Fire on the Horizon — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/60
This photograph is raw. Hardly the polished HDRlandscape propped up by a firm tripod and bracketed exposures I usually produce. Here things are basic and flawed. As intense golden hour light poured over the Cedar Run Dock Road marsh on Sunday I was having a ball walking around popping off single frame hand shot exposures. It’s liberating to break away from the stationary tripod life sometimes. Pacing the roadside back and forth my eyes settled upon a pool of water wedged between the road’s shoulder and the marsh itself. A few inches of fresh rain left plenty of water throughout the wetlands, and the reflection on the still puddle commanded my attention. From there the process was pretty low-tech—squat low and place the camera about two inches above the water level, roughly a foot away from the edge of the marsh grass and squeeze the shutter. I wanted to capture a blown out sun and lens flare through the grass while capturing clouds in the water’s reflection. I am pleased with the quick execution of an otherwise spontaneous plan.
This lyrically inspired photo title goes to the excellent reggae band, Stick Figure. “Fire on the Horizon” is track one off their 2015 album, Set in Stone. Kudos to Ben Wurst for cluing me in to this band. Solid grooves, folks. Solid grooves.
Real Feel — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I’m not above cliché and could easily drop the ubiquitous Winter is Coming—but I won’t. Instead, and as you might have guessed, I will talk about the cold’s arrival Sunday evening out on Cedar Run Dock Road. A sharp north wind bore down over the open marsh carrying with it a bitter message, howling of our frozen fate to come. Everything about the hour long photo session fast-forwarded the fall to winter progression in the collapsed space of a fading afternoon. From the vision enhancing crystal clear air, to the stoked northerlies painting the unmistakeable blue color that only shows when the temperatures fall. Yes, the cold is coming, but so too is the prospect of the magnificent skies only a winter can bring. Here’s to freezing our butts off in anticipation of the next great season of sunset photography. My memory card is ready, my hands are not.
Before making my way to LBIF and the soda kiln firing this past Friday I stopped off at the aptly named Harvey Cedars Sunset Park fishing for a sunset. Shocking, right? Pre-sunset conditions looked great—ample high level cirrus clouds stretched the sky and a subsequent light show seemed inevitable. Mother Nature, of course, is never completely predictable despite our best deductions. As the sun faded so too the the clouds fell away leaving a large blue palette behind the lone stretch of remnant clouds you can see above.
This all worked out for the best as I was struggling to find a composition. I spent 20 minutes hopping from one position to another. Modest leading lines and ho-hum foreground was leaving me vexed. The pressure was off as the sky was hardly popping off, but this was still a brow-furrowing endeavor as I prefer to not overthink my photo making process. More often than not I settle into a sufficient frame with little effort and even less conscious thought. I shoot by feel—this keeps photography a liberating enterprise in my life. I struggle with decision making in most other things so it’s a mental break to not go through the machinations of second guessing when I am out shooting.
Is there a lesson to be learned in all this? I don’t know, probably. I will say this, however, the final photograph—while no threat to my personal list of favorites—is not quite the throwaway I expected.
Eye Up — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I made this sunset photograph Monday, October, 3 out at my usual Cedar Run Dock Road stomping grounds. Conditions were solid and after several weeks of little to no shooting it was worthwhile just to be out there. I could nitpick the low-level clouds over the horizon that kept things from really exploding after the sun slipped below, but coming out a week of endless clouds and rain I was, and am still, in no position to complain.
Let’s get wonky
While I took time on Tuesday to run through my usual Lightroom to Photomatix and back to Lightroom workflow, I was too lazy to blog it up and fire it off for modest internet consumption. Taking a second look today, Wednesday, I started having second thoughts: I hemmed and hawed between two similar compositions with the lone difference being their perspective by way a horizon placement at the middle of the frame vs. placement of the horizon at the lower third—which is the photo shown above. It took a long hot shower and some dinner to move me to a decision.
As a general rule—and remember rules are made to be broken—I prefer a center mass horizon; this is especially true when working at wide angles. This minimizes the distortion caused by sharp angles diving toward the image’s vanishing point, which is exacerbated when you position the horizon in either the top or bottom third. In this case I deviated from standard operating procedure on account of ample cloud action to fill the upper two-thirds coupled with a less than stellar foreground of repetitive marsh grass. Were the horizon to be placed center frame the tide pool slides back to the middle ground and loses a touch of prominence. By taking a composition that favors sky real estate the tide pool is brought forward in the lower third—this has an added benefit insofar as the clouds are better reflected than its center horizon counterpart.
Did I make the right decision? Who knows? This line of thinking may be pedantic but there’s benefits in challenging your own workflows and assumptions. The right balance of purposeful critique measured against the pitfalls of perfectionism will help drive you forward in any of your life’s endeavors. Or it’ll just drive you nuts.
Post number 300 is here and on this website, and I am pleased it’s a good one. I’m not versed in the psychology of it all but there’s something about round numbers that satisfies the human brain. In the grand scheme of things it’s no different than picking some other arbitrary endpoint as a numerical goalpost for random celebration, but sticking with base 10 numbering has a certain mathematical ease to it—see also why we should use the metric system. Ahem.
With the 2016 Labor Day sky showing much promise I made for my usual Dock Road stomping ground hunting for a sunset. Instead of hitting the dock pilings or my go-to marsh spot, I made for the far east end. I made for Antoinetta’s. I’m no stranger to this composition though it’s one I tend to avail myself of more readily in the winter months. Not only is the sun angle more workable, setting more to the southwest, the parking lot is bustling with cars and eager patrons during the summer months. It’s just an easier time to stay out of people’s way. As an added advantage to shooting Antoinetta’s during fall and winter is a lesser need to worry about our beloved terrapins nesting in the cold winter months—the wildlife offseason, if you will.
Initially I had a slightly different angle of my composition dialed in. I was swung a bit more to the east (left in this photograph) with a more westward orientation of the frame itself. Not to mention I was at full standing height with the tripod so as to get a better angle on the water. While I liked what I saw I quickly remembered a photo I had seen on Facebook recently that brought the stacked stones—would be cairns—into the foreground. Said photo was from a longtime resident of Dock Road and all around good guy. Inspired I collapsed my tripod to its lowest height, swung back toward the north, tucked in close to the stacked stones, and made my photograph with a more southwestward orientation—bringing the stones firmly into the foreground. From there the sun handled the rest. Myself and a few other revelers were treated to a warm, orange sunset on a gorgeous late summer night. I even did a live stream from my Facebook if you’re interested.
So cheers to round numbers and here’s to the next 100.
Still the Sirens Call — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Listen with care to this, now, and a god will arm your mind. Square in your ship’s path are Seirênês, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by; woe to the innocent who hears that sound!
Lady Kirkê, in spite of her transformative machinations that rendered men into swine, offered warning to Odysseus when discussing possible routes for a treacherous return to Ithaca. For after passing the Sirens Odysseus would have to make a choice.
It is easy to bow at the feet of the enchanted. To fall prey to the allure of false confidence when faced with sights so beautiful and sounds so serene. A transcendent manifestation of the senses that can bring even the most wary among us to feed at the palm of a menacing stranger’s hand.
As I stood along the banks of Cedar Run—that’s the creek you see before you—mind, body, and soul spirited to sanctuary where the pressing needs of the worlds demands were nary a whisper in the dark. A 360 degree Shambhala sparked to light in a ring of fire as the sky ignited around me in a chorus of pink, yellow, purple, and orange. Entranced in the wake of a sunset the likes of which I’d seldom seen a subtle symphony of sounds joined in to call me to the sea. Seduced, thoughts no more tangible than the moment of creation melded as one, fused in the blank canvas of a mind that for a brief unhurried moment knew no bounds. At complete peace, exposed to the reality around me.
As the blaze burned down to ember I stepped back from my malaise, freed from an enchantment of which I was so wholly subsumed to remember fell deeds awake. The extratropical remnants of Hermine will be impacting the immediate Mid-Atlantic coast in the coming days, and we’d do well to heed Kirkê’s warning and steer clear of the Sirens’ call. We must remain vigilant and whole for someplace far away Penelope is always waiting.
The calendar has flipped. September is here and with it meteorological fall. You see for meteorologists—of which I am not—the seasons align a bit different from the astronomical seasons of which we’re all quite familiar. Among mets winter runs December 1–February 28; spring occurs March 1–May 30; summer spans June 1—August 31; with fall happening September 1–November 30 on the calendar. So in some circles we’ve come to the fall season—if only technically. Yesterday on the Cedar Run Dock Roadmarsh evidence of the fall transition was all over the place—seabirds in lesser numbers, our sun setting much earlier, and perhaps most obvious to me, an increase in yellows and browns festooned over marshland that grows more dormant by the day.
For the landscape photographer the palette of early fall colors integrated in the marsh grass creates opportunity for visually appealing images full of depth and contrast. Things are even better when you have an ideally positioned cumulus cloud in the sky illuminated in rich pastels of the setting sun. Better still is when it aligns just so as to reflect pink and purple hues in a well positioned tide pool. It may not be a seven letter Scrabble worthy triple word score that has a ‘z’ in it, but hey, it wracks up a few points on an intangible scorecard somewhere.
While we’re on the topic of transition our weather along the coastal Mid-Atlantic is about to take a serious turn. The remnants of Hurricane Hermine are now moving through eastern North Carolina (as of 3:00 p.m. EDT on 9/2/2016) where it will eventually eject out over the relatively warm water of the Atlantic Ocean. From there forecast models continue to look worse and worse for my area—southern coastal New Jersey. As this storm slides northeast over water plenty warm enough to reignite storm growth allowing a transition back to a warm core system, Hermine may again return to hurricane status as it eyes up our vulnerable shoreline. My concern is growing by the hour, and for folks living on the water please stay vigilant and heed any and all warnings and emergency response team recommendations. I’m sure I’ll have more on this in the coming days. Suffice to say the marsh you see above, and have seen so many times in my photographs, will be under feet of water as Hermine pounds the region with days of potentially dangerous storm surge.
One more photograph from August 25, 2016. After making my first frame I periscoped my tripod head right to left from a west to southwest orientation. My reasons were twofold: 1) the high level cirrus clouds were a more impressive pastel color toward the south, and 2) I wanted to get a different angle on the jetty rock situated in the foreground. It was a simple adjustment while largely staying in place that breathed new life into the composition. Plus it brought more of the compacted wet sand into the frame. Churned up sand festooned with countless random footprints does something fierce to my OCD. As it is I’m always drawn to a palette of untainted sand.
A now for something slightly different: I made a video! A brief, 87 second job from the same position and setup as this photograph. Obviously I need some practice—not to mention a noise canceling microphone to dampen the wind—but it’s a start. Someday time lapse and film will become a thing for me. Hopefully.
I made my way over to Long Beach Island last night. It was a beautiful evening and considering the calendar’s rude notion that summer is quickly winding down it seemed worthwhile to capitalize on a resource that will soon be in short supply—warmth. Initially I defaulted to my usual LBI summer spot, Surf CitySunset Park. As I pulled into a parking space, however, I was met with an innumerable populace milling about the bay beach performing all manners of bay beach acts. Selfies, swimmies, chair sitters, gazebo dwellers, swingers (the park swing kind, people—let’s keep it on the up and up), walkers, basketballers and the like were also making the most of this resource known by some as a warm summer’s eve. Daunted, I fell back to Plan B.
Instinctively I knew where to retreat. Like Washington stealing his army out of Brooklyn and into Manhattan by boat under the cover of darkness and right under General Howe’s nose, I sought refuge at a place that has long provided sanctuary to the man called Molyneux. OK so this wasn’t like Washington’s daring retreat that saw no loss of life at all, but considering that happened in late August—August 29, 1776 to be exact—I figured I’d drop a real non sequitur into this post. You may thank me for your new fun fact that will aid you in your barstool trivia quest later. You see, jumping back to things that are actually relevant I spent three summers working for Ship Bottom Public Works. From 2003–2005 I spent May–September toiling away with friends and coworkers alike, doing our best to keep the public facilities of Ship Bottom free and clean. In doing so I staked daily responsibility to Ship Bottom Bay Beach. From 7:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m. sweeping away parking spots full of sand, pitchforking a night’s load of seaweed from the bathing beach, and the obligatory Dumping of the Trash with the Slacker was the order of the day. Keeping things in tip-top shape, our pride.
To the northern end of the bay beach sits a park. Ship BottomSunset Point to be precise. A small park filled with all the things that a park make. Things like benches, placards, flowers and shrubberies, memorial bricks, a gazebo and a bird hotel that puts my own residence to shame. Somehow this is all crammed into a space of about 5,000 square feet of sandy land if I had to guess. Yet when it is grown in full at peak season it affords all the coverage and privacy one could wish for. To its western edge sits a sandy beach running the course of the bay. It was along the jetty rock of said beach I made this photograph last night.
