On our return from birthplace in Barbados to Provincetown in June 2021, I decided to continue a practice of early morning beach walks that I had started during the pandemic. It provided good exercise in a beautiful location and there was a social angle as well, seeing many of the same people every day, in a safe, outdoors environment. It also gave me the opportunity to do something I had been promising myself for a while: to get back into photography.

I had found over the past several years a drift from a hobby I very much enjoyed, but faced some challenges, the biggest of which was motivation. While I still take many photographs when I travel, with that activity severely curtailed I recognized again my difficulty in photographing the familiar. A new place? No problem. But a place that I have known for over 40 years...just didn't inspire me.

So I set myself a challenge: photograph and post one shot that I could be proud of every day for a month. But even given that, it was too easy if the entire town was potentially a subject. I could just go around and photograph any of the beautiful, historic buildings and amazing gardens. Easy.

So I created some other constraints. The photos had to be taken on the sunrise walk, of the beach and its immediate surroundings; taken with my iPhone 11 Pro; shot "as is" with no rearranging objects to make it more "artful"; short of rain actually falling I had to make do with the weather as it occurred every morning, fog, clouds and mist notwithstanding; and minimal repetition in subject with as much variety as I could find.

All the while recognizing that I have the privilege to be photographing what I believe to be one of the most beautiful places in the country: a highly dynamic environment with eleven foot tides twice daily, weather that can change on a moment's notice, bountiful sea life and blessed with the world famous "Cape Light" for which painters have come for generations.

​I hope you enjoy the result.

Alan Emtage

October 2021

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