Lazy Point, Montauk - NY
October Perfection.
It’s October, and Long Island is holding onto summer like you might hold a lover in the early hours of a dark morning prior to an upcoming extended absence. There is a sense of both comfort and sorrow that can be felt at this time of year. Each moment made all the more precious and poignant due to its impending expiration.
The trees dance in the fall breeze, blissfully unaware of the Nor-easter storms to come that will strip them naked and bare. The sun grows tired, as if it can barely muster the energy needed to reach its place in the noontime sky. The air is noticeably cooler, in a way that surprises and awakens your nostrils when you draw your first breath outside. And then there is the ocean, she is always the last to let go. The ocean holds the warmth of summer like a fond memory kept close to her heart, one that’s looked back on with both a smile and a tear.
With fall comes the north wind. Summer and winter collide and several times a year days like this one are produced. Days where nothing is out of place, where each blade of grass sways with a purpose and where gravity loses its effect on the sand in the hourglass. And for a lucky few, these hours can be captured with power of a kite, floating on the breeze above the memories of a summer not yet forgotten. The result is a simultaneous feeling of elation and an almost imperceptible but ever present sadness, the type that is reserved exclusively for moments of complete perfection. Moments made all together more beautiful by the fact that they are so fleeting.
Flat water and a few friends.
Lazy point is a unique lagoon located on a narrow stretch of sand between the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. When the wind is from the north it blows uninterrupted over the tops of the low lying sand dunes creating a dream worthy flat water slick. However, since conditions line up so rarely, the spot doesn’t see the traffic it otherwise might. On this day, we shared the mirror like surface of this post card worthy lagoon with only a hand-full of local kiters and wind surfers.
Field Notes.
The conditions we so great on this day that I spent most of my time riding and only a fraction of the time shooting. I recently reviewed a few of the lessons from Jimmy Chin’s MasterClass and chose to focus on a few of the techniques he presents. For this photo session I took a number of shots directly into the sun. I cranked the aperture tighter, mostly in the f/16 to f/18 range, this helps create the sun flare effect you see in some of the images.
For this set I also tried to incorporate the landscape and fall foliage into many of the shots. I used 2 lenses, the 70-200 and 16-35. In each case I tried to shoot from pulled back locations in order to capture some of the local plants and trees. The fall colors and low angle of the sun were combining to produce some really unique foreground opportunities.