Short and quick post this evening. It’s late, been a long day, and I’ve got some maximum couch relaxation to do before calling it Wednesday. First week back at the grind and all that after a much needed end of year break.
South Jersey saw its first snow Monday. A true South Jersey express. The type of event where the bulk of New Jersey—geographic and raw population—goes about its day without so much as a flake. The southern third of the state saw anywhere from four to 12 inches, with my hometown Manahawkin coming in at about six. It was the perfect end to my two weeks off. I am, if nothing else, a certifiable snow lover, and therefor I am pleased.
Fast forward to yesterday evening (Tuesday), and I made my way out to see what was doing on the Dock Roadsalt marsh. I lucked out. The snow and ice formations spanned out to the horizon, with even the tide pools icing over. It’s been a few years since I had this look. As sunset moved into blue hour, the colors painted over pure relaxation atop the wintry scene. It was a long slow burner, too, with this set of seven brackets coming some 25 minutes after sundown. The lesson, folks: Don’t pack up and leave immediately after sunset. More often than not the real goods take time.
The Sea Moves — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4 sec
The Sea Moves | Captured: February 5, 2021 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Cedar Run, New Jersey
I’m pleased to begin with this blue hour beauty. Thematically it is special to me. It represents a goal to both simplify my process while becoming more expressive at the same time. Even if this is decidedly an expression in subtlety. Movement through panning, where I quickly pan my camera left to right parallel to the horizon to create motion blur, are a means to that end. Minimalist, understated, evocative, and full of movement—it represents how I want to capture and share our New Jersey coastal space. Painterly, ethereal, and most importantly, ours.
World Between Worlds — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/400
World Between Worlds | Captured: July 27, 2021 | Location: Ocean Acres, New Jersey
Three days before turning 39, a caterpillar appeared on my back deck. Right there chilling in some potted dill already gone to seed. I didn’t know it at the time, but a bit of retroactive googling instructed me it was a black swallowtail caterpillar to be precise in my documentation. Either way, her colors were wonderful and afforded an ideal partner to the business end of my 100mm macro lens.
Blue Too — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1.0 sec
Blue Too | Captured: August 19, 2021 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Cedar Run, New Jersey
All I remember about this shot—which is honestly next to nothing—is that, 1) I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this specific composition, and 2) man, was I depressed. Thoughts and feelings aside, this is a classic shot well tied to my overall body of work. Seems a fitting inclusion here. Besides, who can get enough of the summertime power combo of blue and green? It’s the power couple of the salt marsh.
Lone — 35mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6 sec
Lone | Captured: September 27, 2021 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Cedar Run, New Jersey
Back to blurry pan shots—and honestly, this entire best of could have been blurry pan shots. Maybe this is creative regret manifesting for never being able to hack it as a painter? Here we have a 35mm offering right as the sun sets over Cedar Run Dock Road marsh. In fact, this is the same spot and orientation of Blue Too, seen above. This juxtaposition shows how much differing focal lengths (35mm vs 14mm), available color through visible light (sunset vs blue hour), and technique (handheld pan shot vs. bracketed exposures on a tripod merged for HDR in post) affects the product. Made at the same exact spot and yet two entirely different photographs. This is the magic of photography.
Be Here Now — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Be Here Now | Captured: November 7, 2021 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Cedar Run, New Jersey
How about we wrap with a classic? A late fall burner shouldering the passions of a sky on fire. All that power and energy cast over the now brown and dormant marsh. This is the salt marsh scene that will dominate through April. You can mark the passing of the years by this marsh, and thanks to my camera and this website, I have managed to do just that for the better part of a decade.
Coda
Photography definitely took a back seat this year. It’s been waning for years now, and part of why I intend to focus more on pan shots is a matter of time. It’s less involved. It’s easier to do a thing quick with life affording less time overall for the doing of things. It’s effective and efficient. An exercise in pragmatism. An office-speak win-win if we were bobbling our heads back and forth on a zoom call right now.
Creatively things are still firing—thankfully. The difference is most of that is going into home cooking. I never saw myself living and rocking in the kitchen before, but Covid made sure of that. And in a total surprise, I’ve discovered a real passion and panache for cooking. The parallels to photography are remarkable. Both were two things I had zero interest in doing for the majority of life. Both coming out of ending relationships. Both surprising me in extraordinary ways. Both humbling me, teaching me (trying to, anyway) to keep an open mind. There is one key difference, however. Unlike photography I have a real confidence when I prepare and cook food. This is not something I have experienced making photographs. Imposter syndrome continues to flex in that arena.
But this is not the end! Not at all. Photography will remain a thing. That this little creative space on the internet will be a thing. And I hope that new surprises will continue to be a thing. Once again, thank you all for your time and support through the years.
Hello website, I am back. Back to autumn. Back to September 25, 2021. To the same Cedar Run Dock Road evening where I made another motion blurpan shot photograph, Peace Where We Can. In a trick of light, The Line is cast in the moody blue tones of the eponymous blue hour. Meanwhile Peace Where We Can smolders in the waning embers of sunset. Now you might be saying so what? Well so what is that I photographed The Line first. Depending on the direction you look the last light of day refracts different. More so it changes by the moment. These fluid transformations require the greatest focus of observation. Move your eyes across the whole ring of the horizon less you never see what colors behind you.
Let’s talk nuts and bolts. This is a stripped down, minimalist image. It’s monochrome color scheme and open space allows the mind to range free. Your mind wants to build a boat to paddle out over to the far horizon. A razor’s edge at the end of the world. Is it a barrier? A gateway? A threshold? Is it the last refuge or the first place of welcome? Or maybe it’s just a place where people eat french fries? Well, it’s sort of all of that. It’s Long Beach Island. The line at the edge of my world since 1993. A place I’ve long looked out upon but never quite understood. Somehow always feeling a touch too far out to sea. My very own Tol Eressëa.
Be Here Now — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Here’s a little break from the motion blurpan shot motif I’ve been running with of late. A return to the familiar if you will. Tack sharp sunset shots from the salt marsh with loads of unwanted alliteration. The old familiar. Like putting on a well worn pair of jeans everything feels as it should. Comfortable. Familiar. Ready.
I made this photo on November 7, and as this image suggests the first sunset of daylight standard time was, in a word, lit. 360 degrees of pastel wonder. Cotton candy gossamer stretched across the sky. A big warm blanket ready to welcome you home. The kind of bed canopy you wish you had.
This is like couch time after a long day of work. And seeing how there’s been long work days a plenty, and I finally got myself a couch, well, you’re stuck with similes like this. But don’t worry, fans of said motion blur pan shots, I made some of those on November 7, too. I will look to have them up and on this here blog in the coming days. In the meantime I do hope you enjoy this precursor to the powerhouse sunset season that is winter.
Warning: Incoming middle aged Nintendo fanboy nerd alert post coming in hot. Metroid Dread launched a week ago today, and holy smokes I still can’t believe it. Mainline Metroid. In 2D. A new release. On a console. In the year of our Covid two thousand and twenty one?! Oh. My. God. I cannot.
I’ve been tearing through Planet ZDR each night ever since. Headphone cans fixed snug. Living room chair. Locked in. Side scrolling glory taking me from one power up to the next, with sinister bads set to destroy me at every turn. Metroid at its best is a masterclass in environmental storytelling. The visual design signaling desolation where the native flora and fauna make it clear you stand alone. Isolation and hostility are the only constants. The entirety of the world wants to see you dead, drawn and quartered, wholly unworthy of the vacuum of space. And damn is it so good, and so hard, and so good. Samus never controlled anywhere near this good. The developers at MercurySteam crushed it. The game is hard, yet fair, and over time Samus romps to such power and heights, a triumphant reward for all the tribulations and Game Over screens. Clack-clack, here comes an E.M.M.I. Did I mention this game is good?
So what in the hell does that have to do with this post, photograph, or website? I’m here for the pretty stuff not this geekspeak worth at least 12 noogies and 20 minutes in a locker. Well one of the moves legendary intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran acquires in her serial planet storming romps is the speed booster. Along with said speed booster comes the ultimate boon to Metroid speed runners the world over: Shinespark. Speed boost to shinespark sends Samus hurtling at meteoric speeds, turning her into a literal tunnel busting speed bullet. Glowing like a comet streaking across the sky all you see is a luminous blur of pure energy and awe. And that’s this photo. Samus streaking across the horizon left to right. A sunset shinespark blazing into night.
The space between solitude and loneliness is a chasm of untold depth and paradoxical closeness. Two simultaneous contrasts holding true together. An oxymoron somehow leaving us near and far, in the same space at the same time. Reach out with an outstretched arm from either side and would be fingers of welcome near on touch. Michelangelo knew what he was doing atop a small chapel ceiling of some renown.
Yet between this space sits a rift, vast and brooding. A jagged cleft of ineffable depth. It is unseeable, unknowable. It is perilous. Our own earthly black hole, it, too, leaving no possibility for escape. Like its cosmic counterpart, it’s a barrier which may as well be infinite. And yet to the observer much is open to interpretation with the observer filling in their own story. Left to imprint their bias onto the station of others. We think we see what is happening, and yet, we do not see. All because this proximal closeness between unbreakable loneliness and fulfilled solitude somehow coexist.
Peace Where We Can — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4 sec
Sitting here on a Thursday evening staring October in the face. Touching up some photographs. Typing up a blog post. Trying to relax.
At a MacBook Pro I make words, build phrases, and complete sentences. Backlit and soundtracked by the baseball game, moody blue lounge light painting the walls. Baseball game only ever means one thing in my world: Yanks vs. Whomever. Tonight’s Whomever being the young, powerful, and surging, Toronto Blue Jays. Locked in a late season struggle with a playoff berth on the line, this series finale has a season at stake. I can only hope the Bombers come out on top.
In my mind I think it feels nice to have a new photograph to share. I’ve favored a simpler process and minimalist composition of late. These motion blur style photographs in particular. Bringing movement into my presentation of the New Jersey coast gives me a different kind of voice. Softer, and less heavy-handed. A little less tyranny by the artist. I’m producing imagers distilled to more basic form, leaving the viewer with more space to imprint their own emotions, feelings, and memories onto their scene. This makes it simpler for everybody, and I like that.
Moments of respite have proven elusive, and we’d all do well to come together, embrace more humility, and find peace where we can.
So, who else is completely shot? Roasted slow, spinning over open flame and then twice baked in an oven or three. I am spent ash, fiery embers long sent to dust. A charcoal remembrance scribbled upon ever darkening cave walls of a collapsing mind. Once there was life here.
The Call Back — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6 sec
For the first time in at least three years my urge to make more photographs—better photographs—is waxing. The call back to capture the beauty of our backyard grows louder with each passing day. My interest in this craft waned to its nadir this past spring, and I legit thought myself ready to hang ’em up. Hell, I thought giving up my gear to more appreciative hands may be the best way to move on. Instead I held on and secretly hoped for inspiration in some lesser explored corner in my mind.
Inspiration came, though not as altruistic as I would hope. Instead ego took the wheel; nothing like some wounded pride to get you back in the driver’s seat. Perhaps there is some ten year irony at work? Seeing it was something other than moral rectitude which first motivated my pursuit of this hobby a decade ago. Whatever the merits of the impetus the call back has me wanting more.
Considering the importance of growth and evolution I want to study further the execution of intentionally blurred photographs. Breaking down color and shape into more flowing forms. Using minimalist aspects to represent the glorious nature of our home turf. I have sprinkled motion blur shots like this into my landscape rotation over the years—now is the time to explore further this passion.
