14mm wide angle sunset photo made over salt marsh and tide pools.

Hop, Skip, and a Jump

14mm wide angle sunset photo made over salt marsh and tide pools.
Hop, Skip, and a Jump — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

I bring you the marsh. I bring you a sunset. I bring you an idiom. The salt marsh was lit last night, and I have the brackets to prove it. I am fortunate to have such a spot to photograph so close to home. Topping the list is Cedar Run Dock Road. A hop, skip, and a jump from my house is holds sway as a striking salt marsh. It is a classic example of a Mid-Atlantic marsh ecosystem primed to support substantial annual avian migrations. How lucky am I that I can be out there in 10 minutes?

I want to critique myself here; not something I do often but it is nagging me enough to share. So out with it: I am not sold on this composition. My eyes and brain struggle with where to look. It’s not so much a balance thing, the weight seems right, as much as the multiple tide pools are somehow disjointed. It’s disrupting my usual ability to know where to look and how to get there as I move across a photograph. I am curious if others feel the same way.

That said the awkward spread of brackish water pools and marsh grass tells a more complete story of the marshland. It lets the viewer in on the spread; the random array of water and green grass as it spans square miles of salt marsh. In this respect it better portrays the salt marsh as it is, a living complex of life and color.

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