Nostalgia and the Long Exposure

The Long Exposure as Metaphor

As the earth spins its last few revolutions of another year, we often have feelings of nostalgia. It is a time to reflect. To consider things done and left undone, and connections made and missed. It is a time to think about the future.

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North Myrtle Beach, SC. - November, 2022.

A quick overnight visit to see my parents. I set the alarm for 5:30 am to get up, go out, and do some photography. Their cat, Smokey, nudged me awake at 4:00 am. My morning would start much earlier than I had planned.

Overcast. No stars as I peered up through my truck’s windshield, pulling out of the driveway.

Nostalgia.

A few minutes later, I parked. Facing the OD Pavilion.

Window down. The North Atlantic is pounding the sand on the other side of the dunes.

Of course, the OD Pavilion is closed at this hour.

“OD,” around here, means Ocean Drive, the main road running along the beach. There once was an Ocean Drive Beach, but in 1968 it became North Myrtle Beach.

In my youth, I played ski ball and pinball in the OD Pavilion. Then memories on the beach with my parents.

Later in my youth, I played Space Invaders and Dig Dug. Then memories on the beach with my friends.

My children played games here when my young family would come from Raleigh to visit my parents. The games were different from the ones I played, but the painted and peeling concrete floor and the vibe inside of the place was the same.

Out back, between the building and dunes, is a covered patio where beach music plays and people dance the Carolina Shag.

Carolina Shag.

The Carolina Shag is the official dance of South Carolina. My mom and dad taught it to me. They learned it in the early 1960s. I danced it some, but I never loved the dance the way my parents did.

Their photographs are on a wall inside of the OD Pavilion. My dad showed them to me a couple of years ago. Younger versions of them, frozen in time the way photography does. The dance and this area are part of their identity.

To Shag, on the most basic level, dancers shuffle their feet in a certain way and hold hands, alternately getting close and then at arm’s length in time with the music. The better dancers add turns and such.

The dance can be slow and relaxed or fast and chaotic. Like a conversation. The music for it is iconic: General Johnson’s Carolina Girls is played all the time, together with the music of The Embers, The Platters, The Drifters, The Temptations, and so on.

Now, with My Girl playing in the background, take your partner/significant other by the hand and tell them you want to Shag.

Long Exposure as Metaphor.

I put my truck in reverse and pulled away from the OD Pavilion.

Further down the beach, the light pollution would be less. I had a long exposure in mind.

I like long exposures. The passage of time is the photograph’s third dimension.

The first photograph widely believed to capture humans was a long exposure that Daguerre took of a Paris street in 1838. An aspective view of a gent getting his shoes shined, frozen in time on what was most certainly not an empty street.

I am on a footpath between the dunes. Damp sand and a cool breeze. Alone. There would be no humans in my photograph this morning.

My tripod and Mamiya RZ67 are on my shoulder. It’s a heavy setup, but worth the effort to me. I like the way it works and the images it can produce.

I walk between the dim outline of the dunes to my left and the pounding surf to my right. There is an odd feeling that comes with walking in the dark. I’ve noticed the sensation before. Distance, speed, and time are disconnected, as if the formula d=st no longer applies.

Somewhere down the beach, I notice the shape of an isolated dune I like. Isolation and time are the themes of this morning.

Focus and composition is tricky. The dune is dark against a dim sky.

Using the old Luna-Pro and working through the reciprocity numbers, the exposure time is eight minutes. Long exposures on film, no matter how many times I do them, always have that feeling of being a leap of faith.

Camera focused. Tripod locked down. Shutter open. Timer started.

In front of the camera, I illuminate the dune with the light from my phone. Careful not to stand anywhere too long so the film will not record me.

After six minutes, I close the shutter.

A leap of faith.

Dune at Night - 2022

And that was it.

The tide would soon come in and the wind would blow the sand. The evidence of my visit to this place would disappear soon. Of course, I have the photograph. But what does it really show? I have thought about that question and here’s my answer, in a haiku:

     Start. Stop standing still.     
     Footprints in the sand.  That’s me.     
     Pictured but not there.

The rest of the day was much like any other. Mostly routine, mostly forgettable.

I need to change that next year.

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