Sometimes I think we will soon all be living in a condo world. The small merchants on the beach at Hampton Beach, N.H., say condos and developers are taking over the town and pushing aside the small stands and arcades that once lined the Boardwark. These merchants are little guys, they have only eight or nine weeks to make their money, and their rents are going through the roof. More and more are moving and selling out to condos, a tidal wave that is hitting beach communities everywhere as well as big cities like New York.
When the condos come, the developers push the little guys out. Scores of condos line the beach where there once were small cottages and food stands. Chance is an inevitable part of life, but it doesn’t always feel good.
We had a sweet re-union with the animals when we got back, the donkeys, never losing their cool, came up to Maria and stopped for some hugs and head touching. Red stood guard to keep the sheep away. It is good to get to get away, it is special to get back.
Sometimes, with photography, less is more. I took this horizon photo and ran it through a “grainy” software program to give it the feel of a drawing, and it was hauntingly beautiful, as was the original image, which was similar but misty. As the sun begins to come up, it plays with the colors and the light of the water and the sky, I saw the sparkle on the ocean before I saw the sun. A few years ago, it would never have occurred to me to take a photo of a blank horizon – no people, no ships. This morning, I thought it one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen.
If you get up early with a camera, you are often rewarded, the morning light is astonishing sometimes, especially when there is a wide horizon and early morning mist to filter the light and the mist and the morning sun. I loved this blue and the softness of the sky, it looked some some modernist landscape to me, and I suppose it was. In a second, the color was gone, deeper and greener and the mist burning off.
We got back Friday from the New Hampshire short – Hampton Beach – where we had two warm and beautiful days to walk, talk, sit on the beach and read. I finished two books, “Cops” by Steve Osborne and the”Valiant Revolution” by Nathaniel Philbrick,and I loved them both. We had seafood for dinner and lunch – lobster mostly.
The tourist town is revving up the summer, but not yet overrun. We won’t see the ocean again until the Fall. Hampton Beach is the closest water to us, and we have perfected the art of the hit-and-run getaway. The rates double and triple next week, and it is easy to get a table in a great seafood restaurant.
The beaches are quiet and empty and the ticky-tack shops on the Boardwalk are just cleaning up and getting ready. We have a beautiful time, as we always do. We always seem to have fun, no matter what it around us or what is happening to us. I took some interesting photos which I’ll put up.
Big shake-up in my photography life coming up. I’m taking all of my cameras but the monochrome into New York City on Wednesday to trade them in for a new camera, and hopefully, for a new lens. I’m really focusing in my passions and directions in photography, big changes for me, and I will of course share then with you.
This shot is the first I took in Hampton Beach, it was at dawn on what was a cloudy morning, the sun had just burst through the clouds, lighting up the far side of the harbor. A nice thing to see at 5 a.m. The ocean is soothing and beautiful, it was good to see it.
