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.
This is the Time — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/20
Well folks, we made it. Another Memorial Day Weekend is upon us. The unofficial start of summer for we the people of the LBI Region. A time when hopes and dreams reach their zenith. School is ending. Love is fresh and life is in full bloom. Temperatures rise along with the excitement of a summertime full of memories to be made. Personally the stretch of days that run from Memorial Day Weekend up through and including the Fourth of July represents my absolute favorite portion of the Gregorian calendar. Hands down. I cannot—I will not!—be moved from this position. The days are long and the nights are full of wonder. While it may not be my best stretch for photos, it is a lifelong love affair with this time of year that far and away predates my time as Camera Man. It lifts me greatly from my usual anxiety fueled disposition. Let’s make this summer great. Let’s be kind to one another; let’s hit the beach; and let’s get out there and support our local businesses that rely so heavily on a productive summer season. We can do it. We can set the stage for a good time had by all. We can make it happen.
Kicking it back to Monday evening, back to Ship BottomSunset Point. (That’s two shots in a row!) Only this time I tried my hand with vertical orientation—or portrait orientation—camera work. Unlike run-of-the-mill horizontal orientation, it’s a technique that doesn’t come easy to me; but it’s hard to argue with its intrigue—particularly at wide angles. I think it works best when you have low level foreground with which to get up close and personal. From there angle your frame such that you have roughly two-thirds of the ground composed and you are good to go.
Now for some self-critique: I may have gotten a little too close to my foreground. My mistake is betrayed by the loss of focus in the very bottom section of the frame. Had I been more aware I could have 1) backed my tripod up another inch or two, or 2) stopped down to f/16 or f/22. I typically don’t like stopping down that much as it does start to diffuse your photograph’s overall focus. It does, however, widen the overall acceptable field of focus. Trade-offs, man. It’s all about trade-offs.
Where do we go from here? — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Tucked in among the lifeless grasses, cloistered from the outside world though hardly sheltered from its inhospitable cold, I made my stand—kneeling. With an icy tripod widened and set to its lowest setting, I was low and I was close to a wee bit of opening—revealing a low level glimpse out to the frozen lake of Stafford Forge. With the sunset sky failing to produce much drama I fell back to making the most of the scene I was given; and it’s a shot I’ve made before. Sometimes you’ve just got to work with what you’ve got.
These Are Your First Steps — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Made my way into Barnegat this evening. Deep into Jonathan Carr territory to meet up and shoot a sunset. Arriving late and short on time, I was sweating it from intersection to intersection impatiently watching pastel pink clouds glow to the north and east knowing this color only had minutes of life. On arrival I found Jon set up pointed west, buried in a patch of phragmites. With nods of acknowledgment I quickly parted ways to check the bayside and noticed a perfect foreground element exposed in the dead calm low tide of Barnegat Bay—a jetty of sorts just waiting to be framed. Combine this with a pink-purple cast to the sky as blue hour hour is setting in and you start feeling pretty damn good about yourself.
From here I set to work on dialing in the composition. The calmness and cool color tones were evoking a mood of serenity and space. I wanted to key on this and maintain as much negative space as possible; leaving the viewer room to breathe to take in the sights, imagine the sounds, and feel the openness of the setting. This photograph wasn’t going to be about vibrant colors, dramatic cloud shapes, or intricate details fulling up a composition. Instead it was going to be about space, softness, and simplicity. I’m pleased with the outcome.
It’s only January, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this winds up on my list of 2016’s best. This was one of those shoots where you just know while you’re out there that you’re capturing something good and making it your own. You know there’s that little something extra that makes it stand above most of your other shoots. It’s all part of the reward and fun of this great hobby. Timing wise this worked out, this was a brand new spot for me and it sure did deliver. As for the title? Yeah it’s a Star Warsreference.
Fade Out — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
For those of you following my photos on the regular—thank you!—you know I like vibrant, contrasty colors for my landscapes. The more color the better. But in processing last night’s shot (today) I wanted to produce a kinder, gentler final image. A more subtle hand to photograph and capture the calm, soothing blues that crept out over Ship Bottom’s bay beach as the final fading moments of light packed up their things for the daily migration west.
In spite of a promising cloud deck sunset never fully fired yesterday, and in this case I’m not even a trifle bit upset by that. After the world class light that’s been pumping in of late it was nice to take a breather to sit back and appreciate a true blue hour. This shot was made a good 25–30 minutes after full sundown, and coupled with the unseasonably mild temperatures (it’s cracked 70 the past two days across New Jersey) it was a real treat to make December photographs in short sleeves. Many rejuvenated revelers were out and about with their cameras, pets, and bicycles, while couples went walking hand-in-hand. It was just all so nice to see.
Compositionally I’ll go as far as to say I did the best I could. Until I arrived I was forgetful of the fact that at this time of year, with the winter sun setting in the southwest, angles get a little tough on many of LBI’s westward exposures. Sunset Point in Ship Bottom is surely no different. With the Point itself completely out of the the picture, I made my way about 200 feet south along the bay beach and decided to make my final stand at this little section of dune fence. Forever fond of said dune fence from my days of yore maintaining the public spaces with Ship Bottom Public Works, it was this or just an open expense of heavily traveled beach sand. The fence seemed the better play.
On Second Thought — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 0.6 sec
Sometimes your shoot won’t go exactly as planned. This is OK. This afternoon my buddy Jon and I were hoping for some sunset drama. As it does the big time boom or bust sunsets ride a razor’s edge of yay or nay. Today it missed. It happens.
Walking back to the car and at peace with said miss, my eyes quickly looked north to find sweeping blue clouds. Then downward to the illuminated houses out on the horizon; finally setting on the phragmites up in the foreground. The blue hour tones were soothing and the contour line of the jetty rock perfectly aligned with the left to right swoop up in the clouds. With a few clicks of the tripod this entire process was over and done with within a span of 20 seconds. Sometimes shots happen fast. At home in post processing I opted on the square format display ratio, deciding it tightened the overall composition.
In their own way I hold a fondness for shoots like tonight. It’s a good test for the eye to come up with something else when your plan falls through. It’s a useful exercise in staying open to new possibilities, and as an added benefit the time crunch of fading light gets you to work fast relying on instinct.
Immediately after I made yesterday’s sunset silhouette photograph I headed for the far east end of Cedar Run Dock Road. The benefits were two fold as it’s both a convenient vehicular turnaround and an ideal vantage point to look out on the whole of the bay. I’m glad I stopped.
Sure it’s starting to cool down here in the northern mid-Atlantic but that doesn’t mean the outdoors can’t be the respite a weary soul requires, if only for a few moments. Immediately out of my car the sublime calm of the bay washed over me. Gentle rolling waves more at home in your bathtub floated along the water’s skin. The glow of the clear blue hour cast a scene so calming it took a few minutes before I broke from my trance to document the sight. First I made a quick video for Instagram. Then I figured I may as well bust out the tripod and pop off a shot. Here it is, in all its simplicity. One basic composition highlighting the still plainness of it all. No dramatic cloud structure; no definable foreground or feature. Only the peace in the nothingness that was somehow anything but.
