Tectonic forces do their work. Ploughing their inescapable hell slowly and without discrimination. They grind—hard. Such is their subtlety as to be motionless to the eye though with a power as immutable as gravity. It goes to work on you at all times. The all seeing eye. Without cease or respite it weighs heavy its jagged white-hot indiscriminate hand, wearing body and mind down to dust. It pulverizes all identity and form until it spits you out as something unrecognizable, something—else. Were you crushed and cast out or transformed and made whole in the friction?
Let’s Go — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Two Zero Two One, let’s go. You’ve a very low bar to surpass your predecessor’s legacy of pandemics and problems. We’re counting on you for life and health this year.
Last year I was well into April before I shared my first photo on this website. A lapse I hope not to soon repeat. This evening’s banger of a sunset made for a smoldering debut and guaranteed such a slump would not happen this year. It was pure fire over the mirror still waters of Stafford Forge’s front lake. Absolute time well spent; 10 out of 10, would do it again. Skies Like This, let’s go.
What have I been doing lately? Let’s go:
Watching:Bridgerton was a fun time; cool spin on a not so rigid period piece. Finished my second Star Wars Rebels rewatch last night. At its best the show is absolute peak Star Wars. It’s an animated series but do not let that fool you—it’s deep and worthwhile with characters you care about. World War II in Colour because my interests are all over the place.
Reading (audible-ing?): I finished Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere on my walk today. Having read Good Omens, American Gods, Norse Mythology, and The Sandman before it, I must say Neil sits atop my favorite authors list at this point.
Playing:Hades. This rougelite is an outright masterpiece. Easily the best thing I’ve played last year, and that’s saying a lot considering Ori and the Will of the Wisps was phenomenal. I’m over 70 hours into Hades and have made it out of hell 11 times. I cannot get enough. Play Hades!
Listening: the Who is getting an absolute workout right now, and I am properly wearing out Quadrophenia front to back, over and over sans jacket cut slim and checked. In fact I am listening as I edited this photograph and wrote this post.
Green Sight | Captured: May 12, 2020 | Location: Ocean Acres, Stafford, New Jersey
I shot about my yard quite a bit this year. Easy access and all that. Perfect for a lockdown. My lilacs bloomed up nice this year, and I am a particular sort of pleased with the ethereal, dreamlike quality evoked here. It’s as though this bloom somehow belongs to the Fair Folk living in a parallel world superimposed atop ours yet somehow still eternally far away.
This Is Not Important — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
This Is Not Important | Captured: June 15, 2020 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Stafford, New Jersey
Pockets of beautiful imagery and picturesque sunsets belied the extraordinary upheaval 2020 wrought. In the midst of a pandemic not seen in a century, centuries old issues of race and social justice exploded in death and protest. It is of critical importance we remember the importance of all that sacrifice and pain.
Working Class Hero — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1250
Working Class Hero | Captured: July 8, 2020 | Location: Ocean Acres, Stafford, New Jersey
Dark and brooding. A melancholy in monochrome. The ever faithful honeybee plying his craft to provide for the hive delivered through an indefatigable sense of duty. Understated is the power of bees. Here with stark contrast the sun’s sidelight shows a spotlight on our special little bee. His moment in the sun. Pollinate on, my friend, and be well.
Safe Haven — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 0.3 sec
Safe Haven | Captured: July 14, 2020 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Stafford, New Jersey
Pulling shots is my jam. I’m not sure that’s a technical term, but it’s how I best describe the motion blur photographs I make by design on occasion. An easy sweeping motion left to right parallel to the horizon. Tis pulls the image in a way not unlike a painter taking a wide dry brush purposefully across wet paint upon a canvas. It brings movement, color, simplicity, and flow. I’ve made about a dozen or so of these by now, and this is by far my favorite yet. The color and stretch of the marsh, sky, and water is sublime. Someday I’d like to make of show of my best blurry pulled shots.
Peace and Pilings — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Peace and Pilings | Captured: July 18, 2020 | Location: Cedar Run Dock Road, Stafford, New Jersey
Simple. Symmetrical. Balanced. Beautiful. This square format production is either my second of third favorite photograph of the year. Either immediately behind or in front of Safe Haven. Coincidentally shot only days apart from the same location—where my parents keep their boat. There is real peace here. The colors all hit just right. The scene is calling out, imploring you to stay awhile and listen. Nature will always teach us.
Bloom Squad — 85mm | f/1.2 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6400
Bloom Squad | Captured: August 1, 2020 | Location: Ocean Acres, Stafford, New Jersey
Thanks to the Carrs and the opportunity to make photographs of their adorable daughter’s first birthday, I got to play with the 85mm L glass. What a lens! Wide open and it is tack sharp, razor thin depth of field with bokeh for days. Yeah the glass is about the size of a grapefruit and weighs a ton, but damn is it one hell of a portrait lens. Testing it out in the morning I made this photograph of my purple coneflowers and I love the scene. A faerie world of flowers, blooms, and fanciful stories of full and well loved hearts. Someplace somewhere the storybooks are true.
The Gift of Winter — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
The Gift of Winter | Captured: December 13, 2020 | Location: Great Bay Boulevard, Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey
We end with power. My favorite photograph of the year, and for my money my best sunset photograph since 2015. It’s the spiritual successor to Ruinous Splendor, somehow recapturing the magic and energy. I never thought it was possible. Yet somehow twice the some spot at the same time of year a half decade apart and history found itself looping back upon itself. Time is a flat circle. This hobby will always teach you, always surprise you, and always make you humble.
Coda
It somehow seems wrong and callous to talk about the best of anything in the year 2020. A year unlike any other in our lived experience. A year brought low. Lessons of challenge, perseverance, self-reliance, loss, grief, isolation, prioritization, adaptability, change, upheaval, deceit, failure, wellness, and so much more served up in ample doses whether or not we cared to receive them. Each and every one of us challenged in unique, manifold ways. How will we emerge from the crucible? What choices and actions will we take in the wake of the circumstances and challenges we’ve faced? How will we respond? How will we come together? How will we again strive through the long dark walk home and thrive? These answers all set chained inside ourselves clawing at their fated fetters desperate for liberation. May your 2021 be better in every single way.
The Gift of Winter — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
No two sunsets are the same. This we know to be true. Return to the same place over and over again and you’ll be chasing unicorns to hunt down a pure facsimile. It’s best to take each unique moment and capture its joyful light as best you can, while you can. It’s a welcome lesson in the natural function of impermanence. This doppelgänger is impossible to find.
Tonight, however, I came close. In what I can only describe as the spiritual successor to Ruinous Splendor—changed only by time. Made just over five years apart at near the same exact track of bulkhead I give you the best sunset photograph I have made in five years. Recognizing the subjectivity of such claims I defer gracefully if you disagree in preference to another sunset photograph I have made. These decisions belong to us.
Winter sunsets, man. In particular winter sunsets heralding oncoming winter weather near always produce. While tomorrow looks to be a nuisance event with rain in southern Ocean County, winter weather will hit New Jersey tomorrow in the form of a weak coastal low. This, of course, is merely an appetizer for a far larger and more powerful system poised to wreak havoc on the entire region Wednesday into Thursday. Jackpot zones will be measuring in feet. Buried cars, bread and milk in short supply. Still over 72 hours out, where the rain/snow line and axis of heaviest precipitation set up remains up in the air. Stay close to Weather NJ’sFacebook page to keep up with the latest. You can bet I’ll be back out shooting Tuesday to see the big storm’s harbinger sunset.
Shout out to the universe today for giving me exactly what I asked for. This morning, while thinking about my photographs this year, I envisioned how great it would be to have at least one more clear cut entry into my annual best of series for 2020. My output has been solid enough this year, though real standouts have been lacking. Well, my Christmas gift came early. Thank you.
His is the path of solitude. It is a journey not idly traveled, with headwinds, endless thought, and self-critique his only companions. Like a looking glass life reflects back upon him, projecting moments of joy and pain, sunshine and rain, triumph and abject failure. Each and every one a lesson. Through it all he has himself to turn inward. To his fortress mind and hideaway heart, twin suns lighting an island of isolation impregnable to all and impossible to reach. This is a refuge of necessity, a way station of isolation constructed piece by piece through decades of disconnectedness. Except there are no train lines connecting it. It is both inaccessible to find and impossible to leave. It is from solitude to which all his comings and goings take place.
Up at Night — 14mm | f/2.8 | ISO 1600 | EXP 10 sec
COVID-19 has taken many things. Lives, livelihoods, lifestyles, and liberties all curtailed as we continue to confront an ongoing public health crisis. It’s been tough and there are few to argue otherwise. A lower tier robbery thieved by COVID is spontaneous fun. The need to social distance to keep group exposure minimized has taken away spontaneous fun. You know, the plans that didn’t exist until you get a text message from a friend like, yo, get here now because we’re all doing [insert cool fun thing here]. And boom, unexpected excitement dropped into your life; the best kind of fun. This tale has in no way told the COVID story. Homebound monotony has long held sway.
This changed for me on Thursday. Ben Wurst dropped a small group text to Jonathan Carr and me saying we should go out tonight for astrophotography. Initially I thought this was a nice sentiment, something fun in theory, but I did not expect it to shake out. I was pleasantly surprised to return from my run to see Jon was in and the game was on. Thursday night in the pines it would be.
Around 10:00 p.m. Thursday we all met up roadside on 539 south in Warren Grove to hike in about a quarter mile to the top of the world. The top of the world is a hyperbolic name given to a small hill outcrop on an otherwise flat bowl of pygmy pines. The pygmies are a unique set of stunted pines found in the southern part of the New Jersey Pinelands. Kept small by wildfire, these bonsai-esque pines stand low—most well under six feet tall. A small sea of mini trees standing sentry for centuries. It’s a cool sight, and this was my first trek out there since January 2016. It had been a while.
From here we tried our best at making astrophotography on a clear, moonless night. The visibility was excellent, and shooting stars dashed the night sky on regular intervals. Honestly, I didn’t even care about the photographs I was making, I was just happy to be out having unexpected fun with friends.
The Winter Look — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Tonight burned. Fast and white hot she torched across the whole of the sky. Racing Apollo to his chariot home above the clouds. Phoebus, she calls in pastel tones heard in angelic beauty, our pantheon awaits. A show of pure passion, glowing heat, and lithe quickness. A holy ember blazing light white hot enough to stop time itself, and humble enough to give it all back. Restraint wrapped around the power, a subtle mastery masked only in its wisdom.
Tonight’s sunset above the salt marsh held the classic winter look. Brooding and intense cloud striations colored in deep, fiery pastels. The cold fans the flames. The furnace burns brighter, truer. The cold clean air of winter sets a crystalline stage producing light shows in nature’s peculiar brand of high definition. Buy this you will never at a big box store. There’s really nothing like it and no Amazon box to ship it in if there were. A unique species unto her own. She’s the afternoon sky fall cloaked in the rainbowed robes of winter. Breathless you watch her leave, eyes transfixed as though you’re only seeing her singular beauty for the first ever time.
Back writing at The Union Market and I have a problem. Sure I have loads of problems but for the purposes of this exercise I am focusing on one. My photography is wholly uninspired. For four years now I have set adrift atop the inevitable plateau of your talent’s going no where. No gains, no challenges, no growth. Only the muscle memory motions of habit fueled machinations left manufacturing the same caliber of work over and over and over again. It’s a cycle of mediocrity. This plain, man. It’s endless. I need off.
Feeling certain something has to give what are my options? Well let’s work the problem with a good old fashion bulleted list. We’ll even pretend it’s whiteboard style. To address my photographic dead end I could:
Quit—pack it in, drop this hobby and drift upon the breeze until something new falls in my lap; this is both decidedly passive and incredibly on brand.
Maintain status quo—stick to my modus operandi and don’t change a damn thing. Hover where I’m at but continue to find the most joy writing for the photos I make; this, too, is an extremely Greg thing to do.
Buy new gear—the capitalist equivalent to let’s have a child to fix our relationship; the short term gain to long term pain.
Identify a challenge—settle on a new photographic skill or technique; considering I only make landscapes and flower macros with the occasional bug thrown in I have mountains to climb.
Step out of my comfort zone—mix it up, meet new people; if you’re the smartest person in the room, find a new room. The surest path to improvement is to surround yourself with people better and more capable than you. Learn from others who’ve been in your shoes. Worn soles long shot, weary treads long tired from their time atop the plateau. While I was never a great musician by any stretch, I got pretty damn good playing guitar, bass, and even the damn banjo, when I was jamming on the regular with musical types way more gifted and trained than me. Their juice finds its way into your bones by osmosis.
Give a talk—combine some strengths! I am a shy ass person, few will say otherwise. Yet paradoxically I love to talk, especially in front of a live audience, and I’m good at it! Bringing together two skills into one thematic packable could be the juice I need right now. In the interest of full disclosure, I had a perfect opportunity to do this but totally flaked out. Great job, Greg. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Even though I am not as yet clear on what I will or will not do, I am glad I wrote this down. It helps to get your thoughts out of your mind and onto paper. It creates some separation. Some breathing room to think it through with the problem feeling a little less up close and personal. Change perspective to be objective. Even if a thing looks good it may not be serving us. The question is whether the discomfort is strong enough to precipitate change.
Seated at The Union Market stuck on what to write. I’ve got nothing. An intersection? A four way stop with no signs. The anarchy of an unkempt mind. It’s an odd sort of drift. The shimmering grains of control left to sift right through arthritic fingers. More sand down the hourglass of time. An amortized loss no prospector’s pan can withhold. The Ring, man. It will vanish.
Still this is the big mystery, ain’t it? The exalted drama we each one of us play out with this spot of time we’ve got. Each of us observers in our own unplanned play running on as one big dress rehearsal to life. Except there are no second chances—only better doings. The sand grains, man. They’re ours—though only for a moment—borrowed. Walk upon them where you can. Dance, sing. Bury your feet and run your fingers through past, present, and future. As it comes. As it goes. Ours for a while. Build the brightest castle you can; however you can and while you can. Because the sand belongs to time. It hears its master’s call.
