple of beautiful lighthouse, actually more than that, three beautiful lighthouses that I can think of right off the top of my head. Marshes, as I mentioned before, really interesting harbor, fishing dock. Every town, like I said, has its own unique character.

So I should know this, but I didn't know this until today. There are 15 towns on Cape Cod. You know, it's spread out. So, if I go to Falmouth, even though I'm still on the Cape, it takes me a good 45 minutes to, 45 to 50 minutes to get to Falmouth. Another beautiful lighthouse there. I, I, I love Falmouth. And one of the things about Falmouth that's appealing is that it's, um, um, where you can catch the ferry to go over to the vineyard.

Vineyard's like super close. So if you're in Falmouth and you want to take a day trip to Martha's Vineyard, um, it's really easy to do.  We've done day trips out to Nantucket. We'll go out there, um, in the morning. Oh, sure. Take the fast ferry out of Hyannis and just, we're back by, you know, 8 p. m.  Absolutely.

Yeah, that's something that always amazes me. Although the ferry gets so booked up in the summer as you might expect, but you know, really I can be On Nantucket in two hours, less than two hours. Um, you know, an hour and a half at the most. By the time I go into Hyannis and park my car, I mean, it's an hour away from me, as you said, you know, with the high speed ferry, and you can go over there and do a day trip really easily and then come back the same day and Martha's vineyard.

Same thing. It's about. If you went from Falmouth, it's maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes, um, very easy to get to. So you have a lot here and, you know, when people come to the Cape, you know, often they'll come three or four days and while that's great, you know, if you're here for a week or two weeks, there's just so much on the Cape that you can see.

For our listeners, the best way to explain Cape Cod is it's a place where you put shorts on and flip flops and like You don't take them off until the fall. You don't need to wear shoes, uh, a lot of times unless you don't wear anything.  And it's just your car gets sandy and that's just the summer. And it's a really delightful place because it is so chill and just very beachy.

This is a vacation area, you know, in the summer, you kind of, you know, shorts are acceptable almost everywhere, might be a few places you wouldn't want, um, and in shorts to have dinner, maybe chat and bars in or a place like that. But for the most part, it's, it's casual down here.  So. The way I came on to your work was through our now mutual friend Ben Williamson who I Had on this podcast.

I want to play for you the moment Ben Suggested that I reach out to you.  So you must know of Betty Betty Wiley out there on the cape No, is that a photographer? Betty Wiley is a wonderful photographer that you need to look up. Yeah, it's just my You should have her on the podcast. I will definitely look her up now.

It's just my naivete and also, you know Photography came to me about four years ago or so. And so I'm still like learning, uh, and following people. And it's, it's ironic, despite having a house out there, it's not my favorite place to shoot. I prefer Maine, I prefer different scenes, and I love street photography.

There's some things out there. I've gone out to like P Town, like actually in winter and done some shooting, and it's pretty cool. Because there's not a lot of people out there, and the people that are there are very chill, and they are usually great subjects because they're just cool people. And so I like it.

Yeah. I like it a lot. But back to the climate change concern. Oh my gosh. So that's the first time I had heard of you, and And like I said when I spoke to Ben, it was just my naivete, because your work is gorgeous.  Once I saw that, I really wanted to reach out to you, to have you on this podcast, because I think that our listeners could learn so much from you.

But also, it's very personal, because as I mentioned to Ben, I do spend my summers out in Cape Cod, and I have not been inspired. And it's not because of Cape Cod, it's because  I've been a little bored with it. Then I saw your photos. I got inspired and I got onboard.  Oh my word,  . I'm co-board. I love it. I'm completely onboard now, and so looking forward to the summer to get out there and shoot all because of your work.

And so, oh wow. I just wanted you to know that. And I also wanted to brag about your photos because I think they're so beautiful and they're so powerful that they had an impact on me. So I want you to know that.  Oh, well, thank you for that. You'll have to come shooting. Give me a call. I will. I will.  Do you think that Cape Cod came to you or you came to Cape Cod?

Meaning, did you go out there to photograph and that's what drew you to it? No, that's interesting. You should ask. It's the first time I actually have ever been asked that question. Actually, I didn't  even though I came down to the Cape quite a bit. My husband and I used to come down to play golf  and it wasn't until I became more familiar with the Cape that I realized how much the Cape had to offer for photography.

And it suits my style of photography really well because I really don't do a lot of people. I know you mentioned street photography. It's something I've never really gravitated to. I love it when I see street photography when it's done well, but I've never gravitated to it. I've been mostly a landscape, seascape, seascape kind of gal.

So, when I discovered, when I started exploring the Cape with my camera, I really had no idea, no idea that there was so much here to photograph and how diversified it was. So, You know, I was always thinking like, oh, you go up to Vermont for fall color. And then lo and behold, I found out that I realized here on the Cape, the marshes are absolutely gorgeous in the fall.

And now, you know, we're in, you know, approaching early summer and spring is beautiful. Late spring, early summer is beautiful with the beach roses and flowering beach plums. And even some places have some gorgeous lupine, you know. So, there's just so much here that the seasons offer  that I had no idea about until I lived here and started exploring, you know, full time pretty much. 

What are some of your favorite locations to shoot out there? For example, in, in like your photos, I see some of the beautiful water shots, I see some of the beautiful lighthouses, the beach shots, the bluffs.  Where is all this? I know it's there, but I can never find it. It is, it is, and you know, but part of it, it's because I live here, Ken, so I have learned the best places to go and that's something that, you know, um, I, I'll digress just a little bit, you know, people have to come here on vacation for three or four days or even a week, and they leave disappointed, partly because  they're just not, um, I, I live here, you know, Full time.

I have the ability, if I don't get the shot that I want at first, or even the second time or third time, I can go multiple times to get exactly what I'm after, the perfect light, the perfect composition, whatever. So, you know, I have that luxury where people are just coming here for a few days, don't have.

And I've learned over the years, like for instance, one of my personal favorites, and I, I've lived close by, like I said before, I could walk to Grays Beach, and I love to go to Grays Beach, and I know for instance, sometimes the best time of year to go would be,  really, I think from, from now through late fall.

Beautiful. You know, when the marsh grasses are starting to become green and then in the fall as they turn color. It's a favorite spot of mine. I go all the time. I probably have, I'm not kidding, I probably have thousands of images of Breeze Beach that I've taken over the years. Um, another favorite spot I love Falmouth.

I love Knopska Lighthouse, which has recently been renovated. It's probably one of the prettiest settings, I think, for a lighthouse here on the Cape. And that it's set up on a hill, the road kind of winds around the lighthouse, and of course you have the beautiful ocean, you know, in the background, if you're photographing at sunrise.

That's definitely a favorite spot. In the fall, again, Provincetown is a favorite of mine because I often use a longer lens, and I photograph over at Wood End Lighthouse, and I've got the beautiful fall color in the marsh grass in the foreground.  I love Provincetown anyway, beautiful beaches there, Race Point Lighthouse, which, if you have the energy, you can actually take a trail and walk out there.

Um, Nauset Lighthouse always comes to mind. That's the Cape Cod potato chip lighthouse, the red and white one. Everybody seems to love that lighthouse, and I like it as well. My favorite time to go there would probably be in the fall. Um, Old Harbor Life Saving Station, I like a lot. It's an old life saving station, which is now turned into a museum.

So they have some of the life saving boats that they used to rescue people that were in, uh, You know, shipwrecked off the coast. It's a pretty spot. I love Provincetown Harbor though, you know, with all the fishing boats coming and going, it's a big Harbor and depending on kind of where you orient yourself, if you're on Macmillan Wharf, which is the big wharf there with the fishing vessels, if you look to the right, there's a very famous landmark called the Portuguese Fisherman's Wives Memorial, and it has the faces of women Portuguese women painted on the side of this memorial because, you know, they were fishing widows for the most part, you know, their husbands were always going out to sea to catch fish and make a living.

And of course, no doubt, you know, I'm sure some lives were lost, but they erected this memorial, which is really picturesque, although now they're, they put in boat slips. around it. So it's detracted from it somewhat, but still an interesting, um, interesting landmark. And it's such a beautiful spot. I could literally spend hours on Nick Delamore, photographing the fishing vessels.

If it's calm, of course you get great reflections.  The boats are really interesting. There's some really large boats. And then you have this beautiful skyline. If you look back toward, uh, Provincetown, you've got the beautiful library, which is  What's the best time of day to go out there for, to catch the fishing boats?

I will say this. My son is actually a charter boat captain. It's a fisherman. He's been all his life. And I will tell you that,  Oftentimes, they want to be at their fishing spot at first light. So sometimes that means getting up at two o'clock in the morning, you know, and heading out. Yeah. Even before sunrise, but actually in the morning, early in the morning.

Um, even at, you know, a little bit before sunrise, you'll, you'll hear the boat starting off and they're doing what they need to do and they're taking off. So, you'll find a lot of activity right around sunrise. Another good place for that is actually in Chatham. There's a fish pier in Chatham. It's a working fish pier.

And the fish that are brought into, um, the fish pier in Chatham. are shipped all over the world. And in the morning, it can be interesting because just like Provincetown, they're getting their boats ready to go out. And then they come in at staggered times during the day. And sometimes that that time would be like maybe even 11 o'clock in the morning to one or two in the afternoon.

A bit later, it's usually not quite as active. So usually early afternoon, I would say is best. Probably a really good time to catch them. And what's really interesting are all the seals that are swimming around because of course they're looking for a handout. They're like dogs. They want to be fed. So, you know, they're circling around and you've got the galls, you know, flying around.

It's like a feeding frenzy. So there's, there can be a lot of activity in the early afternoon. And if I were to say probably one or two. Probably the best time as far as lighting goes. Do you try to get there in the morning sometimes to get more color? Oh, I do, but you know, I can go for sunrise, especially if it's calm.

And if you were to photograph sunrise there, you know, having calm water, you know, makes such a difference because you have nice reflections. That to me is the best time that if you have calm conditions and you can get the sun coming up and you get the reflections of the boats, you know, it's just a wonderful spot to be at sunrise.

And it's not so much a sunset location. That's mainly a sunrise location. That's awesome information. I'm going to do that. I've been wanting to go there, but I haven't known what time to go. Oh, you have to. And I should mention while I'm talking about Chatham, Chatham in July just goes crazy because we have a hydrangea festival. 

It's kind of like the unofficial flower of the Cape, and it's so big that they have a big hydrangea festival all over the Cape, but particularly in Chatham, there's some well known spots along Shore Road, which is the road that goes past Chatham Bars Inn, past the fish pier, there's this beautiful beautiful home that's on the right hand side and everybody photographs it.

It's known as the hydrangea walk. It's this big white mansion that sits way back from the road and there's a red sidewalk, a red walkway that goes up to the house and it's flanked on both sides by hydrangeas. And they're just, it's beautiful. Everybody stops and photographs that spot. I was actually lucky enough to photograph that, that, um, house, their garden for a Chatham Magazine a number of years ago.

It's just, it stops people in their tracks. They just can't believe how beautiful it is. You know, mark your calendar early around July 4th, you know, from, I would say July 4th, probably for two weeks after that. You know, the hydrangeas are in bloom all over the Cape, but beautiful in Chatham, a lot of homes that have hydrangeas. 

Growing in their front yards. And it's very picturesque. It's very pretty. This is awesome. I'm I've got so many places now to go. Thank you. Yeah. And Shannon bars in is another place, you know, beautiful hydrangea display. Yep. Hydrangeas planted all over the property. So, you know, people just go crazy over hydrangeas.

In fact, so much so that CBS Sunday morning. And this was maybe about three years ago, actually did a feature story on hydrangeas in Chatham.  I've seen them. They're gorgeous. I mean, they're gorgeous all over the Cape, but in Chatham, they're absolutely beautiful.  And you know, something I didn't mention, our night photography, our Milky Way photography is really good.

It's very, very dark here. Places like, you know, in Truro, it's very, very dark and great spot for Milky Way. Photography from really March through October. That's great information. I've noticed how dark it is and I've just never, I just haven't wanted to go outside and sit outside at nighttime, but yeah, you know, and you asked, you know, about favorite spots, Highland light would definitely have to be on that list.

It's a beautiful lighthouse. It's great for Milky way. You know, it's a different composition depending upon the time of year. You're photographing the Milky way.  In September, October, the Milky Way is almost straight up and you can compose your, your shot with the Milky Way, the lighthouse with the Milky Way kind of coming out off out of the top.

It's really, it's really kind of a fun thing to do.  I would love to know, like, if you were to leave three tips with people who were interested in coastline photography, the kind of stuff that we see around Cape Cod, what would those be? Thank you. Bye. What makes your photos so amazing, other than Betty Wiley, who they can't take with them?

Oh,  no. Well, knowing when and where to go. So, for instance, look at other people's images and don't hesitate, you know, if you have questions about a location, a lot of, a lot of photographers are willing to answer questions, learn as much about the location as you possibly can.  And, of course, I mean, having the right weather conditions.

For instance, I Typically, no hair on the cape. If I want to photograph boats, I know that I want a calm morning. I usually like to go out in the morning before the wind kicks up in the afternoon. So, if I want to photograph boats, I'm going to go in the morning when it's very calm, so I can get the reflections of the boat and, you know, nice, smooth water, which I like a lot. 

I also know after a storm. If it's been raining all day, I typically know it's likely to be a good sunset. If it's a trend toward clearing at the end of the day.  I would say, you know, learn how to use different photo apps. One of the things I live by here on the Cape is a tide app, which I use tide graph, but there are many out there.

So I learned the tides. And then the other thing I think manage expectations, you know, I live here so I can go out all the time. And I have to tell you, there are times I go back four or five, a dozen times until I get kind of the shot that I have in my mind.  You may not get that perfect shot the first time you go out.

It takes some persistence and some dedication to go out to, you know, same spot four, five, six times to get the shot you want. But when you do, it's definitely worth it.  So I have three questions that I ask all of my guests at the end of every episode. Okay. The first question is, what's your favorite genre to shoot and why? 

Well, I would say it's landscape. And by that I mean either on land or like over the water, that's my favorite genre. Now I do photograph with magazines, so of course, you know, I photograph people at times and so on. But the main thing, what really, you know, makes my heart sing are photographing beautiful landscapes and we have so many here on the Cape. 

Also drone photography. I love having a drone and having that different vantage point that allows me to get a different composition, you know, or a different perspective than I can get with my camera.  Question number two is what camera system do you use?  Oh, I use Canon. I've used Canon for as long as I can remember, even before I went digital.

So I'm fully invested in Canon. Even if I wanted to switch, it'd be really difficult because of all the gear I have.  I have used other camera systems. I, I made some forays into Fuji. I just wanted lightweight cameras just to kind of go out where I'm not, you know, carrying a lot of weight and love Fuji, but you know, having two camera bodies where I might have a Fuji over one arm and my Canon and the other just doesn't work.

So I just shoot with one camera system. Um, and it's Canon and it has been for a long time.  And question number 3,  on a scale of 1 to 10, how often do you get that burning itch to just get out there and shoot?  Uh,  if the weather's good, every day.  That's a 10. Yeah, I would say. You may be my first 10, I've had a lot of 9s, but can I call that a 10?

No.  Yeah, you can. You can.  I can't imagine life without a camera and going out. I just can't.  It's just, it's, it's what I do. You know, I, I kind of see the world that way. I see the world in terms of,  um, not only composition, but light and color. So, whenever time permits, if I, you know, if I can go out, I'm out. 

Our weather here is very unpredictable. And everybody says that, oh, the weather is never right. Here on the Cape, it's particularly so. So often, I'm out regardless.  And I have to tell you, so many times when I've gone out, despite what my aunts are telling me, I've come home with a great sunset or a sunrise.

So, if the weather's even halfway decent,  I even think there's a chance I'm out.  I think I need to I'm a diehard. I am a diehard. I need to send you a trophy or something. I think you may be the first ten. Actually, that's not true. We may have had another ten, but Actually But you're borderline eleven. I have a friend of mine. 

I, I might be and you know who it is. So I have a very good friend that I photographed with. Um, and if you haven't reached out to him, you probably should. He's also friends with Ben and that is Michael Blanchett. Do you know that name at all? I don't know. If I'm a 10, he would be a 20.  Hold on a second.

Michael Blanchett. He's photographing in Oregon right now. Blanchett. Chet. E T T at the end? Oh, Blanchett photos. Yep. ETT, Uhhuh, . I'm looking him up.  Oh, he's got great stuff.  Oh, he does have great stuff. I photographed with him a lot. That's cool. In fact, I went to Iceland this year with, with Mike and, um, a couple of other friends.

We went on our own and year before that to the phone and fact, I'm, I'm expecting him to come down to the Cape next week. So we do a lot of photography together. But like I said, if I'm a 10 or 11, he's a 20. Alright, I've never had someone really breach the 10 mark on this, so if he's, if he's a 20, he may get the trophy. 

He might get the trophy, and it will be well deserved if he does. You just gave it away? You may have just given it away. He could have a lot. It would have been yours, but you're basically giving it to,  suggesting someone else take your, your award. Yep, yep. Alright, well. Yep. Betty, where can people find you online?

What is your Instagram?  Oh, so my Instagram is Betty Wiley photo and W-I-L-E-Y. So Betty Wiley photo.  Also on my website is Betty Wiley photography com. Please go check out Betty's Instagram and her website. You'll see the real beauty of Cape Cod and Betty captures it better than anyone I've seen. Betty, it's such an honor to talk to you.

Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed talking to you, and please let me know. You're available. We'll go out and we'll do a little shooting. so much for joining me for today's episode. Our next show will feature more valuable stories from our community members. If you'd like to audition to be a guest, please visit bigphotohunt. 

com for more information. Thanks again for listening today.