Place pastels upon your palette and cue the music the sunset show is begun. Grab a big old dry brush and move your paints across your canvas with speed. Be confident in your motion; haste, but don’t waste. It’s your heart and mind funneling down the arm and into your hand summoning magic unto the page. You are an artist, and you’re doing great.
Like the good keyboard warrior I have tried not to be, I came to the came to the computer tonight ready to pop off on our accelerating societal decline. Then I remembered I am a photographer, not a writer, and this photograph reflects the sad state of affairs far better than my forced words.
All day disqueit asking what can I do? I have little clue, but I am grown disgusted the cowards stance I’ve limply taken that’s long been thinly covered in silence. A passivity that can be seen as at best, aloof and neutral, but at worst complicit. What I will do is pledge further introspection into my own blindspots, weaknesses, limitations, and fear to speak out on the things I find righteously wrong. This self-improvement is solely in my control. I can also lend my photographs and my words to advocate for love, respect, and the personal dignity of all people and do my best to model that behavior. Lead from the front otherwise get out of the way.
And now if you’ll excuse me I will be busy regrowing my spine. Thanks for reading, and go give somebody a hug and ask yourself, what can I do? Let’s lift each other up. Let’s be better together.
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The ice returns and is that some inspo sliding in on it? Ever since I was a kid winter has owned my curiosity. Forever my favorite weather, the cold and snow continue to demand my attention. It’s like the first time, every time.
So it should come as no surprise that when the salt marsh turns frozen the urge to get outside explodes. To my camera and the marsh I go. Only this time a proper stop further.
For the first time since December 2020 (five years!) I am publishing a photo from Great Bay Boulevard. Once part of a steady rotation it’s been a casualty of a stalled hobby. For the first time in years, thoughts of making photos land upon my brain. It’s happening several times per week, easy, and usually in the shower. Where once there was desert, there are no motes of water, frozen as it may be. As for GBB, it was awesome to be back, and I am starting to feel I may be back.
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All my years making photographs in southern Ocean County, and I never before tread at Cloverdale Farm County Park. All this time a wonderful bit of landscape has sat in wooded hiding mere miles from my home. I had no idea. The park itself is an old cranberry bog, and it features wooded trails, duck blinds, and numerous shallow pools full of bramble and sedge. I wish I had this in my spot rotation years ago.
Here we have another blurry pan shot photograph. Only this time the camera motion is top to bottom vertical, instead of left to right horizontal. While we have an out of focus image, we know where we are, what we are doing; walking along a golden sun lit wooded trail at golden hour.
We are but a few days away from 2024 and I still I try to work through my 2023 photography backlog. With luck I will get a few more pictures posted before year end. Right in time for the best of 2023 year in photos retrospective. For reference, I made this shot on 2 December 2023.
The Morning Look — 35mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/30
In my last post I talked fishing. Fishing and photos. Here I offer another sunrise photograph made on 12 November 2023. A simple left to right pan shot to pull the colors across the frame. And what wonderful dawn colors were pulled that day.
For a few years now I have been near all in on panning my landscape frames. And if anything, its personal appeal only grows with time. I often think of ways to articulate my fondness but stumble with awkward, poorly expressed thoughts. An art critic I am not. That said, I’ll stick to basics.
First is color. By moving the camera during shutter depress lines blur, details merge, and color is most of what remains. It breaks down form into little more than moving color. And this color shines best at sunrise and sunset.
Second is movement. The blurred streaks come from panning the camera left to right, level to the horizon. Motion blur. Simple as that. Through this technique the movement of your hand during the exposure works as the hand of the painter brushed upon their oils. Moving the eye, moving the heart.
Third is line work. Sharp line work. At first blush this statement may read contradictory and absurd, but hear me out. By keeping a level camera plane throughout your pan, flat horizons become a razor’s edge. Sharp and defined. This grounds the viewer, placing visual queues of where and how to look. Amid the blur and soft focus it reveals the scene, which brings me to. . .
Abstraction. Fourth is abstraction. Through color, movement, and sharp line work our blurry puzzle is near completion. Even though the often crucial presence of sharpness and detail is missing, the photographer yet conveys the scene with a full, albeit distilled effect. You know this photograph, despite its blur and motion, you know this a beach glowing in the splendor of dawn.
The mid-Atlantic fall run has brought big smiles and tight lines to striped bass enthusiasts up and down the New Jersey coast. Whether by boat or by surf, the 2023 fall bite has been certifiable. So far this season I have made it out thrice—once by boat, and twice by Ship Bottom surf. Naturally I have zero fish to show for it. My cousin, however, photographed here, had himself a banner day by center console. Too bad I was not there with my camera.
One thing we did catch, however, cold hands aside, was a fantastic 12 November sunrise. During a brief pause in pre-dawn plugging I made this exposure with my 35mm. Given the excitement of fishing, a fiery sunrise, and frozen fingers, I missed precise execution on this frame. Given the sluggish shutter speed the focus is softer than I planned. The good news is that I rather enjoy the effect it’s laid over the final image. It lends a painter’s touch and the 1/15 second exposure gives the foreground sea wash a sense of motion, grounding the sense of place. This is fall run surf fishing at its finest. If only there was fish on.
Standard Orbit — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/2500
The Longwood Gardens conservatory is a sight to behold. The crowning jewel atop acres of grounds fit for any court. It stands anachronistic of a place and time far more European in nature.
Within the conservatory, under the eaves and broad glass panes spanning the angled rooftops with ease, light pours in from above and all sides; filling the open spaces to funnel the outside in. Packed within this elegantly manufactured nature is an impressive amount of growing life. Flowers of every color and type make their meticulously manicured presence felt backlit by an endless sea of green. From wall to ceiling everything is grown to perfection. There is deep experience here, and its experience shows off with a studied ease.
It is a display for the senses. A panoply of light, sight, color, and smell conducted in well choreographed step. The entire design working its way from one simulated climate to the next. All interconnected with well grown corridors. Old growth holds sway here, and they serve as natural portals between zones. It is here I encountered the majestic hanging baskets bursting with hydrangea paced about 20 feet apart. A satellite welcome, a floral chandelier locked in standard orbit guiding me about this aged greenhouse manse. A natural footman speaking to the legacy of its Du Pont past.
