The New Landscape: New Jersey Fine Art Photography

I’ve always been a believer that Mother Nature is a cruel but beautiful mistress, and that the ocean deserves the utmost respect. When disasters happen, I can’t help but often feel like the ocean gives and takes, and that the way it leaves things is often the way it wants them.

The jetty down at Island Beach State Park has long been one of my favorite spots. I remember being in middle school and walking down with some family friends for the first time. It’s a mile or so of a walk, so to get there by foot you really have to want it. I found an enormous, perfect whelk shell. It was like finding GOLD. I was awed at the time that I just happened to be passing by the spot where that beauty washed up. I have never found another. I’ve found other neat things, and I do harbor an intense love of perfect scallop shells. I used to intently search for a perfect, pure white one. Believe it or not – they’re actually insanely difficult to find. Mostly they’re black, or reddish, or an assortment of colors. Over many years of looking I only ever found one that was truly white. I display it in a velvet ring box – perhaps as a reminder that even when the ocean flings things like Super-storm Sandy at the coast, it also produces small, perfect miracles. But I digress.

The landscape of the jetty changed significantly after the storm. Oddly enough, it now makes for more beautiful photographs thanks to a lovely tide pool that is somewhat reminiscent of what it looked like many years ago. I don’t know that us humans will allow it to stay that way for long, but I can’t help but enjoy the beauty that is there now.

Without further ado…

A (little) Spring in Our Step

There were moderately (I say this conservatively) spring-like temperatures this past weekend, so we were able to get out for a bit in Cattus Island State Park. I have been DYING (dying, dying, dying) to test out my new 100mm Macro f/2.8L on bugs so I was REALLY (really, really, really) hoping that we were finally going to see some signs of life. With the exception of a couple ants, my macro pickings have been limited to plant life, household objects, and my extremely uncooperative schnauzer. I’ve gotten to use the lens for bling shots of my brides/brides to be (which it’s awesome for, and I love the bling!) – but I was really hoping for some creepy crawlies.

I was in a little luck, and was able to spy a caterpillar on our walk. It was kind of windy, so holding his branch steady without freaking him out was difficult, but I got a couple of snaps. I also took a few other shots. Check out these snaps from our ‘nature walk’. There are only a few, because it really wasn’t that exciting.
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Texture Adventure

In Sandy’s wake, we have limited access to the beach and consequently, our favorite photo spots. For the past couple of months, we’ve been very slow with our own personal photo work. The work that we do for our clients aside, we also enjoy just going out with cameras and capturing whatever it is we choose. In an effort to get back into our own personal photo adventures, we took some visits to local parks to get some shots – with an emphasis on textures and patterns. Being that we usually don’t shoot the woods or winter very often – it was a fun exercise. It also proved that you can find textures and patterns in nature pretty much anywhere you look.


Here are a couple favorite shots from the adventure. You can view the whole set on our Facebook page.


Initially, the woman in red in this photo irritated me. She was ruining my shot! I initially had planned to just clone her out – but I ended up liking the pop of red she provided.

These posts are really nothing special, but I really loved the clean, uninterrupted way the snow was sitting on top of them. While I initially included just the first post – I decided I liked the perspective effect the rest of them had behind it.


This was literally ice in a mud hole on the ground. I stepped on a lot of it before realizing how much like shattered glass it appeared.

If you were a 90’s kid, you surely remember Legends of the Hidden Temple on Nickelodeon. This pattern in tree bark reminded me a lot of Old Mec.



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Ortley Beach: 80 Days After Sandy

Just about 3 months after the storm, visiting Ortley Beach, NJ still feels like a different world. This post is going to be a bit photo-heavy, but it can serve as a dedication of sorts to the town that Ortley once was, and what it will be again. It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to go to a town you once knew so well that you could probably describe the streets house by house – and be met with what feels like no landmarks to identify what street you’re standing on. The rubble is extensive, the streets are buckled, and there are enormous masses of tangled rope and the fabric of people’s lives washed up on the shore. These are really the only photos I’ve taken thus far since the storm – I’ve only been back twice. Ray has been back several more times than that. The beach in Ortley is closed, and not wanting to tempt fate we didn’t try to sneak up so I could get some photos of the now-infamous fallen JetStar. In the last shot of the first grouping, Ray is feeling the water – not something we get to do every day anymore.











These photos are from the same street in happier times.

This is a favorite shot of the pier and JetStar – taken standing on the old ramp that used to lie at the end of the street.








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Staying Grounded

 

We photograph a lot of the same things again and again. Living on a barrier island, this is unavoidable unfortunately. There are only so many ways you can do dune grass – only so many wave shots you can take – before everything begins to look the same.

 

On a walk to the jetty this weekend, I decided to test some of the limits of my new 5d Mark ii and get on the ground. I had old jeans on, so it wasn’t too huge a production to pretty much lay in the sand for some shots.

 

 

 

Ray was attempting to get low, also:

 

 

Anyway, it was a really gorgeous day for some faux-macro photography of ordinary things!

 

 

 

 

 

Sky’s The Limit

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Ray and I go to a handful of ‘regular’ sunset shooting locations depending on time of year. In the summertime, one of our key spots is a little dead end, where you almost have to kind of sit on someone’s bulkhead to get the shot. We’ve never been apprehended doing this, so I assume it’s legal.

Anyhow – while getting this shot, we were approached by a duck gang. They excitedly came up to us, trolling for bread. We don’t usually carry bread when we shoot – and the ducks were incredibly persistent. Lesson learned: bring bread.

Anyway, here’s the shot.

This is How We Roll

I am sorry for the lack of posts! Lots has been going on with our business (check out the site if you haven’t already, www.deepsixphotography.com – and ‘Like’ us on Facebook!!).

Here is a behind the scenes look at what was going on when I got some shots the other night!

The main goal of the evening was me wanting to catch a cow-nosed ray. I suspected it would be easy to do this, since they are visible in the waves from shore right now (you can see them kind of surfing the break). I pretty much figured the second that I tossed my bait into the water, I would have one on the line. I wanted to be the girl fighting the huge fish on the beach while all the bennies watched.

Unfortunately, the rays weren’t picking up what I was putting down, and I instead decided to venture off and get some photos.

It was great, and I was getting some nice shots.

Here’s what our set-up looked like. Ray was staying pretty still, so I figured I’d try to sneak some HDR in and do something a little different.

That is pretty much our set-up. Camera bag, orange bucket, and two poles. It was such a gorgeous night, and the colors of the sky were so beautiful.

As I was photographing, I kept looking at my pole. There was nothing doing.

All of the sudden, I heard the tell-tale squeal of Ray’s drag, and it was fish on. I actually took a video of him reeling it in. It is not the best quality video (and I apologize for strange camera angles) – but you’ll get the idea. I’m going to try to embed it here:

Long story short – when he was done, he pulled in this cute little bugger:

Yes, they have stingers. I was a little nervous this thing would pull a Steve Irwin and stab Ray through the heart, but luckily nobody was injured, and this ray swims free.

Here’s just one more quickie. I made Ray cooperate for this:

Stormy Monday

Yesterday, the sky was doing some crazy stuff. I love multi-layered cloud cover, and there were many fantastic examples putting on quite a show. Additionally, the sky behind the heavy cloud cover was a supremely dazzling blue. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence that these storms seem to roll through on Mondays, but this is the second instance where I’ve found that the weather was rather miserable, unseasonably cold, and generally yucky on the most hated day of the week. Lucky for me, this lends itself to some unique and wonderful sky photography.

This shot illustrates that dazzling blue that I was talking about hiding behind the clouds.

And here are the clouds covering up the dazzle on the opposite side of the island. I love all the layers and textures!

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Feathered Friends

I think I might have spoken in an earlier post, about how I love the time of year when baby ducks and geese starting running around. If I haven’t mentioned it before – I absolutely love it when this happens. I try not to be too intrusive, but I love seeing the little ones running around and being all fluffy and adorable with themselves. I had a chance to take a couple of snaps of some fuzzy little goslings this weekend, so I’d like to pass along the cute.

I kind of had to shoot through a fence, so I was impressed that I held steady for a couple shots.

Here’s another cute little fellow, in keeping with my avian theme.

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The Creepy Man: How I ended up in Seaside Park

So the other night, Ray and I were going to see sunset at our usual spot because we were feeling lazy. Just as we pulled up, Ray totally balked and suggested we go someplace else, because ‘the creepy man’ was there.

Ray had told me about a week ago, that he’d been fishing at our favorite sunset spot, when a guy approached him and began talking out of nowhere. Ray said the man looked like a 17 year old boy in a 50 year old’s body, and had a very Of Mice and Men feel to him. After Ray had finally gotten away and escaped to the far side of the dock, he said that he could hear the man talking very loudly to himself, and seemingly becoming enraged by whatever he was saying to himself. Ray felt so uncomfortable that he left, saying he felt like the man was going to pull out a knife and stab him any second.

Anyway, when we pulled up the other night, I immediately saw a disturbing silhouette, and instinctively knew that it was the man-boy. So yeah. We went someplace else.

I’m glad we did – because I got this awesome shot: