My initial plan was to photograph the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel, using a long exposure to create exciting light trails of the vehicles entering and exiting the tunnel. The heavily congested area with a spectacular nighttime view of the New York City cityscape is called “The Lincoln Tunnel Helix”.
I wanted to capture something visually exciting for this weeks challenge. But the logistics of that plan overwhelmed me. Light trails are the best capture after dark, and we are in early summer in New Jersey, which means the sun goes down much later in the day. A late night trip to that part of Weehawken would be challenging given that street parking is minimal and the entrance to the “Helix” can only be seen from one corner at the end of the block on one street in this residential neighbourhood. I set the Lincoln Tunnel project aside for another time.
My backup plan was to find and shoot a scene along one of the historic roads in the area. But as I drove around this morning working through my mental list of interesting roads, I realised that this wasn’t going to work either. All of the roads in this area are narrow one-lane county roads with ditches on either side and no shoulder to pull over, and this being New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the USA, even at 7 AM on a Saturday there is traffic on these narrow small town country roads.
I sat at the computer, feeling disappointed, and looking through my Adobe Lightroom Catalogue, hoping to spark more ideas. None came. I consoled myself with pulling a few images from the catalogue.
This capture of the tree-lined Blue Spring Road was taken in the fall of 2018 a few weeks after the leaves of the trees were starting to change colour. I was out for a walk and noticed the light coming over the hill was hitting the tops of the trees. The trees looked like they were on fire. The only camera I had on me was my iPhone.
The second image below was captured a year later, almost to the day, on my Fujifilm X-T2.

Blue Spring Road—FujiFilm X-T2 + XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR
MichaelStephenWills
8th January 2020 at 6:07 AMThis is a great spot and well captured.
Khürt Williams
8th January 2020 at 8:42 AMThank you, Michael.
Hammad Rais
17th June 2019 at 7:00 AMWow!
This looks so gorgeous 🙂
Khürt Williams
11th October 2019 at 12:39 PMThanks Hammad.
poetalegre
15th June 2019 at 6:06 PM@khurtwilliams It's amazing what can be done with an iphone camera; beautiful.
Khürt Williams
17th June 2019 at 9:00 AM@poetalegre And they keep getting better. I still very much prefer the flexibility of the images from my Fujifilm camera, but my iPhone has become my ever-present point-n-shoot.