I make one of my favorite pictures of the summer as I'm on my last road-trip, zigzagging across South Jersey on back roads to the Shore. I'm doing this - for a second week - on a last chance to get away, like many of you, before the unofficial end of summer.
t’s early evening on Route 542, just past Green Bank and Lower Bank, when, after a rainy week, the clouds suddenly blow out, promising a beautiful sunset. So I’m looking for something to put in front of it. As I drive over the Wading River, I glance toward the water and see that same purple-blue sky reflected on the placid surface.
Only after I pull over and start walking back toward the middle of the bridge do I notice the bicycles. Then I look down and see the boys fishing. Standing on some pilings are 14-year-old Nathan Hagaman and his 12-year-old friend Jake Adar of nearby Washington. It's hard to imagine a more carefree life.
I like the picture because the scene epitomizes everything my road trips have tried to capture. The drives have been about the freedom to do something you enjoy, with all the time you need to do it - without any self-imposed pressure telling you should be somewhere else already. I never would have seen the boys if I hadn’t gotten out of my car to walk. And would never have noticed the water and sky in the first place if I’d been focused only on getting someplace.
As I said in my first posting here, it's about the journey, not the destination. And that's a perch Jake's pulling in.
I'll be posting more photos this week from my day trip on routes that are an alternative to the AC Expressway, but looking ahead, I'd like to wrap up the summer with some of YOUR road-trip photos. I've gotten a great response from readers like Steve Smith of Burlington, N.J. who shot these sailboats there, racing on the Delaware River.
There is still time to send me your jpegs as e-mail attachments to Roadtrip@phillynews.com. Include info about the photo, including when and where you shot it, along with any of your thoughts about photography along the road.
For more inspiration, click on their names to see photos (like the one at right) by my colleague Eric Mencher, and the essay by Inquirer writer Alfred Lubrano on the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. Kerouac also wrote the introduction for the U.S. version of Robert Frank's seminal photographic book, The Americans.
