Starting in the Inlet, I wandered around by the base of the pier next to the closed-for-the-season Jolly Roger park. The internet likes vertical photos, but I like horizontal ones. What follows are photos I took horizontally and edited into vertical, for fun as much to make me concentrate on taking a perfectly normal photo and finding the alternate angles in it. Remember to send your own alternate photos to us for inclusion in crown-sourced photo blogs. Or email me if you want to start your own Ocean City, Annapolis or Maryland photo blog.
Since winter is the season for dormancy every year I try and get a photo of the practically-deserted mid-week inlet. It’s a nice reminder that the rides are just waiting out the winter and will be up and running again very soon.This is one of those places that is as overdone as it is constantly new. Sometimes there is a line for people taking photos under the pier because it is so artsily framable and so iconic. Instead, this time I tried un-framing it, for better or for worse. The best part for me is catching the spray as the waves break.I’d never noticed the under the pier aid station before. There were lots of “No Trespassing” signs in the window, so I assumed it was closed. But I was able to make may way up and onto the dunes for some alternate angle ocean shots after this. What was particularly cool for me was seeing the roller coaster from this angle it’s easy to imagine it in a whole new light.Boid tracks. I surmised as much because they just started and ended, as if whatever animal left them had just flitted into place and flew away again. The area next to the aid station and just below the Jolly Rogers pier was something of a bird haven I thought at first. Before too long it occurred to me that the reason there were so many bird tracks was there wasn’t and foot traffic here, neither were there waves to wash the bird tracks away.
One of the things that erases bird tracks are these huge pieces of lumber that are dragged through the sand to keep (one supposes) the detritus to a minimum and also flatten out the beach after a long day of trampling and hole digging. I’m certain it is as much a preservation method as an aesthetic choice. I’ve been trying to shoot low things from low angles with more and less success during these tips. I like this because it isn’t immediately obvious what’s in the photo.I took a bunch of photos by just sticking my camera through the gate at the Jolly Roger boardwalks attractions. This is (I believe) the swingless swingset. Note: A reader pointed out that it was likely a double-decker carousel. Thanks, Bonnie! Things are covered and you can see the path through to the front of the pier beyond. I have a particular love for the closed up winter boardwalk. It’s a Zen think I think. Summer is always just more or less there, if you look hard enough.This is the chopped up version of the main photo. Just like the first photo I took for this series it’s the ferris wheel and the roller coaster, but from vastly different angles.
Tony Russo has worked as a print and digital journalist for the better part of the 21st century, writing for and editing regional weeklies and dailies before joining the team that produces OceanCity.com and ShoreCraftBeer.com among other destination websites. In addition to having documented everything from zoning changes to art movements on the Delmarva Peninsula, Tony has written two books on beer for the History Press. Eastern Shore Beer was published in 2014 and Delaware Beer in 2016. He lives in Delmar, Md. with his wife Kelly and the only of his four daughters who hasn't moved out. Together they keep their two dogs comfortable.
