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 week's 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 wouldn’t 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, 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 started changing 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.
