Time Marches On — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4 sec
2024 coming in hot! At this point years flip about as fast as single pages on a tear away calendar. It’s a gift to grow old. An opportunity to experience the relativity of time mounting years speed ever swifter.
Continuing my quest to rip through my 2023 backlog. I made this photograph at Dock Road on 30 November 2023. Happy to have another motion blur shot. I’m developing quite a gallery in this style, and it is a trend I will continue.
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.
On the Fringe — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Socked in on a Saturday. 23 September 2023 at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Tropical Storm Ophelia dumps heavy rains across the mid-Atlantic buffeting southern Ocean County, NJ, with steady winds. I’m hoping my LBI friends are managing the storm surge. As for me, I sit comfortably at my large oaken desk watching this week’s Nintendo Voice Chat on YouTube while typing to you, Internet friends.
This here sunset photo looks back to Thursday when the outer fringes of Ophelia first spun up high level cirrus clouds over the region. This high cloud deck brought a fine end of day light show over Cedar Run Dock Road’ssalt marsh. A fiery of sign of the weather to come. Of course, Friday’s burn managed to one up this but I wasn’t out to capture it. I was busy scarfing down hibachi for those looking for the but why no picture, Greg? rationale.
I hope you’re all weathering out the storm in the safety of home, surrounded by friends and family. It’s the perfect kind of day to kick back under covers to watch The Lord of the Rings. I also recommend having some soup, stew, or braise going. Tis the season, y’all. Be safe, and be well.
The Green Zone — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Not much beats the salt marsh in June. It’s about as good as a flat, horizontal landscape can look. For me it’s the way the newborn emerald green sedge grass complements a royal blue sky at golden hour. This power trio realizes its highest level in early summer; running about mid-June through the fourth of July. Pair this with dramatic clouds fed by a tropical airmass and you have yourself a proper summertime treat. Real glad I took a moment out of my day to make it to the Dock Road marsh last night.
Out of Sight — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Chasing sunsets was not on my big card yesterday. Between the Yankees/Rays game, a four mile jog, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and the promise of pizza at mom’s house, my docket was full. Plenty of clouds were driving a daylong overcast sky, much needed rain threatened though it never delivered much more than a few fat drops here and there. It didn’t seem an option.
It wasn’t until I was backing out of my driveway and making my way up the street that I noticed a piercing orange crack in the western horizon. Little shimmers of colors powering their way through the trees and houses of my neighborhood. The clouds had real texture, too. I checked the clock. 19 minutes to sunset. Time to pivot. I circled back to my house, grabbed my camera gear and made for Dock Road. I am sure glad I did.
When the Night is Over — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Familiar jaunts to familiar haunts. The road back to a place that shaped me. Long before photography was the marsh. Long after photography the marsh will be. Ever present, forever here unyielding. Soft sings the subtlety of change slow molding even the deepest firmament. Its work known only to the keenest eyes draped by long years put to the service in the knowing.
Obligatory it’s been a while. I have no idea what is going on with my photography these days. I find myself mired in this strange in between space of wanting to make more photos again, and an unwillingness to make any kind of time for it. This polarity and my habit of hesitation has put any chance of a break through into suspended animation. If I want to get back after I need to build back with discipline and active purpose.
Further complicating all this indecision is the fact I miss writing on this here website. If only for my own practice, having this space to put down my thoughts alongside my photography creates my own little paper trail. A small proof of my inner workings, breadcrumbs feeding my own development across the years. I enjoy the process of scouting the late afternoon sky, going to the marsh, framing an exposure, returning home to filter and process, and then to wrap it all up with a blurb that may or may not have anything to do with my image. It is this sounding pangs of this urge that call me back the loudest.
