Brian Lavall Photography

June 8th is World Oceans Day, an annual global celebration of our oceans and ocean conservation. There's no better place to celebrate than here in the Ocean State.

A couple weeks back I went up to the southern coast of Maine for a long weekend. A cloudy day exploring Bath, Phippsburg, and Popham along the Kennebec River, and a perfect blue sky spring day on the way home through Kennebunkport, Wells, and York. Here are a few favorites from the trip.

Memorial Day Weekend. The traditional start of the summer season here in the Ocean State. The beaches open for the season, the sun sets after 8pm, and a few days here and there start to bring that summer heat. Here's a few favorites from the last few years to kick off another Ocean State Summer.

Springtime photographs from an afternoon walk around College Hill on the first Sunday in May. Early May is when everything finally leafs out, and this shoot was the first one this year where I really felt it. The deep greens in some of these frames make it clear the warm season has arrived.

Scenes from a spring evening walk around downtown Pawtucket, near City Hall and Slater Mill, in mid April during the peak of cherry blossoms season.

Celebrating Rhode Island Independence Day with some favorites from around the Ocean State.

Two hundred and fifty years ago today, on May 4, 1776, Rhode Island became the first colony to renounce allegiance to Great Britain, two months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From Roger Williams' founding principles of religious freedom in 1636, to the first military action against the Crown with the burning of the Gaspee in 1772, and the birth of the Industrial Revolution at Slater Mill in 1793, Rhode Islanders have always moved first.

Now, 250 years later, the Independent Man still stands tall atop the State House, carrying that spirit of defiance forward.