Thankfully, the cars didn’t collide.

I'll be the first to admit that "the Great Swamp" doesn't sound confidence-inspiring for an engagement photoshoot. However, look past its name and you'll see a gem of a location, tucked away just a few miles from my home in New Jersey. 

Its decay is only just beginning, which made it all the more fascinating.

Ruminations on upstate NY > Portland, ME > Mystic, CT

Not everything about Ellis Island was full of stereotypical promise and possibilities. Sometimes it ended here, at the contagious disease wards. 

If you read my blog post from earlier this month, you'll know that a fantastic old building is being knocked down, and I'm pissed off about it. This week, I've decided to document what I could, from a distance, of what's left of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital (Kirkbride Building). In all likelihood, more has come down since I took these shots on Sunday.

I guess it's the ocean that brings out the photographer in me. Or maybe it's the break from Reddit and the Internet at large. Whatever it was, I was more than eager to explore an oft-visited area of the country -- Mystic, Connecticut and the surrounding areas -- armed with cameras. Specifically, I came out swinging with my Fujifilm X100s, Lee ND filters, iPhone 6 Plus, and my new 85mm f1.8 for the Nikon.

It finally began to feel like autumn these past few weeks in New Jersey. I had a few pumpkin beers, ate some apples, started following football (for four days) -- most importantly, though, I managed to get some neat long exposures at Merrill Creek Reservoir, just near the border with Pennsylvania.

Morning hikes are my favorite of all. Probably because I'm never awake early enough to enjoy them! I finally shook off the webs of sleep to join my friend Nate this morning for a hike around Split Rock Reservoir, a sprawling lake just a few miles off of the local interstate. 

I finally got around to exploring Greenwood Gardens, a local garden preserve that's been in my town for decades. It's hidden away inside Old Short Hills Park, and I only recently realized it was there in the first place!

The challenge that film photography poses is still fun to this day, albeit in a different form -- taking your oh-so-convenient digital camera and limiting yourself as you would if you had a single roll of film, and no way to check your work. It's 36 exposures or less, at a fixed ISO, and making these images as manually as you possibly can. Through the pain of restriction, the intent is that you'll spend more time thinking about what you're about to shoot, rather than firing your camera from the hip and hoping something comes of it.