Tag: sunset

Stirrings on the marsh. Signs of life are springing up along Cedar Run Dock Road. Ospreys are back, herons are skulking, and tender sedge is starting to pop through. The great browning has seen its end.

After a slow start to spring, fresh warmth has made its way to Ocean County, New Jersey, this week. It’s a welcome feeling hitting the marsh in minimal clothing with a warm breeze kissing your face. It’s made all the better when the warm pastels of summertime color the sunset sky.

My photo output has waned woefully in 2018 and it’s bumming me out. I’m not sure if it’s only a phase or an inauspicious sign of things to come. While I hope I get back on the grind, churning out quality photo content on the regular, there is a growing chorus of doubt in certain corners of my conscious. I can hear the small voice whispering here it is, another hobby ready to drop. We’ll see. Maybe it was just a phase and this is the beginning of a turnaround?

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We are near on March and this marks only my third sunset photograph of 2018. I could chide myself for slacker ways, but I am taking it easier on myself these days. I am more willing to take things as they come—no need to force issues and ratchet up pressure were there should be none. Thanks to a cooperative sky and my willingness to step away from an A Link to the Past replay I made it to Dock Road in time for sunset action.

This evening was all about peace and calm. The marsh was sedate. The tide was out. The winds were still, and the air made clean and clear from crisp winter air. The visibility had that extra sharpness that doesn’t come to often. It felt like living in real life HD vision. The recipe made for ideal photo making.

The heavens brought the finishing touches to a restorative evening. A tack sharp crescent moon cut the sky casting a wry, cheshire smile. Later still Venus took to glowing bright and bold. The evening star lending companionship to the cycling moon waxing through its youth. May these reminders of our small part in a much broader universe never cease carving smiles on my face.

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Last month revisiting all my photographs for my 2017 best of list I came across this image in Lightroom. Made on the same February 2017 afternoon as “The Observer” I remembered, oh, I meant to post this picture, too. It was post-processed and everything—fully baked and ready to post. For whatever reason it didn’t happen. The back-burner of forgetfulness won the day. It’s a shame, too, as this is a fine shot. Showcasing sparkling sunset colors and an ensnaring reflection. Better still, it’s composed in a portrait orientation. Which is a fancy way of saying vertical. A composition I little utilize and struggle to execute.

Of course this has me wondering what other forgotten gems have I buried away in my backlog cache? A trove of photographs that now measures in the tens of thousands. It’s been my wont no to do much looking back on my work—annual retrospectives aside. So maybe it’s time for something new?

Coda

The irony is not lost on me that on an evening I made a photograph entitled “The Observer” I made the mistake of overlooking another shot.

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Hours away from 2018. Time surges. The accelerant of our lives. Time. The hidden force running faster and more elusive than each year to come before. Our grammar school time but a distant memory. A patina etch from the halcyon days where the conquest of the calendar year stood more daunting than Odysseus’ long voyage home. The annual primary school quest that needed parceling into such small chunks that still made weeks feel a feat of strength. A month felt an accomplishment worthy of new construction paper cutouts to mark out each day on the classroom calendar. The marking period quarter pole left us grizzled vets of the mathematics wars. But by year’s end, learned and wizened, came the triumphant return of vacation. The final march off the bus sounding the horn of endless summer. It was over two magical months the youthful burden of time paid off. Endless weeks spanned on forever to our heart’s content. But now when years pass as eye blinks is is our deepening wrinkles and our tired bodies signal the passage of time. Replacing construction paper cutouts with stress, fear and anxiety. W look no farther than our own aging as the clear marker in the unstoppable acceleration of time.

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Navigating my way to the harbor of gratitude has not come easy. For too much of my wayward adolescence, followed by protracted adolescence, and followed still by reluctant adulthood I have sailed headlong in the seas of bitterness. Tired and alone. For long years the song of the Seirênes would see me crash upon the rocks left bereft and embittered. Aimless I sailed rudderless and without wax. All too eager to hear their song, giving in myself to ease and complaint. Alone on a leaking vessel, left to lament and stew instead of acknowledging privilege and blessing.

Whether it the natural course of aging, health scares, or a seaman’s search for home, I am want to release the angst. To avoid the call. To stuff my ears full with wax. I am ready to stretch the lines and grow to embrace that which is important and true. Long yet I must travel, though on this Thanksgiving I sail one leg closer to the warm embrace and calm shores of gratitude. May your own journey find its port of purpose.

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