Two image composite with focus stacking of Sodus Bay Outer Light
Man on a bike makes his way out to the end of Sodus Bay Jetty a day after a tropical storm passed just east
A beautiful calm morning in Sodus Point New York on Lake Ontario.
Sodus Bay Outer Light on the day tropical storm Isaias passed to our east.
2020 has been quite a year. It started out with such great promise. We had plans for backpacking trips, a photo trip out to Moab in the spring and a bucket list trip to Alaska. We are old enough to allow plenty of time between stimulus (being hit with a pandemic) and reaction (crying, ranting, over eating, finding peace in the simple pleasures…) One of our reactions to having to cancel trips both big and small was to get a camper. This was actually planned for 2021, but we pivoted based on the global situation. Our first week-long trip in August of 2020 was to Upstate New York. Not Moab, or Alaska, but very nice. We had some weather to deal with, but overall it was a very pleasant trip with our eldest daughter.
Near the campground was a small park on Lake Ontario with an inlet to Sodus Bay. At the end of the inlet was a working Great Lakes lighthouse. Since the park was just 5 minutes away and since the agenda for the trip was really just to spend some time together and relax, I found myself standing at the park, pre-dawn with my camera on multiple mornings. That got me thinking about some of my favorite images.
Before I go any further, I want to point out that I have terrible photography luck. When I go on vacation to wonderful places that are beautiful subjects, about 1 in 10 times do I get light and conditions that are even in the same zip code that I was hoping for. I have spent many hours and countless dollars chasing grandiose images of beautiful parks out west or even in New England, only to come back with snapshots. Nothing more than photographic evidence that I was present at a spectacular place on a crummy day.
Back to my favorite images. Some of my favorite, wall worthy captures are places that I know all too well. Ferry Park in Rocky Hill, CT, The boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ, Marshall Point Light in Maine. As I already established, my best images are not because of luck. They are not even because of skill, although taking the time to learn the proper technique and developing an eye for composition is important. My best images were only possible because I was able to go back to the same spot over and over again. The luxury of being able to capture a location at different times and during different conditions and light are a way to “bullet proof” your portfolio. It's also a way to get something that is bigger than the sum of the images you capture.
For the four images of Sodus Bay Light. Each one was taken on a different day with a different process and technique. For me at least, each one evokes a different reaction. Would my time have been better spent finding four different locations? Perhaps I would have gotten very lucky and gotten conditions just right for each unique place. Making the choice I did, to return to the same place over and over gave me something different. It gave me a story. A way to represent the passage of time, even just over a few days for this very pretty place. This lighthouse has been around since 1938. Look at how many different conditions it saw in just 5 days. Even though I have only a five day story, I now have a reference. A map key if you will, to be able to imagine this place early in it’s life, in winter, in a thunderstorm, on a dark night, clear night with the galactic core of the Milky Way arching overhead. A single image, even under perfect conditions is a postcard. Just documentation that something exists. A series of images taken at different times, seasons and conditions makes the place real. It tells a story perhaps not of what the subject is, but more what it was and what it could be.
As I write this in mid August of 2020, it may be hard to imagine life as normal again. For me, it is easy to succumb to the notion that we will never get out of this mess we're in. But if you think about all of the changes and challenges Sodus Bay Light has seen in it’s time and think about how drastically conditions changed in five days, it is easy to imagine a time when COVID is over and we can all reconnect with the people and places that we love so we can keep on telling our story.