On My Way To Cape May: Phantom Portraits Of My Hometown

On the Way to

C a p e M a y

[phantom portraits of my hometown] | by christen janine otter

I grew up in a small town. My home for the past 31 years has been historic, Victorian Cape May, the nation‟s oldest resort town with a year-round population of about 3,500—which swells to anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 in the summertime. Folks usually associate Cape May with summer—vibrance, life, and energy. However, they only see the side that is animated from Memorial Day through Labor Day—but for six months we are practically comatose. It is also well known that this charming shore town is one of the nation‟s most haunted cities. In fact, paranormal activity is quite an attraction with haunted trolley tours and a haunted dinner theater downtown.

Susan Sontag (1973) asserts in her essay Photography, “Through photographs, each family constructs a portrait of itself—a kit of images that bears witness to its connectedness” (p. 4). Being newly engaged, I have felt an acute awareness that my life is now on a fast track for change and so I have been doing a lot of thinking about my identity, my roots, and where I come from. I wanted to further define the essence of what it is that has become such a part of me. I decided that before I left home, I would create a portrait of the essence of Cape May, capturing its sense of place as I remember it, and that is my intent in this series.

Walking down the sidewalk downtown feels like you‟ve stepped back in time one hundred years; there is a quaint kind of old-world charm, yet also a beauty that is distinct in its haunting quality. The compositions are images that I took while on a walk downtown, in the Washington Street Mall and along the beachfront. The images have an otherworldly, vapor-like quality to them—they look almost as if they are gradually materializing from another realm, only to disappear.

All things are changed. One mass of shade, The elm trees drop their curtains down; By palace, park, and colonnade I walk as in a foreign town.

The very groud beneath my feet Is clothed with a diviner air; While marble paves the silent street And glimmers in the empty square.

Illusion! Underneath there lies The common life of every day; Only the spirit glorifies With its own tints the sober gray.

From Moonlight - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The photographs that comprise this series are the first of their kind that I have attempted thus far. My creative vision was to take photographs that capture a dream-like quality which might suggest the sense of place you have just after waking up—the memory of your dreamscape slips from your consciousness like a vapor just as you try to grasp it. This is the impression that comes to mind when I think of Cape May. I was deeply inspired by Susan Burnstine‟s work in Absence of Being and wanted to explore a similar theme on my own. Admittedly, this is a theme that is challenging to articulate and even more so to embody in terms of image.

As part of the process of experimentation to achieve my desired surrealist effect, I applied double and triple layers of saran wrap over the lens of the camera on my iPhone 4. (I also used two disposable cameras with a light smear of Vaseline on the lens, but the image quality of the photos was very poor when compared to the digital version.) The time of day that the pictures were taken was from about 5 p.m. until about 9 p.m.; I intentionally waited for a day that was very foggy in order to capture the diffused quality of lighting. Originally, I was going to showcase the color version of the photos however, the black and white filter in my editing program intensified the dream-like quality. Additionally, I chose the black and white filter because it allows the images to speak more as a unified whole in the narrative thread of embodying the haunting beauty and otherworldly presence that is the essence of Cape May to me. I added a vignette to subtly frame the image; however no other special effects were used nor were they necessary. The combination of the diffused light, fog, and layers of saran wrap achieved a phenomenal effect that was over and above what I was hoping for.

Victor Burgin states in Looking at Photographs, “When confronted with puzzle pieces of the „What is it?‟ variety (usually, familiar object shots from unfamiliar angles) we are made aware of having to select from possible alternatives, of having to supply information the image itself does not contain. Once we have discovered what the depicted object is, however, the light and dark tones, of uncertain edges and ambivalent volumes, it now shows a „thing‟ which we invest a full identity, a being” (p. 133).

What is it exactly that infuses an image with a haunting, ghostly quality? Imagine for a moment, that as your eyes pan a scene, your brain forms a “blueprint,” and all the while your mind is aggregating nuances in the image—“jumps” in the algorithm of standard form, shadow, light, and contour if you will. The „nuances‟ are actually subtle, visual aberrations. You can‟t pinpoint the source, but your subconscious generates an impression which is a glimpse of a kind of dual existence, embodied within the same image—one is pedestrian and ordinary, it‟s the world around you. But there‟s more, yet you can‟t quite connect the dots. Your skill of recognition stands suspended—no longer are you the observer—the collective „whole‟ speaks to you as a „shimmer,‟ a flash in the pan, and forever remains out of your mind‟s grip, always beyond your sight. You perceive a thing, yet the frame of reference eludes you. Now, you are the one caught up in a bigger picture.

Burgin asserts that the perception of a „unified body‟ (gestalt) is necessary to the concept of self-identity (p. 133). Additionally, I would add that when one cannot discover the „whole‟ it causes a measure of cognitive dissonance in terms of a perceived loss of control—it‟s when we lose our locus of control, taste the realm of the unknown, however small.

In my representation of this place, the images embody a ghostly essence, as if the veil between the physical world and the spirit realm has worn thin—in the way that you might picture the hand of a person who is reaching toward you, the way the outline of their fingers form an impression on a bed sheet hung up to dry. The visual plane in Phantom Portraits is peppered with these sorts of nuanced otherworldly „indentations.‟ Translated into the language of the photograph, we might say a „blur in the image‟ is a single note that was sung, belonging to a revenant chorus.

In terms of the Rules of Composition, I‟ll explore the image that is my cover photograph which depicts a side view of The Grande Hotel on Beach Avenue. I took this photograph during the earliest part of the photo session when the fog was the heaviest, as I was driving down Beach

Avenue. I am fascinated by the ghostly play of light and shadow which imbue a range of possible interpretations of what we may be looking at.

Due to the subjective quality of the lower third of the image, at a glance, I get the feeling of being both on land and at sea from this image. The combined effect of the diffused lighting due to the fog, three layers of saran wrap on the lens, and black and white filter evoke a feeling of movement, of being on the water out at sea. The shape of the dark gates opening to the hotel driveway suggests boats which are facing us, and it would appear that we are right in the water, possibly floating or waiting for help. The shadows in the lower third of the photo also block out a portion of the hotel, creating a feeling of a barrier. The variegated shadows suggest „billows,‟ giving the impression that we are moving through something and getting closer, yet this feeling is juxtaposed by the depth of field—especially in the midsection, so it also appears as if we are drifting into the unknown, into nothing. In terms of the use of diagonal lines when looking at the hotel, the point of view appears to be more off set than it really is because of the foreground shadows appearing as objects thus throwing our perception off a bit. The softness of the image calls to us, yet its ambiguity haunts us at the same time.

My series On the Way to Cape May, Phantom Portraits of my Hometown is like one song in a symphony of experience, culture and history of all that is „Cape May.‟ As the photographer, I am inexplicably intertwined with my art because the portrayal originated from my point of view.

However, the expression does not solely originate from my subjectivity alone. The „dimension‟ of Cape May that I reveal in my photos is also a shade of perception in the spectrum that others have shared too at one time or another, in varying degrees. Angela Kelly asserts in her article, Self Image, “Artist photographers also borrowed the idea that they could use nature as a metaphor for self. In photographing a „nature‟ they are part of, they purport to reveal a world hitherto hidden that only creative insight can show…The assumption again is that photographers are expressing aspects of their own unique vision when ideas are part of a collective experience, one we all share” (p. 411).

Sources

Burgin, V. (1977, 2003). Looking at photographs. In A. Wells (Ed.), The photography reader (pp. 130—137). New York, NY: Routledge. [PDF] Kelly, A. (1979, 2003). Self image. In A. Wells (Ed.), The photography reader (pp. 410—416). New York, NY: Routledge. [PDF] Sontag, S. (1973, October 18). Photography. The New York review of books. [PDF]