27-NOV-2014
Reflections, Brunswick, Georgia, 2014
I walked the historic main street of downtown Brunswick as the sun was setting on Thanksgiving Day. This coffee shop was closed, but some of the town’s buildings were reflected in its windows. In this image, I add the reflected buildings to the empty restaurant tables and chairs, producing a golden scene as silent as the empty streets of Brunswick on this evening.
28-NOV-2014
Tragic ruin, Chicota Cottage, Jekyll Island Historic District, Georgia, 2014
Jekyll Island was once a secluded vacation spot for some of America’s richest tycoons. J.P. Morgan, William Rockefeller, and William Vanderbilt and others like them wintered in vast “cottages” here in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1887, they founded a private club, open only to the world’s wealthiest families, which lasted until World War II. In 1910, the club was the site of a secret meeting of bankers that led to the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. Following the war, its members sold the island to the State of Georgia. Jekyll Island is now a state park, the clubhouse is now a luxury hotel, and some of the 13 remaining “cottages” offer visitors a close-up look at what once was known as the “Gilded Age.” However, one cottage, Edwin Gould’s beloved Chicota, was never renovated. Gould, son of the infamous railroad tycoon Jay Gould, built Chicota in 1897. The cottage was abandoned after the Gould’s son died in a hunting accident. It was eventually torn down. Nothing remains but a hole marking its site, and the pair of stone lions that once guarded its entrance. One of those lions, now reduced to king of only a few small palms, symbolizes what Jekyll Island once represented – a place of elegance and leisure, backed by hereditary wealth, control and command. I converted what originally was a lush color image into a more abstract black and white photograph – changing the mood from a picture postcard to a grim reminder of a place essentially destroyed by tragedy.
28-NOV-2014
Faith Chapel, Jekyll Island Historic District, Georgia, 2014
The Jekyll Island Club built this interdenominational chapel in 1904. It holds a magnificent signed stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, installed in 1921. I was not permitted to make photographs inside of the chapel, so was restricted to exterior imagery. I decided to place the sun behind the simple chapel steeple, and abstract it as a silhouette. As I was framing the steeple, I noticed a small cloud drifting across the frame. The adjacent sun brilliantly illuminates that cloud. I waited for it to almost touch the steeple, and made this image. I combine the black steeple with the small white cloud and the deeply underexposed blue sky to express a mystical presence, an appropriate tribute to a place known as the “Faith Chapel.”
28-NOV-2014
Sidney Lanier Bridge, Brunswick, Georgia, 2014
Named for poet Sidney Lanier, this bridge carries four lanes of US Route 17 across the Brunswick River. It is the longest span in Georgia, and each of its twin towers is 450 feet tall. I photographed it through the front window of our bus at the fast shutter speed of one three thousandth of a second in order to eliminate any blur from our moving vehicle. The bridge appears as if in a dreamscape – its four triangles of cables suspended from the tops of the twin towers blend perfectly into the overhead clouds. These clouds move through the image in a horizontal line, following the path of the bridges roadway. The ramp leading to the bridge anchors the image, carrying the eye through a sweeping curve, over the row of repeating supporting pillars, below the towering triangles of cable, and finally dips down another ramp into the city of Brunswick itself.
28-NOV-2014
The Marshes of Glynn, Brunswick, Georgia, 2014
“The Marshes of Glynn” is one of Sidney Lanier’s most famous poems. It is part of a set of lyrical nature poems that interpret the beauty and meaning of the open salt marshes of Glynn County in coastal Georgia. Brunswick is the seat of this county, named after John Glynn, a member of the British House of Commons who defended the cause of the American colonies before the Revolution. The Battle of Bloody Marsh was also fought in this very area thirty years earlier, when Britain defeated Spain and created the Province of Georgia. At the close of the American Civil War, Lanier was inspired to write “The Marshes of Glynn.” These marshes that line the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway as it flows between the mainland and Georgia’s barrier islands are known as tidal marshes, and are flooded daily by Atlantic Ocean tides. Salt marshes such as the one in this image play a major role in supporting wildlife and providing coastal protection. This incongruous scene of hundreds of water birds feeding at the edge of a tidal marsh just south of Brunswick echoes the lyrical ideas found in Lanier’s poetry. The marsh grasses provide a striking yellow, orange, and green background for these feeders. The marsh is as rich in texture and color as it is in nutrients. It is also vulnerable to the commercial development. Lanier sought to comfort his Southern readers by showing them that while the South may have lost the Civil War, it still retained the expansive landscape full of beauty and richness which has always been the source of its strength. In the “Marshes of Glynn,” Lanier writes, “Look around you. Take courage from the land which God has given you, which always nourished you, and which is sill there, and be comforted.”
28-NOV-2014
Double-crested cormorants, Jekyll Island Causeway, Jekyll Island, Georgia, 2014
The feathers of these fish eating water birds are not waterproof, and they spend a lot of time drying them out after spending time in the water. I found a colony of them clustered on a small jetty bearing a navigation light just below the causeway bridge connecting Jekyll Island with the mainland. There are almost a dozen of them in this image and all face away, or offer a profile view. They are ready to scramble if necessary. I was able to frame them against the sky blue water, just clear of the brownish reflection just above them. The blue background best expresses their environment, and creates a clean field of contrast.
28-NOV-2014
Trawler, St Andrews Sound, off Little Cumberland Island, Georgia, 2014
This trawler sailed past my camera at sunset, trailed by dozens of seagulls looking for a handout. Men fish, and birds feed. The combination of warm light and rich colors, plus the incongruity of the massive seagull assault, expresses the symbiotic relationship between human and animal life.
28-NOV-2014
Trailing gulls, St. Andrews Sound, off Little Cumberland Island, Georgia, 2014
On the final evening of our week-long cruise from Charleston to Jacksonville, swarms of gulls were trailing our own ship, hovering above its wake, looking for nutrients stirred up from the sea bottom by our engines. I caught four of them here in flight – three soar away, while one seems to hang suspended between them. The waves seem to echo the shapes of their wings, while the blue water gives background contrast to the golden feathers that hang in the air.
29-NOV-2014
Then, now, and tomorrow, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
I spent the weekend following our cruise in the heart of Jacksonville, one of the largest cities in the Southeastern United States. It is centered on the St. Johns River, and in 1564 it became a French colony known as Fort Caroline, one of the earliest European settlements in the United States. Jacksonville itself dates back to 1822, a year after the US acquired Florida from Spain. Jacksonville is named after Andrew Jackson, first governor of the Florida Territory. Traces of the past are found all over the city. These elegant streetlights date back to the late nineteenth century, when Jacksonville became a popular winter resort for the rich and famous. I photograph them in front of a contemporary window, reflecting back to us an abstract, futuristic vision of the Jacksonville of tomorrow.
29-NOV-2014
Basilica, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
On May 3, 1901, a devastating fire wiped out downtown Jacksonville. It was the largest city fire in the Southeastern United States, destroying the city’s business district and leaving 10,000 residents homeless. The glow from the flames was seen in Savannah, Georgia, and smoke was observed from as far away as Raleigh, North Carolina. The city was virtually rebuilt within 11 years after the fire, adding more than 13,000 buildings, including this new home for the historic Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, completed in 1910. This church, which had been destroyed twice – once by Union artillery during the Civil War, and again by the great fire, appears here against a solid background of new construction. I zoomed in on its pair of red steeples, cropping them to imply a sense of infinity – regardless of war and fire, they continue to endure through time, without limitations. When the main steeple was built, it became the highest point in Jacksonville until 1913. The commercial buildings in the background may dwarf these steeples, yet they stand in bold contrast to the bland commercial architecture filling the rest of the frame.
29-NOV-2014
Gargoyle, St. John’s Cathedral, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
This Gothic Revival Episcopal cathedral was completed in 1906, replacing an earlier church that burned in the 1901 fire that destroyed most of Jacksonville. Its architecture features numerous gargoyles, one of which I caught snarling against a background linking a slate roof with a stone wall. Gargoyles first appeared on medieval cathedrals, and were used to divert rainwater. This one seems to be positioned above a ledge that probably contains a rain gutter.
29-NOV-2014
Statuary, Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
A statue of Christ stands before a small park opposite the principal Catholic Church in Jacksonville. I photographed it against a softly focused background of green, red, and orange foliage, symbolizing a stained glass window made entirely of natural materials. The city’s First Presbyterian church provides a fitting softly focused backdrop for this image.
