When Ordinary Becomes Beautiful Cold Winter Light by Richard Lewis 2017 It doesn't snow much in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, so when it does, it's time to head out to find something to photograph. This old bog in the Franklin Parker Preserve seemed like a nice place to look. Usually the stumps of these old cedar trees look like abstract designs, however [...]
The Struggle Between the Inner Artist and Inner Engineer Fading Winter Light by Richard Lewis 2017 I love going out on New Year's Day to hike to get a first photo of the year. This year the first photograph of 2017 was made on January 8. Why? Because I've been feverishly preparing for a solo exhibition of my New Jersey Pine [...]
What happens to a seaside paradise when the seaside gets toxic The story of Bombay Beach, California is an unusual one. In the early 1900's an attempt to control the Colorado River for irrigation backfired when flood waters filled the Salton Basin creating the Salton Sea. This new sea in the desert may have been an environmental disaster, but was and still is the largest lake in [...]
Morning in the California Desert I love the "tortured landscape" of Joshua Tree National Park. Under the right light it can range from dramatic to alien with just a touch of the surreal. On this particular morning the soft diffused morning light was pretty consistent, so it was not necessary to work quickly to catch that quickly vanishing moment of perfect light. I took advantage [...]
The Old Mills and Landscape of Southern Missouri When I signed up for Craig McCord's photography workshop in the Ozark Mountains, he probably thought I made a mistake. Why would a guy from New Jersey go to southern Missouri to take pictures? Shouldn't I be going to the Grand Canyon, the Grand Tetons or some other place with grand in its name for great photography? Well, I [...]
An evening on the Ben Franklin Bridge What makes South Jersey an interesting and unique place to live is that you are close to the wilderness forests of the New Jersey Pinelands and the City of Philadelphia. One can enjoy both city and country life without traveling very far. There is a pedestrian walkway on the Ben Franklin Bridge that spans the Delaware River and connects [...]
A Remnant of Personal History 2018 Update: When I posted these photographs in 2016 I had no idea what would happen. These photographs have inspired former campers at Cejwin to share their experiences in the comments. This post has gone from being about photography to being a community. If you are here to see my work, also read the comments so you [...]
An aimless pursuit of beauty. What do you do when a day of scouting for photography locations doesn't yield anything? That happened recently on a trip to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We spent the afternoon hiking the Cliff and other trails to check out overlooks and waterfalls. My plan was to find the best ones and spend the next few [...]
Being on the top of that mountain taught me to experience sunrises and sunsets in a different way. I've always looked for that decisive moment when the light is at it's peak. Now I realize that a sunrise is a story that starts at first light and ends when the dawn colors fade.
Happy 100th Anniversary to the National Parks The US National Park system may be the best thing our government has ever done. Preserving some of our best American landscapes has been going on for a hundred years. In spite of some parks being overcrowded with visitors, having an overworked National Park Service staff, and many other challenges, the beautiful landscapes remain relatively unchanged [...]
Why wake up at 4am to hike up a mountain? One of the things I love about being a photographer, and a hiker, is the challenge to find unique places to experience nature at its best. In Virginia's Shenandoah National Park that meant hiking up a mountain in the dark before the sun came up. On a beautiful afternoon my wife and I hiked [...]
If this post doesn't make you cry I'm not doing my job Yellow Dog Village is an odd name for a town, but it is sort of an odd town. In the early 20th century when miners and mine owners battled each other over wages and working conditions, this town was a place of harmony between workers and management. Yellow Dog Village [...]
Batsto Village is a preserved historic iron works in the middle of the New Jersey Pinelands. In the 18th and early 19th centuries it was a major industry and even played an important roll in the American Revolution. I wanted to photograph a moonrise at Batsto Village, but right after arriving it became obvious that it wasn't going to work out. There were just too [...]
Abandoned homes are always the saddest of all because they were places where people and families lived. Every square inch of this place has a memory created by occupants of a home that is over 100 years old.
Hiking the New Jersey Pinelands for Therapy and Art I had a knee injury from a bicycle accident a few months ago and have been walking as part of a physical therapy program. On a recent Saturday afternoon, I decided to do some therapy by hiking in the Franklin Parker Preserve, one of my favorite New Jersey Pinelands spots. It ended up being more of a spiritual [...]
Visually Preserving an Un-preservable Local Treasure I had posted photographs from this mansion earlier and was going to make it a series with several parts, Instead, I'm creating a new post with more information and photography. The McNeal mansion was built around 1894 in Burlington, New Jersey as the dream house of a local industrialist named Andrew McNeal. It sits along the Delaware [...]