Instead of hanging up my gear and waiting out this dry spell, I decided to photograph it. One reason is to document this unfortunate, but historic event. The other reason is to challenge myself to make at out of these conditions.
There is no better place to master composition than a challenging environment. The best challenging environment I've worked in is the Airplane and Automotive Graveyard right here in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Since 2016 it has been my pleasure to work with the owners of this unique location to let photography groups learn how to make art out of scrap.
Sometimes as a photographer it is good to take a risk. Not the dangle from a cliff or any put yourself in an unsafe condition kind of risk, this post is about taking subject or compositional risks.
When starting to photograph the Pine Barrens, it's easy to chase the sky colors showing our beautiful sunrises and sunsets. The light reflects in some of the 17 trillion gallons of water under the Pines that makes it to the surface in the form of bogs and lakes. As you get to know the Pine Barrens, you start to see the beauty of the shapes, forms and textures of the forest in differing light.
Preserving the Black Run Preserve with a Controlled Burn When a crew of New Jersey Forest Service Firefighters show up at the 1200 acre Black Run Preserve in the Pine Barrens, you'd think they were there to fight a fire, not start one. However, that was what they were there to do. Fire in the Pine Barrens is part of the natural [...]
Every picture tells a story, but which one? Of all the ghost towns in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Amatol may be the strangest. Hastily built in 1917 during World War I, the town's sole purpose was to staff a munitions factory. At one point Amatol had a population of over 7000 people with churches, a YMCA, speedway, movie theater and more. [...]
For Everyone Else, Creating Something from Nothing I recently had the amazing privilege of leading a group of photographers on my first Pine Barrens Photography Workshop. It was a great experience showing off this special place to both local and not-so-local photographers. When I teach workshops, I am not there to take photographs. Most of the time, I don't even bother to [...]