Tag Archives: Travel

November 2020:
Waiting to Inhale

By Corey Sandler

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 Sandler
Antwerp, Belgium. June 2013. Photo Art by Corey Sandler
Bilbao, Spain. September 2015. Photo Art by Corey Sandler
Sunrise over Boston Harbor. October 2020. Photo by Corey Sandler
Baobob 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.

October 2020:
When Fall Comes to New England

By Corey Sandler

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 Sandler
Somes Harbor near Bar Harbor, Maine. Photo art by Corey Sandler. 2003
Afternoon 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.

September 2020:
Imagination Out of Focus

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By Corey Sandler

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.

July 2020:
The Summer of Our Discontent

By Corey Sandler

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:

Fort Point Pop Art. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reserved
Starry Night. Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020. All rights reserved