The seasons are rolling by, and life is busy and full as ever. After a long break from exploring and photographing, Jane and I finally make it a point to take a break during the end-of-year holidays. COVID is back on the rise with the holiday season and cold weather, so we spend a week mainly holed up at home, watching TV, reading and writing, and beginning to dream and plan big things for 2022. We manage to get out of town on the day after Christmas, driving up to Cape Ann to explore its Great Marsh and beach dunes after a fresh round of snowfall. One of the wonderful things about winter photography is the brevity and quality of the daylight - the gentle glow of the sun as it makes its low arc from southeast to southwest. In the winter, it’s possible to set out from home at a humane hour and hike and shoot from sun-up to sun-down, all the while enjoying lovely, indirect light. The tradeoffs, of course, are the stiff cold, the wintery coastal winds, the trekking through ice and slush, and the unpredictability of rapidly-draining lithium ion batteries (thanks Sony!). But the preparation, the challenge, the dressing in layers upon layers - is all part of the excitement. I find the process only makes the result of these images all the more rewarding.
We leave Boston on a Sunday after sunrise, encountering more and more snowy meadows and forests - the powdery stuff freshly fallen overnight - as we head north along the 95 North. We arrive in Newbury, MA (just north of Ipswich) just past 8 AM, and set off on a brief walk from Old Town Hill down to the banks of the Parker River. I have some fun with my new ultra-light carbon-fiber tripod, taking long-lens landscapes of the snow-covered marshes and pine forests, and wide-aperture portraits of Jane and trees. I’m rediscovering my love for woodland photography which I developed over the years in Maryland. In the middle of the woods, away from sweeping landscapes and airy vistas, the eye is drawn to more intimate details - the character and personality of trunks and branches, the quiet fortitude and intricacy of bark and fallen leaves, and the interplay between light and shadow, chaotic tangles and open clearings. These details are especially salient in the winter months, without the distraction of canopy or foliage or color. They make for some lovely photographic subjects.
After our little ramble along the river, Jane and I return to the car and drive south to Crane Beach in Ipswich. We’ve never been to the beach proper (or to the towering Tudor revivalist mansion estate that overlooks it), though we did take Jane’s sister and brother-in-law apple-picking at the nearby Russell Orchards earlier in the fall. During the warmer seasons, the place is a madhouse; now in the off-season, we pay the modest visitor’s fee and park at the massive, mostly deserted gravel parking lot leading to the shore. After a brief walk along the sandy beach, we turn inland and head off on the trails that criss-cross the backshore dunes and their pitch-pine forests. Even in the winter, the walks here are popular; we pass a few groups of hikers and birders (searching for the elusive and beautiful snowy owls that over-winter here in coastal Massachusetts), and it is heartening to see people spending the holiday weekend with family outdoors and in nature, despite the cold, dreary weather and the ever-present pandemic. After hiking a four-mile double-loop, clambering up and down steep dunes with sweeping views along the coast and inland toward Essex Bay, we retreat to the car and drive into town for a well-earned lunch. We eat at the famous Woodman’s of Essex, a veritable instituion of a seafood shack with over a hundred years of history. We treat ourselves to a holiday-sized heap of fried clams, onion rings, chowder, and clam cakes.
In the afternoon, to kill some time before sunset at Wingaersheek Beach, we stop at the Tompson Street Reservation in Gloucester and take a brief hike up the hillside to photograph the hardwood swamp, a frozen expanse dotted with barren maples and white cedar stumps. Along the way, I photograph Jane standing beside an absolutely massive glacial erratic; on the trail, we alternate between watching our footing on the icy path, admiring the area’s diverse riparian and coastal ecosystems (dunes, marshes, estuaries, and swamps), and engaging in a round-robin debate comparing the attractiveness of male actors (I reach a steady state of Henry Cavill over Brad Pitt and George Clooney). Back in the car, we make the short drive north to Wingaersheek Beach (another summer madhouse reduced to a casual, closed-for-the-season locale for the locals). The beach lot itself is barred, but we are able to park before the gate and walk in on foot. We encounter quite a few dog walkers (accompanied by their chihuhuas and French bulldogs in sweater vests), as well as equally numerous signs admonishing dog walkers for leaving behind doggy poop bags. For our part, Jane and I walk up and down the beach, and I photograph the golden hour light as it strikes the nearby houses, beach grasses, and trees. I set up my tripod to take long exposures of Annisquam Lighthouse on the distant peninsula - a mostly unsuccessful endeavor as my ultralight pod is buffetted by the strong evening winds, blowing off the coast in the wake of last night’s passing storm. As it grows dark, we make our way back to the car and drive back toward Boston. We’re back home by 5 PM, with a full day of exploration and rejuvenation behind us.
