Things were quiet on the salt marsh tonight. A subtle blue hour affair in our slow march toward spring. While the calendar insists spring starts tomorrow, winter has other ideas. And so here I sit griping about three backloaded winters in a row. Backloaded meaning winters that will—not—end.
March 2018 has been active with coastal storm after coastal storm. Wreaking havoc with rain, snow, sleet, thunder, lightning, flooding, and power outages. Most of which happened at the same time. This spot I made photos tonight has been underwater quite a bit this month. And now here we are, set to welcome spring with a winter storm watch. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Le sigh.
Now if you’re thinking, wait a minute, Gregory Hypocrite, I thought you loved snow? Well you’re not wrong. But while I love snow I am not its biggest fan once March hits. I am all about furious rates of maximum dendrite growth from December–February. But once March rolls in, with longer days and all its hopes for spring and summer I am ready to move on dot com. Yet again, as it was in 2016 and 2017, it looks like we are going to have to wait. As it is, winter holds.
A Pearl in Winter — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Antoinetta’s Waterfront Restaurant. My old stomping grounds. Undoubtedly one of my favorite locations to photograph. It holds sway as an idyllic bayside vista. She’s a fine structure worked in a modern Victorian motif. This joy of design stands tall at the east end of Cedar Run Dock Road. A seaside beauty for sure. Oh, and the food is pretty good, too.
Over the years I have made several photographs of this near exact composition. You can take a look at my Antoinetta’s tag if you are so inclined. In recent years, however, my time spent photographing this spot has lessened. Increased year round hours has this fine eatery packed to the gills on the regular. It would be poor form to prowl around while paying customers sit down to a delicious meal, set to take in delectable sunset views. Besides, all those cars in my frame would prove problematic to good photo making.
Tonight I had my way. A closed restaurant and the whole area locked in ice. The latter being far more important to my opportunistic photographic sensibilities. I am enthralled with winter weather. Always have been. This is doubly true along my local bayside and marshes. The counterintuitive juxtaposition of ice where sun and warmth should be drives my fascination. The result? I cannot get enough of making this kind of photograph. I like it so much in fact, this shot marks my third take at this composition. Take a look at Winter has its ways and the Never quite the same. The former made in 2014 and the latter in 2015. The choice is yours as far your preference.
Until next time. Cheers and keep warm.
Coda
I did something rather unusual with this post. A last minute change to the photo title. I was all set with The Choice Is Yours but as I was typing out the post description A Pearl in Winter shot through my brain. It struck with a resonance. You know the kind where you whole body syncs to melodious vibrato. Or the feeling you get when you listen to Crosby, Still, Nash & Young. There’s a rhythm and tone that works down your whole spine setting your life in tune. And so the change—a rare change where I most always stick with my gut.
Cold Movement — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/100
I’ve been listening to Walter Isaacson’s, Leonardo Da Vinci, on Audible. While I haven’t enjoyed it as much as his biographies on Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin, I find I am connect more though Walter’s latest work. Being something of an interdisciplinary and a procrastinator there is a resonance with the famous Florentine. While at only a fraction of a percent on Leonardo’s scale I, too, have a wide array of interests powered by curiosity. A Jack-of-all-trades I want to know a little something about as many things as possible. Of course Leonardo took this to a mind-boggling level; a Leonardo-of-all-trades and the master of all. He stands as the pinnacle Renaissance Man, even if he left most of his work unfinished or unpublished. Of course, he was more interested in pursing art, mathematics, engineering, optics, fluid dynamics, and stage craft to acquire knowledge for its own sake. He was less concerned with finishing things and reaping external rewards that motivate many of us.
Much of Isaacson’s biography covers Leonardo’s work as a painter. While I was a mediocre and frustrated painter at best who never enjoyed the practice, these chapters have sparked connection to my photography. Isaacson tells us Leonardo was a master of movement in his works. He instructs us that a work should not capture a moment as frozen and rigid. Instead it is necessary to convey what was happening one moment ago in the past transitioning to what will happen in the next moment in the future. This fundamental cornerstone built an emotional and narrative quality in Leonardo’s work. He wrote about its importance many times across the decades in his famous notebooks.
Taking this maxim from the preeminent Renaissance master has me thinking I would do well to incorporate movement into my own work. I want to create photography that flows from one moment into the next. Better this than a stale image, emotionless and locked in time. In a weird way, armed with Leonardo’s thoughts on the matter, I can picture him judging my work with cutting critique. In this way I want to be sure I it will pass muster.
Last night on the marsh I had my first chance at capturing movement under the auspices of Maestro. The first arctic air mass of the year arrived in New Jersey yesterday. With it a biting north west wind to serve as wake up call that winter is coming. The sky was cast with a deep orange-purple glow that only shows when a serious winter trough swings through. Set to this dreamy backdrop, invasive phragmites bent low before the stiff breeze; bowing in unified motion under the power of wind. Here was my chance at movement. Using my 35mm lens, soft focus, and a hint of blur the viewer can imagine where the phragmites were a glimpse prior. Now compare that with where they will be in the next eye blink. The movement brings action and reality to an otherwise still looking scene. This better conveys the cold, windy, unsettled reality on the marsh last night. This stands in narrative opposition to what could otherwise look like a placid blue hour on the marsh.
The Moon Was a Crescent — 100mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1.6 sec
The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. A pale sun rose and set and rose again. Red leaves whispered in the wind. Dark clouds filled the skies and turned to storms.
—Bran III, A Dance with Dragons; volume five in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Author George R. R. Martin, in one of his strongest, and most rhythmic chapters in A Song of Ice and Fire brings the reader into long, uninterrupted passage of time. Written with exacting precision, we, along with the moon and the characters therein, cycle through time as Bran trains with the Three-Eyed Raven. “The moon was fat and full… The moon was a black hole in the sky… The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife.” The cycle repeats no fewer than three times as readers work through Bran’s journey. Cold and lonely in a cave unseeing yet aware of the cold, cruel world outside. We endure the passage of time with our protagonist. Aware of both repetition, effort and duration. This takes peculiar significance with Bran who himself is able to take over the minds of others, man and beast. As readers, Martin is imploring us to do the same through his language. We become Bran in that cave.
Recalling how I felt when I first read through this chapter I marvel at what Martin had done. His use of language, tone, rhythm and repetition stirring my imagination. I saw the moon. I experienced the time. I was with our hero feeling the burden of the work and paralyzed with the task ahead. I am not a prodigious reader, nor am I schooled in language, grammar or creative writing. Yet this chapter left a mark as though made from a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. It took the habit of reading, and thereby the art of writing, to a new level of appreciation. For the first time I perceived how exacting words can move mind, body and soul. It was tangible evidence that reading is essential to better writing. It is the key to better storytelling. The key to better understanding of our world and our audience.
Standing out on the marsh last week, watching a sunset fade, I saw the moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Immediately transported I saw all the sickled moon blades I’d witnessed over the years. In the same moment I was Bran. At the same moment still I was reading Martin’s words, seeing again all the sickled moon blades I’d witnessed over the years. Sharp as a knife, black as a hole, fat and full. Anything… everything happening at once, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife.
To the Point — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I’m brining it back to last Friday evening on Great Bay Boulevard. To my final set of seven brackets on what was an excellent first fall night. It was only moments earlier I scored this sunset before turning my camera vertical for blue hour. It was in this moment I thought about the past.
Vanishing points fascinate me. First introduced to the concept back in grade school art class I’ve been keen ever since. It unlocked the secrets of depth, proportion, scale and scope. Suddenly I could make my drawings fall back into the page, perspective now conquered. To an eager grade schooler it was akin to sorcery. The shroud pulled and in a single lesson my mind expanded.
The precepts from all those years ago are on display in this photograph. Here to the right Great Bay Boulevard itself retreats back to a single point at the center of the scene. It’s met with the parallel power lines and telephone poles falling back to said point. Everything here drives back to the same point on a line, shrinking as it goes. The marsh and puddles serve as more lines—albeit natural. Even the clouds are working it. All over lines leading the eye to the one vanishing point, the singularity of this world. And yet it’s a farce. Pursue as you may, you will never make it to the singular spot. It will keep its distance with cunning allure. It will remain as unconquerable as the rainbow and as elusive as its pot of gold. Still it is a wonder to see the world collapse down to a spot so small.
Life comes in moments. The best are calm, soft, unpredictable moments. Moments where past and future fall quiet before the present. Moments of awareness proving what the relaxed mind can be. A mind free of worry and regret. Free of what was and what may still come.
Such a moment hit me looking out over Barnegat Bay last week. On the boards I stood transfixed by a sublime gradient of light passing on from sunset to dusk. Its tempo put to time by subtle undulating movement upon an otherwise still sheen of water. Daylight’s last burn playing soft tricks upon its surface. An elemental merger of fire and water.
At one with the moment I stood synchronous with slow, steady breathing. In perfect time with a relaxed heart. A moment where time fell still and the world stopped turning. Sans camera I stood. Breathing. Watching. Observing. The moment and I, together as one.
Back to the real world I looked back toward my trunk and thought, I better make a picture.
From Stone to Sand — 14mm | f/2.8 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/60
The wheel of time pays little mind to the trappings of ephemeral life. Its burden is the long game. Tireless at work upon the great mill of the universe grinding all back to the stardust from whence we came. The wheel’s is a blind justice—never to grant favor, never put off its task—the laws of physics its only master. As the arrow of time points forward the blossom of our creation journeys back to dust, and onward the mill turns. On and on; working, grinding, rounding. Bringing wear to young life as it works stone to pebble to sand to dust. A spinning wheel of entropy eroding us back to our most basic of constituent parts. This is the game to which we have been cast. Forever turning. Forever worked upon at the cosmic millstone until we are cast back together shone in new light.
This winter is dormant. This marsh is dormant. My memory card is dormant. My well adored landscape muse has up and left for more colorful climes leaving my inspiration dormant. As bleak as it seems our focus must be challenged to stay on task as we lie in wait for better days. We’re entering what I like to call the calendar dead zone. The two month stretch of winter that spans mid-January through mid-March. Here in the Middle Atlantic when the holiday hangover ends, and we’re left grinding it out through the long dark nights of winter; when the color is all gone and we’re left with little more than a brown expanse of would be life that annually checks out for a long winter’s nap. We on the human side of things are afforded no such dormancy and so we are left awake through through it all—trudging along color blind until spring’s rebirth—far away as it may seem.
Yesterday I had hope things may spark off for sunset. All day long coastal New Jersey was treated to picturesque cloudscapes and crepuscular rays signaling some sundown potential. Unfortunately by the time I made it out to Dock Road the once formidable cumulus cloud features were squashed down to little more than low level pancakes—and I’m not talking about the big boys, we’re talking kid sized silver dollar flap jacks here. With minimal cloud action draping below 850mb it was obvious coloration was out of the cards. Despite the disappointment I took some solace in being out making photos in what has otherwise been a very unproductive month on the photo making front. Here’s to tomorrow.
Blue Window to the Soul — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
There’s little doubt Rand’s Marina has rocketed up my list of favorite spots to photograph. The cedar pole and bay water combination provides plentiful foreground opportunities, and it’s compositionally strengthened with derelict dock remnants in the middle ground backlit by marsh, clouds, and sky background. It’s just a great space for making landscapes. While this shot was made Monday, December 5, 2016, I didn’t have enough time to get it posted until today. Preparations for a long, exciting week with the day job took precedence; laundry must be done, and bags must be packed, ya know? But now that I’m back home I’ve got time to properly blog it up.
Looking forward a bit, it’s getting to that time of year where I’ve got to start thinking about selecting 12 shots for my annual best of—due out December, 24, 2016. The past two years its proven to be a fun retrospective of a year’s week. It’s proven a great way to benchmark where I’ve come from so I can calibrate where I’d like to get to. Beyond that, I’ve gotten my hands on a Pulse Camera Remote from Alpine Labs—it’s charging now!—and I am eager to broaden my horizons through the world of time lapse. For years I’ve been wanting to explore this road but I never pulled the trigger on an intervalometer. Finally that time has come. Now I just need to figure out what I’m doing. . .
