This summer, as I have every summer, I trekked to the Jersey Shore to my family’s summer retreat in Ocean City, New Jersey—Seidle family summer HQ for over four generations. And while I could get all Sandy this or Snooki that, I’d rather focus on what really matters when you go down the shore: the landscape. True, the shore is about sun tans, and bikes, and mini golf, and salt water taffy. But really that’s all just window dressing. Because if you strip away all the pop culture reference points and basically all traces of man’s intervention, the sand and the ocean will still be there looking much the same as they did generations earlier. Like when my great grandfather strolled the beach in one of those itchy woolen bathing suits.
So forget the Skee Ball and Snow Cones for a moment, because it’s really about paying attention to your surroundings and letting the mundane distractions of the day melt away. It’s about listening to the sound of the crashing of waves, breathing in the salt air, and scanning the horizon to see the earth’s arc fall away to your left and your right.
I particularly like to stare out at the horizon at dusk and watch all the colors in the sky melt into each other like the perfect Rocket Pop. This photograph was taken on one of those perfect evenings when the air is still, the ocean calm, and the light a mix of glowing pastel hues.
Some people don’t have the patience to endure the deceptively slow setting of the sun, especially on the east coast where it sets behind you. But for those who can wait, the scene is sublime.
So after zoning out to the soundtrack of the sea for a spell, it’s time once again to press forward into autumn—refocused and rejuvenated.
Kurt Seidle, Senior Designer
