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…

Beautiful Things: New Jersey Landscape Photography

I feel like it’s always a catch-up with this blog! We have done so many great family shoots and weddings recently, that it will take a bit to get all that goodness up. For now, enjoy this sampling from last night in Ocean Gate, NJ. The iconic (to locals) boardwalk and pavilion made it through Sandy – so it’s nice to see one local landmark completely untouched. Yes – these are HDR photos!





If you’re digging all this, make sure to check out our Facebook page where there is plenty more goodness from the Summer 2013 Landscape Collection (as well as much more!).

We also have a site with plenty to see!
www.deepsixphotography.com

Long Exposure HDR

 

Every now and then I get on a jag with long exposure shooting. I don’t always find the technique applicable (I’m sure that I would use it a whole lot more if we had some waterfalls or the like around) but when I use it, I’m typically not disappointed. The last long exposure HDR shot I did was at the lighthouse, and became Deepsix Photography’s top-selling photo. I’m not sure that this most recent endeavor will climb the charts quite like that one did – but I do really like it:

 

 

 

Just for comparison – here is a similar shot (zoomed in quite a bit) that is not HDR, just long exposure. If you look at the above shot, you can see the moon just beginning to descend from the clouds. Below, you can see much more of it.

 

 

And there you have it – one shot, two similar ways. Which do you prefer?

 

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Sky’s The Limit

Before you read this  post, have you visited our site (www.deepsixphotography.com), and ‘liked’ our Facebook? If not – do these things now!

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.

Epic Engagement

The other week, we had the pleasure of shooting an engagement session with Kristin and Matt. Unfortunately, try as we might – the weather was really not cooperating, but we toughed it out through really unseasonable June temperatures and some howling south wind for some absolutely gorgeous shots:

 

 

And then.. to cap an awesome evening – they were open to letting me do some HDR stuff – which I love to do. So basically, they bravely took engagement photos to a whole new level:

 

Awesome.

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:

Before We Were Famous

So I was exaggerating. We are not famous now. However, if you are looking at comparative fame from 4 years ago, we are doing awesome.

I’ve noticed lately, that my computer has been insanely bogged down. My CS5 is running at a really glacial pace, which is slowing down photo editing something awful. I’ve been working on a nice watermark to slap all over our photos, but I was barely able to create a text box in under 3 minutes. I realized that the sheer mass of photographic excellence on this computer’s hard drive might be the culprit. There are easily close to 10,000 photos on my desktop, if not more than that. While I do love each and every one, it was time to do some deleting.

Here are some photos from before we really started doing photography seriously, and some from the very beginning.

I used this shot in our promos up until very recently. It is stupidly simple, but I’ve always loved it. It was taken early in our game, but it still makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

One of my all-time favorite shots. Ray and I went crabbing and caught 1 crab. We had him in the bucket for a bit with a cutting board and knife. When I went to check on him, the crab had picked up the knife and was waving it around. Really. Just goes to show you: New Jersey crabs are badass and carry knives.

I rarely go see sunrise. I typically run in the mornings, so I wake up for work at around 5:30. The last thing I want to do on the weekend is drag myself to the beach before sunrise – that’s Ray’s thing. Luckily, the couple of times I’ve done it – I have been richly rewarded. This sunrise was simple – but my timing could not have been better with that bird.

Each year I obsess over what I term ‘the running of the duckings’ which is when the ever-present Canadian geese have their babies. I consistently go on the hunt to obtain photos of the cute little balls of fluff.

There are many more favorite old shots – but these were the ones I stumbled upon early. Hope you enjoyed!

Perspective

Every once in a while I end up having a really epic sunset session, where it feels like everywhere I look there is an awesome photo opportunity. I especially like it when each opportunity presents a totally different photo experience – almost to the point where you might think that each of the photos was taken on a different day.

So basically I’m going to present to you a sunset that was lookin’ good from the front, the side, and even the back.

Front. Lovin’ it. And it wasn’t all for show.

Side. Look at that form! What beautiful cloud shape. I also love when the sky reflects off the water and kinda makes it glow. It’s totally happening here, and I’m digging it.

From the back. You can see Ray taking some pictures inside the gazebo. I really didn’t think this would turn out. I love how crystal clear the bay looks. Drink it in now, because in two months the bennys will have yucked it all up. I just love the glow the sun was shining on the wood of the gazebo, and the nice orange-y blue-y tones.

So yeah. Lookin’ good Lavallette. Lookin’ good.

Visit our site for more about DSP. We’re now booking spring shoots – so if you need photos drop us a line!

Somethin’ Special

I made a modest attempt at using my new portrait lens for some scenic HDR photography. I didn’t really expect much out of the results, because it’s really not the right lens for the job – but I got a photo that I really do adore. It has a strong color cast and is obviously rather surreal, but I do like what happened. I suppose it’s good to experiment every now and again.

That’s lovely, right? Well. I happen to think it is.

 

Bonus Material

Sometimes when I’m going through a day’s pictures, I kind of have to triage and decide what I think is worth working on at the moment. Occasionally some potential photos end up slipping through the filter until months later when I really get a chance to go through my shots with a fine-toothed comb. I’ve done a little of this recently, and come up with a few that I didn’t think would work initially, but with a little love, have taken on a life of their own.

The shot below I really did not imagine working. I had gotten a bunch of really awesome shots from that day, because the sky was completely epic – so I didn’t really care much about what was going on in the other direction. However, the bike and camera bad nestled into some super golden green foliage is pretty cool.

Not bad, right?

The one above took a bit of tweaking. I had gotten a couple other nice shots from that night, and decided to try and go back and snag one more. The sky color was really dynamic and great, and I’m pretty happy with the way the ‘bonus material’ turned out.

On a whole, I’m glad that I had a chance to go back and pick out some other goodies from my heaping pile of unprocessed photos!

 

I keep on shamelessly promoting: but don’t forget to check out our site – www.deepsixphotography.weebly.com. There is a bunch more of our stuff there! Additionally, don’t forget that if you’re on the market for engagement or wedding (or graduation, event, or basically any other type of photography) we are ready to book you! Since we’re still building our portfolio, our rates are reasonable and we are ready to work! We’re New Jersey based but willing to travel.