man & nature # 24 ~ same as it ever was
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 08:28AM 
Toll bridge • click to embiggenMy normal Jersey Shore thing is to simply avoid the oppressive heat and humidity. This entails staying inside in air conditioning and playing golf from a golf cart - 2 things that are not my favorite activities. Playing golf from a golf cart while sweating like you're in a sauna, ranks as one of my absolute least favorite things to do.
Going to the beach is not much fun for me since there are approximately 2 billion people on Stone Harbor beach during the day. Before 7AM or after 7PM the beach is virtually deserted, relatively cool, and, consequently, a refreshing place to be. But, other than the beach, unless you're into shopping for junk or designer stuff at the barrier island's 3×2 block "hub"/main street, there just ain't much to do in Stone Harbor.
I even stopped going on the annual sweat-fest for a few years. 
Cousins • clickBut then Hugo came along and he developed an abiding relationship with his cousins (inlaw) from the wife's family, including his girlfriend, Sophie - hey, they could get married since they're not blood kin. And, once a year the entire clan is at The Shore, so I'm back, albeit in an abbreviated form of 3-4 days.
Last year I decided to start picturing The Shore and, after a fledgling effort, I came away with some good stuff. That experience and this year's Meyerowitz "coincidence" provided the impetus to approach it a bit more seriously this year.
As coincidence would have it, this year The Jersey Shore put on quite a good light show. It gave me fog and mist, bright searing sunlight, some "classic" late day / evening shore light - a kind of soft hazy light, and one blazing sunset. It could not have been better, photography-wise. I felt lucky.
Relative to last year's fledgling effort and my intention to add those results to this year's results, Don asked: ... even though the images are a year apart, do you see a difference as far as your "making" of the images?
The short answer is, "No." Not at all. My modus operandi for picturing hasn't really changed in any significant way since ... well ... since I started getting serious about making picture that were more than entertainment, which would have been around 1980. Other than the obvious difference of format, square vs. rectangle, and my now standard vignette, my approach to and the results of my picturing hasn't changed much at all.
Check out some of my 8×10 view camera work from that time. IMO, the trademark MH/Landscapist plain seeing is as evident then as it is now. And, notice the black film edges, the ones that I mimic in my current work.
I think it would be fair to say that either I have found my groove or that I am stuck in a rut, depending upon your point of view.
In any event, getting back to yesterday's dilema, I have been exploring photo gallery site options and came across one that gives a free, full-features, 10 day trail. So, I have given it a test spin and posted 32 of my Shore Light pictures.
You can see it HERE. Please check it out and let me know what you think about it. More about the site itself than the pictures - things like the look, feel, and functionality of the site. Although, one of the functions of the site is the ability to leave comments on the individual pictures, so feel free to have a say.
FYI, once you click on "Shore Light" in the "Gallery" drop down menu, a bunch of pictures appear. Click on the first one, or any one for that matter, and it launches into a viewing window with all the thumbnails on the right side.
Reader Comments (8)
Only time for a quick glance right now but I do like the overall look of the design through this service. The ability to have LARGE images is great. Will spend more time with the images later today.
Mark,
I didn't get any other options but the title page loaded in Firefox. I like the gestalt of the gallery so far. I'll try to load it in Safari to see what happens.
I also really like the image in this post. It works very well with your 'ku' idiom.
Give me two points for using "gestalt" and "idiom" in a single reply... :)
-matt
Thanks Mark, glad you understood what I meant.
The site looks great and is easy to get around, I love the layout.
"Morningfog" is my fav, very peaceful.
Don asked: ... even though the images are a year apart, do you see a difference as far as your "making" of the images?
The short answer is, "No." Not at all.
I did notice however, that you did not vignette your jersey shore images a year ago. why not? or why now?
Mark,
I like the overall look of the new site. Unfortunately, I would not have been able to find the photographs with your hints. The GALLERY button is in the far corner, not located near the center of the first page. Also, since there's only one option ("Shore Light") under the GALLERY menu, it wasn't obvious to me that I had to click on SHORE LIGHT. I clicked GALLERY and waited until nothing happened.
My other nit (and less important) applies to all flash-based websites: they're slow. Once I got into the gallery and had all the thumbnails loaded, it consistently took about 5-6 seconds to display each larger image.
But other than that, I really like the look of it.
Andy Frazer
The Shore gallery gets on my nerves. Not the images, but the content. I hate seeing all that pristine land getting clogged up with the detritus of civilization.
As to the site itself, I'm not a fan of it. I find that it's too slow and tends to impose itself on my desktop through the new window it opens. The navigation seems clumsy and detracts from the presentation of the images.
Truthfully, I'm a fan of sites using software like Pixelpost with viewing plugins like PicLens. The simpler and less work involved, the better.
The two years of images may not be so different in technique--other than the vignetting, which does have a big impact--but they do appear different in subject, or at least emphasis. Last year you seemed most interested in fences, either wandering along the "wild" dunes, or as geometrically regular features defining the geometrical similarity-within-variety of the houses and streets. The more human irregularity of the towels on clotheslines recalls the dune fences or the lines on the beach, but otherwise people are absent or tiny. For the most part, nature has lost out to culture, just managing to pull a lonely fence out of whack here and there.
In the recent set you've made your accommodation with the artificiality and devoted yourself largely to the people and their life here. There are still the more abstract, architectural geometries and tracked beaches and dunes with fences that represent the place where it all happens. Now nature, though circumscribed, seems more able to hold its own against the beach houses. Trees can obscure a home; a spiky, exploding bush rules the sidewalk. In the beautifully balanced arborgate, my favorite image, the pink flowers push aside the pink bricks, and the dark, twisted bushes are by no means dominated by the white architectural perfection. But again, it's the people that represent the biggest change.
Though the two sets can be merged, I think this year's crop is distinct, and far stronger as a body of work. The subjects and compositions are less conventional. This year you left your rut and found your groove. I've probably exagerrated the case, but that's my overall impression.
Mark
The site worked well for me. The photos look great and deserve a return visit.