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.
Can’t Fight the Light — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Saturday night brought the goods. A smoldering burn presented as the centerpiece of a summer salt marsh bouquet. Things are not fine but the lighting is good. A moment of peace in the otherwise steady stream of turbulence that is our current times. My wish is only that the headwinds fade and the sunsets keep burning lest we all go to ash together.
The June Palette — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
That green. That blue. That pink. Total chef’s kiss bliss. I’ve written early and often about the June color palette that dials it up to 11 each June here in southern Ocean County. There is nothing quite like the way newborn marsh grasses radiate a fresh green far beyond anything I have the ability to articulate. I’m never sure what to call it; nor am I worthy to give it a name. It’s something of a perfect merger of chartreuse and emerald. The dance floor of life. It last but a few weeks and there is nothing like the way it plays at sunset. It dances in perfect step, leading the grooving blues and pulsing pastels to waltz in triumph at day’s end. May this look never get old.
I called 9-1-1 this week. Tuesday, May 31, 2022, at 11:25 p.m. Hopefully a first time, last time situation. I was sitting on my couch playing Hollow Knight when my left side chest tightened and within moments my heart rate spiked, and I felt as though a 200 pound person was standing on my chest. A contradictory numbing yet tingling session worked its way down my left on. In a panic I called my mom.
Even though she was on her way to check on me—we live in the same neighborhood—my condition deteriorated. The pain and pressure increased, and I feared I was going to lose consciousness. As I did on March 17, 2022, in Epcot. Worried and frightened, thinking I was having a heart attack, I dialed 9-1-1.
Within a few minutes of interview style questioning, my mom showed up. Immediately followed by a police officer, and then followed by two ambulances and five paramedics. Fortunately by the time everyone was there the acute chest pressure had nearly subsided in full, and my heart rate was back in check. From there it was standard procedure: EKG, blood pressure, some standard issue question and answer. Upon first look there was nothing wrong but I still took the ambulance ride to the hospital. My second such ride in 10 weeks. It’s not what you want.
No one knows what went wrong. Why it went wrong. Or how it went wrong. I guess panic attacks can result in this kind of chest pain and pressure? The lack of answers is unsettling, and I have been dealing with heart issues for years now, which deepens my fears. Diagnosed with atrial fibrillation in 2016, followed by hypertension, followed by high cholesterol. Suffice it to say my ticker ain’t it, and it really bums me out. Now I sit here and can only describe my headspace as shaken.
Rolling On — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Folks, it’s been a while. I’d like to send a shoutout to whatever or whomever helped float a mote of motivation across my frontal lobe. However it happened something triggered the following series of seemingly unrelated events: a five mile evening run soundtracked by Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy (Book III: Lesser Evil); followed by mom’s chicken tender face stuffing immediately nullifying said run; followed by a wholly unplanned and long overdue drive out to Dock Road—camera in tow. This moment of spontaneous inspiration proved useful as those storm clouds were rolling and the light show was doing that whole sunset drama thing. It was all happening.
I have to be honest, though, part of me wondered if I still knew how to do this whole landscape photograph thing. I am happy to report it was like old hat and all that. It felt good to be back. Good to be rolling on. Oh, and the motivation is still going strong as I even edited and posted my shot same day! And yes, as if it wasn’t already painfully obvious, I am a total Star Wars nerd.
Be Here Now — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Here’s a little break from the motion blurpan shot motif I’ve been running with of late. A return to the familiar if you will. Tack sharp sunset shots from the salt marsh with loads of unwanted alliteration. The old familiar. Like putting on a well worn pair of jeans everything feels as it should. Comfortable. Familiar. Ready.
I made this photo on November 7, and as this image suggests the first sunset of daylight standard time was, in a word, lit. 360 degrees of pastel wonder. Cotton candy gossamer stretched across the sky. A big warm blanket ready to welcome you home. The kind of bed canopy you wish you had.
This is like couch time after a long day of work. And seeing how there’s been long work days a plenty, and I finally got myself a couch, well, you’re stuck with similes like this. But don’t worry, fans of said motion blur pan shots, I made some of those on November 7, too. I will look to have them up and on this here blog in the coming days. In the meantime I do hope you enjoy this precursor to the powerhouse sunset season that is winter.
Warning: Incoming middle aged Nintendo fanboy nerd alert post coming in hot. Metroid Dread launched a week ago today, and holy smokes I still can’t believe it. Mainline Metroid. In 2D. A new release. On a console. In the year of our Covid two thousand and twenty one?! Oh. My. God. I cannot.
I’ve been tearing through Planet ZDR each night ever since. Headphone cans fixed snug. Living room chair. Locked in. Side scrolling glory taking me from one power up to the next, with sinister bads set to destroy me at every turn. Metroid at its best is a masterclass in environmental storytelling. The visual design signaling desolation where the native flora and fauna make it clear you stand alone. Isolation and hostility are the only constants. The entirety of the world wants to see you dead, drawn and quartered, wholly unworthy of the vacuum of space. And damn is it so good, and so hard, and so good. Samus never controlled anywhere near this good. The developers at MercurySteam crushed it. The game is hard, yet fair, and over time Samus romps to such power and heights, a triumphant reward for all the tribulations and Game Over screens. Clack-clack, here comes an E.M.M.I. Did I mention this game is good?
So what in the hell does that have to do with this post, photograph, or website? I’m here for the pretty stuff not this geekspeak worth at least 12 noogies and 20 minutes in a locker. Well one of the moves legendary intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran acquires in her serial planet storming romps is the speed booster. Along with said speed booster comes the ultimate boon to Metroid speed runners the world over: Shinespark. Speed boost to shinespark sends Samus hurtling at meteoric speeds, turning her into a literal tunnel busting speed bullet. Glowing like a comet streaking across the sky all you see is a luminous blur of pure energy and awe. And that’s this photo. Samus streaking across the horizon left to right. A sunset shinespark blazing into night.
The space between solitude and loneliness is a chasm of untold depth and paradoxical closeness. Two simultaneous contrasts holding true together. An oxymoron somehow leaving us near and far, in the same space at the same time. Reach out with an outstretched arm from either side and would be fingers of welcome near on touch. Michelangelo knew what he was doing atop a small chapel ceiling of some renown.
Yet between this space sits a rift, vast and brooding. A jagged cleft of ineffable depth. It is unseeable, unknowable. It is perilous. Our own earthly black hole, it, too, leaving no possibility for escape. Like its cosmic counterpart, it’s a barrier which may as well be infinite. And yet to the observer much is open to interpretation with the observer filling in their own story. Left to imprint their bias onto the station of others. We think we see what is happening, and yet, we do not see. All because this proximal closeness between unbreakable loneliness and fulfilled solitude somehow coexist.
