Some of us yearn for the simple days, way back when Delta was the variant of concern. Delta is the fourth letter in the ancient Greek alphabet, the one used by virologists earlier in 2021 to give a name to the latest twist and turn.
If only certain people and certain governments were more willing to use all of the tools available to us in our modern medical armamentarium we might not have to consider Omicron–the 15th letter out of 24 for the Greeks–as we enter into the third year of the pandemic.
Here’s hoping we run out of variants before we run out of letters of the alphabet. Hoping 2022 turns out better than 2021 ended.
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Athens, Greece.Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Ring Them Bells. Paleokstritsa. Corfu, Greece. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.The Path. Monemvasia, Greece. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.
The end of this unpleasant year is within sight. Time is precious, but speaking for myself, I’m looking forward to seeing 2021 in the rear view mirror.
2020 was bad, 2021 was ugly. There are, we hope, brighter days in 2022.
The hope we have is offered by the arrival of vaccines and the good sense of billions around the world who have chosen to protect themselves and those around them. There are, alas, still many who choose to–or are forced by economic circumstance–to continue to exist in darkness.
The fall colors of New England are as spectacular as ever. I’ve framed a few here in recent photos of sunrise, sunset and the hours in between.
Sunrise over Boston Harbor, Fall of 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Inside and Outside the Museum. Fall colors surround the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Fall, 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Essex Street. Salem, Massachusetts. Fall, 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Noontime at Center Cemetery. Salem, Massachusetts. Fall, 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.A Fiery Sunset in Boston. November, 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.The Last Light at Fort Point Channel. Boston, Massachusetts. Fall, 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.
From a distance the world looks blue and green, and the snow-capped mountains white. From a distance the ocean meets the stream, and the eagle takes to flight.
From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land. It’s the voice of hope, it’s the voice of peace, it’s the voice of every man.
From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need. And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed.
The wistful, optimistic song is “From a Distance”, written by Julie Gold and performed by more than a few fine singers including Bette Midler and Nancy Griffith.
I thought of the song when my wife and I ventured out of our cocoon recently on a carefully selected and protected cruise: not to one of the grand cities of Europe, not to one of the spectacular fjords and mountains of Chile or Norway or Alaska, in fact not more than about five miles from our home along the sea.
We ventured by small boat eastward to Spectacle Island outside of Boston harbor. Spectacle is one of some 20 or so small islands that are remnants of the great Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered most of what is now Canada and the American northeast between 20,000 and 95,000 years ago.
Spectacle Island is, in geological terms, a drowned drumlin pair. Two small rounded hills of sediment–most likely leftover from the Canadian Shield north of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. For more than three decades we lived on Nantucket Island about 100 miles further south of Boston, a place that is also a remnant of the glacier, a terminal moraine, and home to a few large boulders that had been moved south 500 or so miles all the way down from Canada.
When we climbed Spectacle Island’s south drumlin (all of about 150 feet above sea level) we were rewarded with a lovely autumn view into the harbor looking at the distant towers of downtown.
All looked well…from a distance.
From Spectacle Island, looking toward Boston. Photo by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.
Here’s another one, from a 2017 trip around South America.
Offshore of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. Photo by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.
Like Madeline Kahn channeling Marlene Dietrich in Mel Brooks’ masterpiece “Blazing Saddles.” Tired, tired of playing the game.
Like Ray Davies and “The Kinks.” Cause I’m so tired, tired of waiting.
Like John Lennon and “The Beatles.” I’m so tired, my mind is on the blink.
Cruising has sorta-kinda resumed, with medically curated itineraries and strange new onboard and onshore activities.
Someday, our ship will come in, when enough people take the jab thoughtfully instead of throwing them mindlessly.
We took a ferry across the harbor a few weeks ago and it felt wonderful. Next step? Perhaps a cruise…
Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay. Alghero, Sardinia. Photo by Corey SandlerCatching some rays. Acapulco, Mexico. Photo by Corey SandlerWaiting for the End. Quebec City, Canada. Photo by Corey Sandler
All photos and text copyright 2021 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. If you’d like to obtain a copy of an image please contact me.
So, as John Lennon once cribbed: Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.
First came Covid and disease, then came vaccines.
Earlier this year, for those of us with common sense, came cautious steps toward a resumption of Life Before the Pandemic.
And now with a fourth more invasive wave, something wicked this way comes.
So while we were busy making plans, life happened.
For reasons more personal than I care to share on the internet, we’re going to wait a few more months before we head out to sea. Watch this space for details.
Details…
Window in the Pope’s Palace in Avignon, France. Corey Sandler, 2013
Helsingin päärautatieasema, Helsinki Central Station. Corey Sandler, 2010
Palazzo Interior, Venice. Corey Sandler 2010Waiting, La Rochelle, France. Corey Sandler, 2018
All text and photos copyright 2021 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.
With thanks (and apologies) to Stephen Sondheim, some 20 months into the bleepin’ pandemic, I’m Still Here.
We’re not yet at the end of our trial by virus, but at least for some of us a new form of normality appears to be in sight. We’ve still got to get the rest of the world vaccinated—the poor, the isolated, and the deniers.
My scheduled August travels have been pushed back a few weeks, into September.
Sondheim once more: Here’s to the people who cruise.
Foggy Bottom. Fort Point Channel, Boston. July 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler
Good times and bum times, I’ve seen them all and, my dear, I’m still here.
Follies.Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, 1971.
Erie Canal near Waterford, New York. October, 2004. Photo by Corey SandlerOn the Mississippi. January, 2006. Photo by Corey Sandler
I got through all of last year And I’m here. Lord knows, at least I was there, And I’m here! Look who’s here! I’m still here!
Follies.Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, 1971.
All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Please contact me to obtain copies or for permission to use.
A journey of a thousand miles (or more…) begins with a single step.
So says an ancient Chinese proverb, perhaps uttered by Laozi in the 6th century B.C.E.
I imagine Laozi or Lao-tzu was preparing for a long walk, or perhaps a ride by water buffalo from one part of the vast lands of the Qin Dynasty to another.
I’m pretty sure it did not involve taking a taxi to the airport, boarding a jumbo jet, landing at a far distant airport, and then being handed a flute of champagne at the gangway of a sleek luxury cruise ship. And I’m certain it did not include more than a year in near-quarantine, two jabs of a preventative vaccine, and infrared temperature monitors at the borders.
But listen, I’m not complaining. We’re starting to get ready to begin to initiate new travels.
With thanks to the doctors and scientists and certain politicians, we’re grateful. We have begun moving about in our own country, and we look forward–fingers crossed–to heading out to sea In August. soon.
You can check on our intended schedule in the section of this blog called, “Where in the World is Corey Sandler?” I check it often whenever I lose track of where I am.
So I’ve been thinking:
What is This? I’ve passed in front of this hatch on the wall of an old building near the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal many times over the years and I still don’t know exactly what the Bright New Idea was. A coal chute? An ash cleanout? I will be forever grateful to the provider of the answer. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.In Fact, I’ll Buy You a Drink. Meet me at the bar, here in Mariehamn, in the Åland Islands, which–just for confusion’s sake–is a mostly Swedish-speaking exclave of Finland with a port (Maria’s Harbor) named after German-born Russian Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Make that two drinks. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Followed by Dinner. I know where to get the tools, here in the Quebec City banlieue of Saint-Saveur. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.I’ll Be at the Bar. Looking forward to seeing you soon, with hopes you’ll be more lively than my friends here on Washington Street in Boston who have been waiting to be served since the place was shut down in March of 2020. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.
And In Other News
Meanwhile, although Boston’s Black Falcon cruise terminal has not welcomed a passenger ship since the fall of 2019, there was a notable arrival just recently.
On June 22, the massive special purpose heavy haul cargo ship Zhen Hua 15 eased her way into the Reserved Channel in Boston’s seaport, carrying three gigantic cranes that will be installed across the water from the cruise terminal to allow loading and unloading of some of the largest container ships in use today.
Zhen Hua 15 took a 10-week trip from Shanghai, down and around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa and then across the Atlantic to Boston to deliver a pair of 205-foot-tall heavy lift cranes and a third crane of merely 145 feet in height. (Why the relatively smaller one? As anyone who has ever sailed into Boston knows, the cruise and cargo terminals are very close to one of the main runways of Logan Airport and all construction has to harmonize with overhead airplanes. In addition, when certain very large cruise or cargo ships come in to port, the air traffic controllers at Logan temporarily shut down the north-south runway for safety.)
I made a visit to see the cranes, still mounted on the ship while final preparations were underway to install them ashore.
Big News in Boston. All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.
Sometimes it feels like a murky haze, a fever dream.
From sketchy news reports in December of 2019 to a warning at the start of 2020 to a full-blown global pandemic.
Here we are a year-and-a-half later, and in some parts of the globe we can see the edge of the woods. The problem remains: those billions of people who are not yet able to get a vaccine, and those millions of people who deny science and fact.
I’ll step down from my soapbox with one sigh of exasperation: This is getting old.
That’s what I was thinking on my morning constitutional as I experimented with a new art tool I have added to my state-of-the-art digital camera; a digital filter that all but travels back in time a century or so. All of these pictures are new versions with an old electronic eye:
Union Oyster House in downtown Boston. Photo art 2021 by Corey Sandler
The Northern Avenue Railroad Bridge in Boston. Photo art 2021 by Corey Sandler
Boston Hahbah. Photo art 2021 by Corey Sandler
Faneuil Hall, Boston. Photo art 2021 by Corey Sandler
Quincy Market. Photo art 2021 by Corey Sandler
The Old State House, Boston. Photo art 2021 by Corey Sandler
And this just in: fingers crossed, we expect to return to something close to normal cruising soon. It’s still a moving target, as we hope that the virus is driven into obscurity by vaccines, science, and good manners.
See the page on this website, “Where in the World is Corey Sandler?” for my upcoming schedule which is beginning to fill out for this year and beyond.
Here’s wishing us all fair winds, following seas, and perfect health.
All photos and text copyright 2021 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. If you would like to obtain or use a copy of any photo, please contact me.
We’re into the second year of contagion and caution.
We’ve been vaccinated. We’ve dusted off our luggage.
What we need is a ship and places to go.
I went for my solitary early morning walk the other day, a peregrination usually without a specific goal, seeing where my feet would take me…and I ended up again at the empty Black Falcon cruise terminal in Boston.
The flags and the banners and the gangways were all there. The ships were not.
Soon, maybe.
This Way to Where the Ships Should Be. Boston, April 2021. Photo art by Corey Sandler
A Shadow of a Ship. Halifax, Canada, September 2017. Photo by Corey Sandler
All text and photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. If you would like to use any of my photos, please contact me.
At midnight we arrive not at tomorrow but instead at a new version of today.
Deep thinking, I know. It’s been a full year in the Year of Living for Today, with plenty of time for at-home philosophical discourse.
Like the first green shoots of spring, there are signs of hope. Vaccines have arrived and are making their way into arms left and right, although there is still a vast gap between first world countries and the rest of the planet.
Which raises the issue: once those of us lucky enough to obtain protection are ready to travel, where do we go?
Cruise lines are making plans once again; let us hope.
I know we’re ready.
So, on the subject of new beginnings, here are some sunrises.
Sunrise over Boston Harbor, March 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Looking East from the Boston Seaport toward Portugal, March 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Boston Public Garden at dawn, March 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Downtown Boston near dawn, March 2021. Photo by Corey SandlerSunrise on Monument Street in Charlestown north of Boston, March 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler
We have arrived at the one-year mark in our global slowdown/lockdown/just-plain-down Covid-19 era.
Groundhog Day was funny. Covid Year not so much.
There are some reasons for cautious optimism. Vaccines are here, and slowly making their way into waiting arms. We still need to have safe places to visit.
I hate it when the recorded voice on the telephone says, “Thank you for your patience.” What makes them think I am patient?
While we wait, here’s Part 2 of Ship Shapes from my archive of voyages past.
High-tech Sails, Nevis. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2004, all rights reserved.Ship-spotting along the Amazon River in Brazil. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2006, all rights reserved.Life is a Beach. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2003, all rights reserved.Old and New in Stavanger, Norway. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2019, all rights reserved.Through the Fog, Dimly. Tórshavn, Faroe Islands. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2018, all rights reserved.The Circus Comes to Town, Marseille, France. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2018, all rights reserved.Reflections of Stavanger, Norway. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2018, all rights reserved.Ghost Ship. Boston’s Black Falcon Cruise Terminal, February 27, 2021. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2021, all rights reserved.
All photos copyright by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Contact me to obtain rights to use any image.
For more than 30 years we lived on a small island out to sea. We came ashore just a bit more than a year ago and now reside on the mainland, high up in a gilded tower above the North Atlantic.
It has now been a full year since the virus hit the fan, spewing disease and death and a deep freeze nearly everywhere in the world.
In that time our world contracted. Like watching a slow-motion domino topple, we saw the cancellation of eight cruises in Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Scandinavia.
We are ready, but we still don’t know when we can return to the life aquatic.
There’s hope in new vaccines, new protocols, and new leaders.
Since we cannot yet construct fully formed plans, I spent a morning looking back at fragments. I reached back twenty years or so for a starting point.
Call them Ship Shapes. Here’s the first installment; I’m hoping this series will have a limited run.
At anchor off Panama City, Panama in the Pacific Ocean. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2005, all rights reserved.Circular Quay, Sydney, Australia. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2004, all rights reserved.Below the Chateau, Quebec City, Canada. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2007, all rights reserved.Megaship Row, Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2006, all rights reserved.Shore Leave in Fakarava, Tuamato Archipelago. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2006, all rights reserved.Magdalenefjord in Svalbard near the the North Pole. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2005, all rights reserved.On the Amazon. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2006, all rights reserved.Bow Wave at Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2009, all rights reserved.Sunset in the Caribbean. Photo by Corey Sandler, copyright 2009, all rights reserved.
All photos copyright by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Contact me to obtain rights to use any image.
In many cultures, at midnight on the last day of the calendar, the old year is ushered out the back door and the new year welcomed at the front.
Last night, we did just that. Good riddance to 2020, a year that for most of us brought (almost) nothing worth celebrating.
A long, long year ago on New Year’s Eve, we were at sea, sailing north along the coast of Baja California from Mexico, headed for San Diego and eventually Los Angeles. (You can read about that trip by scrolling down to the entry for 3-4 January 2020.)
When we disembarked on 4 January, we were looking forward to a few months’ break before heading back to cruises in Norway, around the British Isles, and South America. It was going to be a busy year.
Instead, 2020 became the Year When Time Stopped.
By March, one after another cruise contracts were canceled and after 15 years of globe-trotting we have instead stayed home. Literally.
From our home high in the sky over Boston harbor, we can see the Black Falcon cruise terminal where not a single cruise ship visited in 2020. On my early morning walks, I find Downtown Crossing, the heart of Boston, scarcely crossed. And Boston Common is uncommonly empty.
But there is hope in the form of the painfully slow rollout of an exceptionally speedily developed vaccine.
If all goes well…
…we can hope that sometime soon–perhaps in this new year–we will once again be able to venture far and near.
As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said in 1942, as the tide of World War II seemed to be turning, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Recent Photos
Boston’s Faneuil Hall. Photo by Corey Sandler
Boston at Dawn. Photo by Corey Sandler
The Final Full Moon of 2020, early 30 December. Known in New England as the Cold Moon, it was (how could it be anything else in this year?) the 13th full moon of 2020. Photo by Corey Sandler
Photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. To purchase a photo or obtain rights to use an image, please contact me.
We have arrived at the final month of this awful year.
Here’s an indisputable, nonpartisan hope for 2021: health and safety, serenity and comity, science above silliness…and at some point a return to travel.
In my still-abundant spare time, I have been harvesting skies from the many thousands of photos I have taken around the world in the past few decades. And I’ve been adding new ones from here in New England; socially distanced through the lenses of my camera.
When it comes to photography, I am at heart a traditionalist. I search for great scenes, incorporate a strong composition, and always hunt for dramatic lighting.
But these days, my travels are essentially confined to early morning expeditions into the near-deserted city or observations of the harbor and the ocean from our aerie high above Boston’s Seaport.
And so I have taken to creating images that are a composite: a scene from one place with a sky from another. Here are some of the fantastical results: travel to two places at once without leaving my home.
Barcelona meets a Boston Sunset. Photo art by Corey SandlerDevil’s Island, French Guiana posing against an equatorial Pacific sky. Photo art by Corey SandlerA sunny summer afternoon in Buenos Aires, Argentina with a cloudy wintry sky from Boston. Photo art by Corey SandlerCathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain with a Kailua, Hawaii sunset. Photo art by Corey SandlerLanzarote, Canary Islands…with the sky over Mount Etna in Sicily. Photo art by Corey Sandler.Vineyard in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and sunset at Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. Photo art by Corey Sandler
All photos copyright 2020 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Contact me to obtain rights to use any image.
We are still adrift in the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief and the epoch of incredulity.
As we move from a dismal spring and summer into a winter of foreboding, we can hope that relief lies before us.
My words derive from the famous opening lines of Charles Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities”, published in 1859.
About the same time, in 1853, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker declared, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. rephrased those words poetically: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Last night, the arc of the moral universe bent toward justice, and that is a transcendent good.
That other arc, the awful accounting of sickness and death in this dreadful year, is bending as well, and still not in a good way.
It will be a while before we can inhale freely. And it will be a while before we can resume something close to our way of life as it existed in January 2020, before the worst of times took hold.
I generally take my constitutionals in the early morning, and today I found myself drawn east to the Black Falcon Terminal, the cruise port of Boston.
Not a single cruise ship has made a scheduled call at the port in all of 2020.
Sunrise at Black Falcon Cruise Terminal, November 8, 2020. Photo by Corey Sandler
Here in my office, I bide my time doing some writing and revisiting my collection of tens of thousands of travel photos I have taken on our various journeys. I continue to uncover hidden gems, and I also have shifted my focus slightly in the direction of artistic reinterpretations of reality.
Bending another arc, you might say.
Here are a few recent works.
Bryggen in Bergen, Norway. March 2019. Photo Art by Corey SandlerAntwerp, Belgium. June 2013. Photo Art by Corey SandlerBilbao, Spain. September 2015. Photo Art by Corey SandlerSunrise over Boston Harbor. October 2020. Photo by Corey SandlerBaobob at Sunset. Photo Art by Corey Sandler
All photos copyright 2020 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Contact me to obtain rights to use any image.
Singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler’s beautiful song, “When Fall Comes to New England” says of this season:
The nights are sharp with starlight And the days are cool and clean And in the blue sky overhead The northern geese fly south instead And leaves are Irish Setter red
The nights and the days and the skies are indeed sharp and cool and blue.
And her description of the leaves is poetry of the highest form.
Of course, there’s a “but” coming; you knew that. But in this annus horribulus, this horrible year, everything is socially distant.
We’re hoping for fresh air and a return to something close to normalcy in coming months. Each night we raise a toast to health, happiness, sensibility, and hope. We can hope.
My terrace garden, 200 feet in the air above Boston harbor, felt the first nip of frost the other night.
There is no official place called New England, but it is usually meant to include the northeast American states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Some of us are willing to grant admission to the eastern part of what was once British North America in Canada including Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador.
In my office, I have spent much of the viral confinement harvesting previously unripened photos of autumns in New England, from New York east and north to Atlantic Canada.
The Hudson River near Bear Mountain in New York State. Photo by Corey Sandler.Portland, Maine. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.Bar Harbor, Maine. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.Stanhope Beach, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.St. John, New Brunswick. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.Lady Liberty’s Original Torch, from within the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Photo art by Corey SandlerSomes Harbor near Bar Harbor, Maine. Photo art by Corey Sandler. 2003Afternoon sun in Casco Bay, Maine. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2010.Midnight in Moose Factory, Ontario on James Bay. Photo by Corey Sandler
All photos copyright 2020 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Contact me to obtain rights to use any image.
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. So said Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek.
We’re working (some of us, to be precise) to change our present reality to something close to our past reality. I am hopeful we will eventually get beyond the know-nothings and the do-nothings.
But as of the moment, we’re not yet out of the woods.
Or to be more precise, in our case, seven or so months into this pandemic we’re not yet into the city or out on the open ocean.
We live along the water and Boston is still something close to a ghost town; the morning after a zombie apocalypse with just a handful of (mostly) masked people scurrying about. On my early-morning power walks there are days when I am the only one crossing the street in Downtown Crossing and Boston Common is rarely shared.
The Black Falcon cruise terminal in Boston has not had a cruise ship make a call since late in 2019 and probably will go this entire year without a visit. Across the harbor Logan International Airport is open but nearly empty, with a nearly total stoppage to international flights and a minimal amount of domestic traffic.
I am sure there are still places worthy of a photograph and I am always ready, but I have mostly been working on developing my editing skills and thinking about new ways to see old places.
One more quote, from the visionary cynic Mark Twain: You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
In that spirit, here are some photos from my collection that I have revisited with new eyes and a refocused imagination.
A Martian Sky over Valencia, Spain. Photo art by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2020, all rights reserved.Old South Meeting House, Boston. Photo art by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2020, all rights reserved.A Wall to the Sky. Alanya, Turkey. Photo art by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2020, all rights reserved.Painting with Light. Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine, U.S. Photo art by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2020, all rights reserved.Pepper Shack. Avery Island, Louisiana, U.S. Photo art by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2020, all rights reserved.Vamping. Acapulco, Mexico. Photo art by Corey Sandler. Copyright 2009, all rights reserved.
The great Bard Jimmy Buffett wrote, “Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes. Nothing remains quite the same.”
This past December we flew to Valparaiso, Chile at 33⁰ South Latitude, about 2,285 miles below the Equator, to begin a cruise.
When we stepped off the ship in Los Angeles, California in January we had no idea our aqueous journeys were headed for suspension.
We spent mid-January to mid-February on an extended winter holiday in glorious Montreal, 5,435 miles away at 45⁰ North Latitude.
For the past two decades or so, we have been spending about six months of each year aboard ship. By this time–as I write these words in August–we had been scheduled to sail the west coast of South America, then from Iceland over to circle the United Kingdom and on to Norway and next the Baltic Sea. The fall was going to take us to the Greek Isles and Israel.
Instead, 2020 has become The Year on Dry Land, with no certain change in sight.
Cruising will resume, in some form, sometime and we intend to be on board, somewhere.
As an author, I can write anywhere. As a photographer, I see the world through my lenses.
But without changes in in latitude, I’ve been making some changes in creative attitude.
Firmly ensconced on the penultimate floor of a condo tower in Boston’s Seaport, I’ve embarked on a project documenting the changing light of the big city and the harbor.
With my travel circumscribed by the invisible fence of the microscopic virus, I’m exploring artistic enhancements to photos: drawing with light, which is the literal meaning of the word photograph.
All of the images in today’s post are photographs I have taken. When I first took up a camera, we would retreat to the darkroom to dodge, burn, filter, and perform other techniques to find new ways to view the image. Today, digital photography gives us amazing tools to make new versions.
Someone out there is sure to be thinking, “These images are not real.” That is correct.
But I would point out that no photograph is real. The photographer chooses what to include and exclude before the shutter button is pressed. Settings on a lens select short or deep fields of sharpness. The shutter speed determines whether a dancer’s foot is frozen as if not moving, or blurred in action. And today’s advanced digital cameras can literally see in the dark, capturing details not discernible to the human eye.
Here are some of my interpretations of recent photos and a few older images from my back pages.
Impressions of Sunset in Boston, July 2020. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reservedA View of Our Perch in the Sky in Boston’s Seaport. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reservedAn enhanced view of International Place along the water in Boston. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reserved.A Photo Turned Magazine-cover Water Color: Boston from the Seaport. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reserved.Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, Bermuda 2015. Photo art by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.Boi Bumba Dancer, Parintins, Brazil 2015. Photo art by Corey Sandler
All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. If you would like to obtain a print or otherwise make use of an image, please contact me.
When Shakespeare wrote of the “winter of our discontent” in Richard III, he was alluding to a hope for the end of unhappiness.
Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke with less sanguinity in 1963 referencing a “summer of legitimate discontent.”
Shakespeare lived through two outbreaks of the plague. And Dr. King dreamed hewing out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
Does it sound like I have been spending too much time in quarantine?
Without a doubt.
By this time in 2020 we had been scheduled to be in South America, then Iceland and a circle of the British Isles, and then off to the Baltic.
Instead, we make early morning masked forays into nearly deserted Boston, and I conduct late-night photo sessions from our veranda–not on a ship but 200 feet up in the air in a waterfront tower.
We’re waiting for the best of times to return.
Here are some recent photos:
Stormy Skies in Boston. Photo by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reservedFort Point Pop Art. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reservedStarry Night. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reserved
I am on dry land, but feeling so very much out to sea.
We are now—all of us—strangers in a strange land. An
invisible enemy has invaded our world and changed just about everything.
Some among us have been truly heroic, including most medical
and health professionals and the essential workers who supply us with food and
shelter.
For the past 12 years or so, my wife and I have spent about
six months of the year traveling aboard luxurious cruise ships in nearly every
part of the world.
We have been to iconic and well-visited places like London
and Athens and Barcelona and Lisbon and St. Peterburg and Stockholm and Rio de
Janeiro and Valparaiso and Montreal and New York and everywhere in between.
And we have come to port in less-visited but always
fascinating places like Reykjavik, Narsarsuak, Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Les Îles
des Saintes, Devil’s Island, the Falkland Islands, Dakar, Tunis, Bejaia,
Monemvasia, and so many more.
There’s an expression that exists in many countries, many
languages, and many cultures. One version: “Man Plans and God Laughs.”
It’s not a funny matter, but here we are with lots of plans—most
of them canceled and others wobbly at best.
We were supposed to be in South America in February and
March, and beginning to pack soon for an extended cruise from Iceland to the
United Kingdom and on to the Baltic. Oh, and Greece and Israel and Italy in the
fall. And next year’s schedule was equally exciting.
But, as I said, here we are on dry land. I can see the
Atlantic Ocean from my office window. There are no cruise ships in sight and
the skies above are eerily devoid of almost all jet contrails.
Someday we shall resume our explorations. The new normal will
be, I am certain, quite different from what we have all become used to.
In the meantime, take care of each other and hold the
politicians and the profiteers and dishonest conspiratorialists accountable for
the damage they have wrought.
This shall, we hope, someday pass. We look forward to better
times.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
In my unexpectedly expansive free time, I have been revisiting my files of hundreds of thousands of photos. Here are some newly rediscovered delights.
Jour de l’Action de grâce. Thanksgiving in Quebec City. Photo by Corey SandlerDancin’. Santiago-de-Compostela, Spain. Photo by Corey SandlerWatching, waiting. Batumi, Republic of Georgia. Photo by Corey SandlerTulips of a Sort. Amsterdam. Photo by Corey SandlerFrozen. Riga, Latvia. Photo by Corey SandlerMore Umbrellas. Cartagena, Colombia. Photo by Corey SandlerLookout. Macchu Picchu, Peru. Photo by Corey SandlerSky and Ice. Tromso, Norway. Photo by Corey SandlerDays of Black and White. Photo by Corey Sandler
All photos Copyright 2020 by Corey Sandler, All Rights Reserved. Contact me if you would like to purchase an image for personal or commercial use.
