For You — 14mm | F/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
My evening gift for you all to chase away the Sunday scaries—a Dock Road sunset from just over a week ago. A high quality winter burn. Enough of the deck painted up in pastel hues to really crank up the glow highlighting the sedge. For but five minutes time suspends as though weightless and the dormant brown super charges in a pink infusion. As if Goku himself were powering up. Palpable vibes.
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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Ice World Ignition — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Tonight made for a proper sunset. The essential cadre rolled deep and even brought the support staff. There was snowpack, sea ice, disused dock pilings, and a painted reflection brushed by a solar goodbye burning out slow with smoldering intensity. It was fantastic.
Sure the temperature was biting and the wind unforgiving. Of course leaving the house with a pair of gloves would have made perfect sense. Hey, even a woolen hat would have proved wise. Yet when the ice world ignites the fire inside burns passion red.
This is winter at the beach. This is when the power sunset hits, when the seascape on our eastern flank locks in ice and casts a panoply of color. The marshes, bays, and coastal ways captured by cold, locked tight to the landscape despite battle from tidal forces. The power needed to freeze the land and stem the tide is striking. Cold, weather, nature—it all means business. A reminder of impermanence and subordination to big ‘N’ Nature.
Cold as I was, I was beyond pleased to be out exercising camera tactics amid the cold splendor. It was obvious this was the best shooting conditions I’ve encountered in months, even longer. The most promising since late last summer when I made a bunch of great shots only to have a corrupted file transfer render all data unretrievable. That moment had left a sour taste in my mouth for months. This evening cleansed the palette and froze it all away.
After a low output 2018, I am pleased with efforts and outcomes in 2019. I committed to making this a better year for my photography. I am delivering against the commitment. Writing about it here helps hold me accountable. It makes it more real. A commitment to myself and to you welcomed website visitor. Yes, you.
With any luck it is a touch warmer where you are at, and you were able to enjoy this photograph in comfort. Cheers, and thanks for your support and attention.
Fired and Frozen — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I avoid vertical orientation photography, and I’m doing myself a disservice. Despite its obvious place and application in landscape photography I remain reluctant to exploit it. Unpacking my reasoning and there’s a few things at play here: 1) I dropped my camera pretty early on and its gyroscope—and thereby level—is useless, rendering level horizons a bit harder to dial in when the camera is upright; 2) my website homepage renders all images in a traditional 3:2 crop ratio (standard crop you’d get from any 35mm film camera); 3) when viewing a single post page—such as this one—from a desktop the left-justification of the photo is a little bit wonky; and 4) I’m just not comfortable making them. To confuse things further, I prefer to shoot vertically from my mobile device as opposed to landscape. Without contradictions, I am not. It was actually a photograph I shared to Instagram last night that led me to go back and process my DSLR version of Sunday night’ssunset this evening.
Yet as I walk through the reasons cited above one thing becomes immediately clear—only one of those reasons has anything to do with photography. While all four in some degree or another shed light on the pitfalls of perfectionism, two of those reasons are remnants of my past life as a web designer. To be fair it’s not entirely a past life as I do have this place to still dabble in the front end web world, if only a little. In the immediate future, however? I will make it a point to shoot vertical more often. Not only is it the lone path to improvement, it’s a key piece to the landscape photographers repertoire. I can no longer choose to sit out. In the meantime my buddy Ben excels at the technique and took a mean shot this morning. That coupled with my Instagram shot sort of set this line of thinking in motion. He also shows off several exemplar vertical images on his 2015 best of post.
In order to scratch the perfectionist itch maybe I’ll carve out some time to address my web layout issues with vertical photos. Maybe.
A Bridge Too Far — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
There would be weather they said. Follow the global models they said. Disregard the NAM they said. The heaviest bands will never push north they said. Well here we are one day after the Blizzard of 2016, and I’m sure many a backs are barking from a long day of digging out after wondering, dude, where’s my car? This was one for the record books, folks, and even though the biggest snows happened just a few miles to my north and to my west, the coast sure saw a battering at the hands of a fired up Atlantic Ocean. After spending the better of the weekend weathering the storm with friends, fretting over rain/snow lines only to later find myself and swan diving into snow after the changeover, my buddy and I finally made it out for some real deal photo making this evening.
After much hemming and hawing over where to shoot, most of which happened during a pitiful attempt to clear out my driveway, an unsolicited query from family friends on Dock Road asking my Mother if I was out shooting said road solidified the final destination. Understanding the marsh isthmus no doubt took a serious tidal beating, we didn’t exactly know what we were in for at the Road of Dock.
The scene upon arrival was otherworldly. Elevated sea levels and ice flows littering the marsh dominated the landscape. While the tide was mostly down at this point, its frozen remnants were not hard to parse out. The vestiges of a foul tempered nor’easter were visible horizon to horizon, and before long the power of the wind was clearly on display. No less than four telephone poles were down, with power lines sidewinding the single road for what must have been a mile. Yes the scene was surreal but that was quickly supplanted with the sobering reality that real humans live amidst this battered place of wonderment, and here they are tasked with wintering it out sans power in the wake of a powerful winter storm—one that will most certainly be regaled as historic in the pantheon of east coast storms.
While my picture making was at a minimum this weekend, yet this photograph marks my first documentation of New Jersey in a post Winter Storm Jonas world. Here’s hoping you fared as well as possible during this powerful weather system, and were able to make the most of your time indoors. Cheers.
Perhaps this is Goodbye? — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Be it superstition, confirmation bias, or an actual demonstrable trend to which I have neither the data nor scientific awareness to prove, pre-storm sunset skies always seem to deliver. Today sure fit the narrative. Anticipating winter storm Jonas’ arrival has ground my personal perception of time to a relative halt. Since Monday night the hours, such as they are, have ticked by like days as I click weary-eyed from one model run to another, waiting interminably on weather to arrive. Yet no matter what the models show me, and despite the Blizzard Watch we’re sitting under currently, the pangs of last year’s bust at the hands of Juno gnaw away at my insides. I just want the snow to get here, stay here, and with any, luck bring little to no rain to southeastern New Jersey. Of course that toasty Atlantic Ocean looms large, ready to push warm maritime air onto our shores if the center of low pressure creeps close enough.
But let’s push my selfishness aside for a second, coastal flooding and beach erosion is the real concern here. But as the far less sexy story overshadowed by the high probability of widespread 12″ snow across much of the Mid-Atlantic, the tidal implications of a roiling ocean have been lost in the shuffle. We’re looking at an extended storm with a duration over 24 hours complete with a broad wind field of tightly packed isobars slinging wind gusts of around 60mph onto New Jersey shores. It’s subsequent storm surge will be aided by an ill-timed Full Moon giving an unneeded boost to already moderate to major tide heights. At least three high tides will be affected from Saturday morning through Sunday evening.
It is with this reality I title my post. Understanding the marina is now state owned and seemingly set to restore to its natural state, there’s a good change this little cove will look quite different as soon as Monday. These derelict posts of wood that once gave aid to docks and quays may soon be little more than a memory. This is why in considering where on Great Bay Boulevard to photograph today I recalled the wise words of Ben Wurst, instructing me to shoot here as often as possible fore it may soon be gone.
Never quite the same — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Antoinetta’s Restaurant at the end of Cedar Run Dock Road in West Creek, New Jersey has been a go-to spot for years. Long before I even got into this photo taking thing—and long before Antoinetta’s was a thing—I used to take regular cruises down one of the most relaxing four mile drives in the whole of southern Ocean County. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with friends. Whomever came alone this place always hit the spot; even if it was with only myself that I was having conversations.
Since I launched this website a little over a year ago, this photographs marks the third time I’ve formerly framed up this shot and published. And while on color alone (hey purple!) this could be looked at as the spiritual successor to Winter has its ways, the look still maintains its own essence and vitality. Between tide’s ebb and flow—frozen in this case—and a serendipitous sky palette rendered daily, each unique like the prints upon our fingertips. We photographers benefit insofar as we can visit the same spot time and time again with the excited expectation of a different, unpredictable and sometimes fantastic result.
So get out there, scout your spots, check your gear, chase the light and shoot there over and over again.
These are the times that revive men’s souls — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Or maybe it’s just the polar infused westerlies smacking me in the face doing the reviving?
It was cold tonight. Anyone stuck in the Mid-Atlantic to Northeast knows this—and has for sometime if you discount yesterday’s false spring. But when it produces this kind of light the biting cold can just keep on riding that polar express right over my head (and in the face).
Come 4 p.m. a fairly unusual cloud pattern began setting up across the sky, funneling a unique set of undulating clouds from the southwest horizon. Earnestly marching from a single point of origin, a quick visual scan showed just how this active air was roiling and distorting the clouds with the polar jet’s turbulence rendering a captivating visual result. It was clear in an instant this cloudage coupled with the reinforcing shot of arctic air was cooking up a recipe of near guaranteed sunset success. And when that happens, it doesn’t matter how cold it is—the blood starts pumping, the pulse starts to quicken and the time dilation exacerbates as the excitement of a total payoff washes over you.
