Thursday, July 20, 2023
Jekyll Island (Part 1): Getting to Know the Island
Jekyll Island (Part 2): Trying it All Out
Jekyll Island (Part 3): Visiting Another World
Jekyll Island (Part 4): My Last Stand
As I said in my last blog entry, I was going to be heading to a brand-new location very soon. I teased it as a type of photography that I don’t really do a lot of, in a location that I had not been to as of yet. I’m sure that folks were thinking of all kinds of potential photos that they could be seeing with this next blog entry, and I hope that you have been looking forward to it. What you will be seeing here are a good many new coastal images which have been a very long time coming. The last time I went to the coast was in the Spring of 2021, when Toni and I went to the Outer Banks. Neither Toni, nor I are “beach people,” although we both appreciate the scenery. Neither of us enjoy being hot, and we are not all that fond of swimming in the ocean. Outside of that, there isn’t much reason to go to the coast, unless it is for photographs. Over the past two years or so, it has been my coastal imagery that has been selling the best through Hampton House. I haven’t really been able to explain that phenomenon, but consistently, that has been what has been moving which is odd since that is one of my smallest catalogs to choose from. It has made me want to get out and get more coastal photographs added to the collection though. I’ve been trying to get out that way for about a year now, but one thing or another always pops up and prevents me from making the trip.
The short story of how this trek came to be was Toni has been after me for a while to go on a trip, and the beach has come up several times. Usually, we would be looking to go to the mountains, but since we live right at the base of them, it is just not that exciting to travel to the mountains as it once was. Again, things kept getting in the way, like the exterior remodel on the house thanks to the wind damage from earlier in the year. It really seemed like every time we were in a place to be able to travel, we would end up with a reason not to go. In a strange turn of events, we ended up keeping our Granddaughter for two weeks while she was out of school for the Summer. While we were trying to plan what we were going to be doing with her, the idea of going to the beach with her came up. It would make sense to work a trip to the ocean around her being here as she would give Toni something to do while I was out with the camera. I started to think about what beach we could go to, and how we could incorporate it into her stay.
Since she lives in Georgia, I thought that it might make sense to pick a beach closer to her house to ease in the travel necessary just to get her up to North Carolina. I suggested that we schedule the trip at the end of the two weeks so that we could just be closer to her home. This would keep us from having to pick her up, then drive 6 hours or so to the NC coast, to drive back home and then back South to drop her off. Logistically it made perfect sense, but I had no knowledge of Georgia beaches and didn’t know what to pick. I just pulled out the map and started to look along the Georgia Coast.
I saw Tybee Island which I had heard of, but it was a little further North than would be practical for the purposes. As I continued to move the map around, I landed on Jekyll Island which I had also heard of, and that name tripped a memory beyond just the name. It only took me a brief moment to remember why that name registered so clearly with me. I had seen photos of some gorgeous bare trees right at the water with some amazing skies. What was that place called? As I zoomed in a little bit more, I saw it….Driftwood Beach! That was a place that I had wanted to go for some time now, but had never had the opportunity to make the trip. I pulled up some of the Google images from the location and knew that this was a place where I could get some pretty decent photos providing the sky worked out for me. There was no real sense in looking at the weather since the timing of the trip was kind of already set.
I ran it by Toni, and she had no problems with going to Jekyll Island. She actually booked the hotel that I had found which was the closest to Driftwood Beach. By closest, I mean that there was every possibility that I could walk to the location instead of tying up the car which they might need during the time I would be gone. That distance looked like about two miles based on my estimate. It actually turned into a bit over 2.5 miles, but who’s counting? We were all set to go to a beach that we had never been before, and were going to be staying in a hotel that we hadn’t really read any reviews on which had some pretty high prices for the room.
I really didn’t put a whole lot of thought into how the weekend was going to go. I just knew that we would get there Thursday afternoon and leave on Sunday morning. Beyond that, I didn’t plan anything about how I was going to tackle the island. In the days before the trip was to start, I began looking at the weather. There were storms forecasted each day which was better than clear blue skies, but at the same time, could also mean lousy conditions to shoot in. This could turn into nothing but a scouting trip if the weather didn’t work out, and I would be scouting something that was over six hours away from home. The likelihood of me returning anytime in the near future was slim, which meant that I needed to try and make the best of whatever conditions revealed themselves.
Wednesday, was my last full day before we left for Jekyll Island, and I spent that doing a mentorship session with Bob, and then processing the photos that I captured during the day. I gave the trip very little thought before going to bed that night. When the clock rang on Thursday morning, I put all of my clothing together and prepped my camera for the trip. We got everything loaded up and were on the road much earlier than we had planned on which was fine. Toni had lined up early check-in which was something that she usually does. The trip went pretty fast and without incident. In fact, the only real issue that we had was when we got to the island itself, we were met with a toll booth. Neither of us had expected this and were surprised to find out that access to the island cost $10.00. We really hoped that everything that we needed was there on the island because neither of us were interested in paying that more than just the once.
We got to the hotel and started running into issues immediately with the main entrance being blocked off. The secondary entrance was hidden, which made it very difficult to find our way inside. We were able to finally get our room figured out and the car unloaded. It was hot…I mean it was HOT out there. Once we got things situated in the room, I left Toni to cool off and I took Aulani out to beach to see the ocean and get a feel for what was around us. Just walking around for about 30 minutes got us both sweaty and I remembered why I hate the beach in the Summer. It was a fundamentally different beach than I was used to from the NC coast which was nice considering I wanted something different to photograph from my typical beach scenes.
After we had been around the hotel and the beach, we returned back to the room. We rested from the trip for a bit before going to dinner at what we thought was one of maybe three places to eat on the island. Remember, we weren’t going to leave the island and have to pay to get back on it. After dinner, we returned to the room and debated going to the water. Instead of doing that, we decided to wait until the following morning to go to the ocean in favor of just walking around and scouting the area when it cooled down a bit. That happened a little before 7pm and I grabbed my camera so we could all head out to the beach for an evening walk.
I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about what I wanted to photograph, or even how I wanted the photos to look. The sky was pretty much clear which meant that I wasn’t going to get any meaningful color to the images. I decided that I was putting no pressure on myself to find anything fantastic, I just wanted to get to know the area and start to understand the vibe. This is a huge element in my landscape photography. I have to really understand what it is that I am photographing before I can capture the right images of it. It was that connection that I needed to make, and I didn’t need perfect conditions for that to happen.
We started walking around on the sand and Aulani decided that she wanted to get her feet wet in the ocean, so I left her and Toni there to play in the water a little bit while I moved further down the beach. On the way back from dinner, I had noticed some interesting viewpoints from the road which looked over the water. There were tall sea oats visible which I wanted to make use of in some compositions. The thought of the open sun shining on them was favorable as the warm light would make the scenery pop against the deepening blue sky. I had to get up at the parking lot level to make that happen though, so I let Toni know that I was going to be over at the next boardwalk access.
Once I got there, I started to walk around to see if I could find a group of elements that might work out for the conditions. The empty sky was not really looking as good as I would have liked, but I wasn’t giving up just yet. The thought of doing some more minimal compositions with creative use of negative space came to mind for the conditions. The photos would be more about lighting and composition than drama, or visual excitement. The only problem was I just wasn’t seeing anything that jumped out at me. It was all seeming a little boring for my tastes. About the time I made it back to where I had left Toni and Aulani, I found a group of three palm trees which stood out to me. I started to look at how they were placed and began to see a composition developing. The more I worked through it with my mind, the more I was pretty convinced that it would work through a camera as well.
I set my bag down and grabbed the camera with the 24-70mm lens attached. I felt that this was kind of a letdown because I’m always shooting that lens at the beach and wanted the chance to get a different one. I could have easily gone wider, but that would have forced me to include more of the beach and there were people there which I was trying to avoid. The narrower focal length would more than likely allow me to avoid the visual obstacles as I formed my compositions. It took me a lot longer to get the composition set than I would normally have taken. I just wasn’t quite feeling the location yet. After working with mountain landscapes, and most recently decay subjects, the thought of putting together a beach scene was a little daunting. This was expected and probably the main reason that I wanted to go out and get a few photos made before the sun set. If things went well, I would be able to “hear” the location and be able to capture it much more effectively in the morning.
After stumbling around with the compositions, I finally managed to get one that I liked where I was highlighting the three trees on the right half of the frame while I left the sky as negative space to the left. The sea oats gave a touch of visual interest along the bottom as did the ocean and what sand I could include in the frame. The sun was nearing the horizon as well which meant that there was going to be some really good light on the trees shortly as the sun started to warm in hue with the lower altitude. I might have waited ten minutes before the light started to get good, and I started to make exposures. The rather strong breeze forced me to boost the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast enough to freeze the palm fronds which I was able to do since I was using no filters to slow the shutter speed even more than it already was from the lower light.
Just as I was getting in the groove of things with this composition and getting the last bit of fine tuning done to it, I noticed a group of fishermen coming into the frame to the left. There were about five of them and they had a bright yellow kayak with them which they plopped down on the sand. I could see that they were putting up fishing poles which pretty much ensured that they were going to be here for a while. I kept shooting frames hoping that I could clone them out, if necessary, but it was looking like that was going to be a difficult task thanks to the sea oats that I had wanted in the scene. After about 10 minutes, I gave up on the composition and started to look for an alternate.
The next composition was just a variation on the first. I had fallen in love with the lighting and didn’t want to lose that quality in the photo. I just moved to the left a bit so as to push them further to the left in the frame. I then narrowed the focal length down a bit to get a tighter crop on the scene. To make the proportions work, I decided to lose two of the trees and concentrate on the remaining palm tree to the left of the others. It was slanted into the frame, and it was a natural single element I thought. The light was still good, and the exposure values hadn’t really changed from the previous composition which meant that I was ready to start making exposures from this new angle.
Just as I was getting in the groove of this new composition, the group of fishermen started to come to the right even more which entered into the frame pretty quick. I had framed the left side of the shot just inbound from their location. When they started to move, they entered the frame almost immediately. I recomposed slightly to eliminate them once again, and then realized that they had put the kayak in the water, and it was pulling a net of some sort. Of course, they were coming right into my frame with the boat as well. I tried to time my shots as the boat was between the sea oats, but that was becoming difficult at best. I made a lot of exposures here with the hopes that I was going to be able to work the distractions out of the frame in post.
With all that I was focusing on, the light was no longer part of that equation. I hadn’t noticed that the sun was now being blocked by one of the thin clouds behind me and the quality of light had dwindled. It was all for the best since more and more distractions were coming into the frame. There was even a moment when Toni and Aulani started to walk into the frame from the right. A quick phone call, and they moved back over to the right and out of the frame. If it was only that easy with everyone that wondered into the shot. The composition was doomed though, as the light was gone, and more and more people kept entering it. I was hoping that I had at least one from the 20 or so frames that I had shot here over the past 30 minutes or so.
I didn’t pack up the camera, but I picked it up and went to meet Toni who was heading back to the room. I was hoping for at least one more composition before the sun went down. Evening photography is not always the best for the Atlantic coast, but there have been times when I have gotten very lucky with colors and the sky. Maybe this time would be the same. I was running out of options though as I was just about back at the hotel. I met up with Toni as she was rinsing off her feet and all of Aulani. You see, when a five-year-old puts their feet in the ocean, it usually turns into full body wet down which it did this time too. While they were doing that, I happened to notice the wicker baskets that held some large cushions. I had seen these earlier when Aulani and I had gone for our walk and had hoped that there might be a situation when I could photograph them. The light was working for this subject which prompted me to start looking through the camera.
I found a composition that would work and found that there were a couple of clouds in the sky to add some interest to the composition. I didn’t have long to get this one made because the light was falling very quickly. Once I got the composition set, I looked at the exposure and saw that the exposure latitude might be a little wide for the best overall exposure, so I went to the bag and pulled out a 3-stop ND grad. This helped, but I still felt that the sky was going to be too bright. I added another 2-stop grad and that gave me a histogram that I really liked. I was ready to start making exposures.
As was the case with the palms earlier, the wind was causing motion issues. I was already at ISO 800 which is my personal limit with the camera. Now that things were even darker, I had to get more light into the lens which forced me to open the aperture to f/5. Fortunately, I was at 24mm which gave me a pretty wide depth of field, so I felt like I could absorb the f/5 aperture for the sake of a faster shutter speed. Things were looking pretty good, but the light was falling rapidly. Each exposure required an extra 1/3 of a stop of light from the shutter speed. The image that you see here is the sixth image I shot of this composition. It had the best blend of lighting across the scene, and the motion was frozen. The exposures after this showed too much motion in the vegetation which eliminated them from being keepers.
When I finally finished this series, I had shot 34 frames for the evening. I felt pretty good about the palm tree compositions but wasn’t sure about the basket at the end. Before I got back to the room, I went to the car and dropped off the camera in the trunk. Yes, I put the camera in the car for the night. There was a really good reason for this though. Our room did not have a private balcony which I really like having at the beach so I can leave the camera outside during the evening. I do this because over the years I’ve run into severe problems with the lenses fogging over in the humidity of the morning after sitting in a room with the A/C blowing cold and dry air. By leaving the camera outside, it is normed to the temperature, and I get to avoid that problem. Since there was no private balcony, and no way to leave the bag outside with any hope of it still being there in the morning, I put it in the trunk of the car for safe keeping.
After that little diversion, I went back to the room and found out that the tub didn’t have a stopper which meant that Toni had called for maintenance to come to the room to replace it so Aulani could take a bath. Well, that didn’t go so smoothly and there was no way to replace it. That among other things were kind of problematic with the room. We went several rounds with the front desk over the stopper and eventually, they just stopped calling back. We adapted and got her bathed before Toni and I got cleaned up from being outside. It had been a long day, and it was time for all of us to head to bed. My plan for the morning was to get up at 4am and start walking to Driftwood Beach by 4:30 knowing it would take an hour or so to make the journey on foot. The weather was looking promising with some high clouds during sunrise and then partly cloudy skies after that.
We had driven out to Driftwood Beach after dinner to see what it looked like, but I didn’t walk all the way out to the beach while we were there. I just wanted to get an idea where it was in relation to the hotel so I could better plan the hike out there. I had no idea what I was in store for, but I was looking forward to checking it out and getting some really interesting photos based on what I had seen in the past. It was just a little over six hours away that I was going to be embarking on that journey. It was going to be epic, or at least that was what I thought.
Join me back here tomorrow as I talk about how the first morning on Jekyll Island went. We will be going through this trek in four parts to keep things organized and a bit easier to read. This entry is more or less an introduction to the trek. I’ve seen all of the photos, and believe me, you are in for a treat. What you see in this entry are really just my attempt to get familiar with the place and get myself into a mindset to be able to capture coastal images once again. I might not have felt all that confident about these first 34 frames, but they had done their job. I was in a coastal mood, and I was ready to fill up some memory cards with images from the Georgia coast.
Remember that any of the photos that appear in the blog can be had as prints. There is really no better way to enjoy these photos than in the final form that they were intended. Not only are you ensured to see the colors that I intended, but you will also see the full resolution photo which is not possible here. Starting with my last trek, I have made the photos larger at 1500 pixels on the long side for better viewing. That increase in size has come at a price though. I’ve had to reduce the quality through image compression to meet the upload size that I aim for to allow for quicker page loading. While the photos are still a very good indication of what the prints will look like, there is just no substitute for a physical image. Go ahead and get your signed print now and be among the first to enjoy the newest of my coastal photographs.
See you soon!
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