Sand and Seas – Part One
A Summer Tale for Winter Days
By: Astrid Hiemer - Feb 29, 2016
Oceans and beaches are my playground anywhere I happen to be with a camera around my neck. That’s my life-long bliss, having grown up by the North- and Baltic Seas and along the expanse of the river Elbe in Hamburg, Germany. There are hundreds, if not thousands of photographs from years, when the world still developed all photographs. To dive into that photo-trove will have to wait.
Currently, I perused a few years of my digital photography, ending last summer, and developed a multi-part project. There are 3 to 4-thousand photographs whittled down to 220 images to make visible photo essays that describe my view at the end of land, where the sea begins.
Always watching carefully what goes on around me, the first part flashes out activities on beaches and oceans. The majority of the photos were taken on the East Coast, on several beaches in Massachusetts and while spending some hours on ships traveling the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, the photo-story begins with my first very successful whale watch trip from Cape Cod. What a glorious day and what a great photo catch! I just regret that the tall tail flip of several whales got away - whats there to say? Well, the photo series almost says it all!
Then, there are other photographs that were taken during our California trip, while we stayed at a lovely beach side inn, on Sunset Beach/Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles. Of course, the surfers were particularly attractive to me and so was a young photographer, whom I watched doing his work. We happened to stroll along a wide pier and came upon young people in costumes and painted faces. That was not Halloween, or was it? So, I’m presenting here vignettes in an attempt to convey a larger story that we experienced along beaches and oceans.
The second part of Sand and Seas will offer more reflective motifs: Empty – vast beaches; macro and micro photographs; birds and plants; abstract – textured images; and finally, the Blood Moon, a total eclipse on September 27, 2015, which I captured on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts.
Please enjoy!