Cape Cod - After the Storm
Total Fog at Ocean's Edge
By: Astrid Hiemer - Apr 22, 2017
Cape Cod – After the Storm
Total Fog at Ocean’s Edge
Waves are crashing onto the beach at High Hide,
Hitting the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean in Massachusetts
A day after the storm, which was perhaps
A mild storm of 50 to 60 miles per hour.
We are spending a few days in our favorite inn,
Sandbars in North Truro, on Cape Cod.
From here, it’s just a short drive before reaching the fabled Provincetown.
We enjoy the ocean, landscape and towns before Summer Season hits.
We love to walk the beaches!
It is nearly High Tide, beach and ocean are covered in fog
And waves are crashing onto the shore.
A line of debris is drawn into the sand at the top of the beach,
Where waves have not yet reached,
High Tide has not yet crested.
I can still walk along that line
Protected by my bright red down coat,
Head covered with warm hat and hood,
So tightly worn that I can barely focus my camera -
Furiously photographing the still raw weather after the storm
Hoping to visually capture and translate my excitement of the moment
Into images, that may represent nature’s contained fury.
The wind strength, I guess, is still at 20 to 30 mph
And trudging back to the inn at ocean’s edge on Cape Cod
Proves to be tough, while leaning into the stormy wind.
It is exhilarating!
Post Script:
We saw Clifford Ross’s enormous photographs titled:
New Hurricanes 2008/9, in December of 2009
At the Sonnabend Gallery in New York City.
I’m still treasuring a momento from that exhibition.
In 2016, last year, the photographs became part of a new exhibition:
Landscape Seen & Imagined, by Ross
At MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art).
It is our hometown art museum in North Adams.
What a thrill to experience these huge images again as well as his video works:
Digital Hurricane Waves all in black, grey and white tones.
My own photographs were originally covered by heavy fog, barely visible.
Assisted by digital corrections, technology revealed the essence
Of my own work from Cape Cod,
Corrected to certain blues and greens of the water,
White for Gischt (froth) of the waves, and browns of the sand.
Have I been able to translate my exhilaration
During that one-hour, while canvassing a beach in April of 2017?
One of thousands of hours I have spent living on an Ocean’s Edge.
Ergo: Clifford Ross is my hero!