Middletown NJ Photography Exhibit: My Reflections

Below are my four contributions to the photography exhibit hosted by the mighty Black Glass Gallery on the theme of "reflections." The opening reception (which is always fun) is Friday, Nov. 3, from 6-9 p.m. at the Middletown Arts Center, and the exhibit will be on display until after Thanksgiving. Hope to see you there! (I'll be arriving a little later, because "traffic to the shore on Friday night" is always traffic to the shore on Friday night... even in November.)

Captions in haiku.

One Vanderbilt

Mirrors in the sky.

Crowds multiplied, divided,

rarified, alone.

Trump World Tower

Vanishing fortress,

haunted by neighboring clouds,

surrounded by ghosts.

Museum of Modern Art

Visiting MOMA,

two lovers reimagine

Rene Magritte’s kiss.

Jersey City

I’m head over heels.

You turn my world upside down.

I never forget.

Here are four others on the same theme, not on display in Middletown but (of course) on my Instagram accounts: @bvarphotos and @foundinnj 🙂

Love Thee, Notre Dame

This Facebook post.

 

10 Slices of Life in New Jersey

Wesley Lake, Asbury Park

Last week (Aug. 29-Sept. 3), I had fun taking over the Jersey Collective Instagram account. And you can too! There's a story pinned to that site with more information about how to apply; another story pinned there will take you to more information about the new "New Jersey Fan Club" anthology.

I've loved raising a family in New Jersey and currently live in Bergen County. About five years ago, I started a Found in New Jersey Instagram account to document the eclectic beauty and whimsy of life in the Garden State.

Below are my recent @foundinnj guest posts at Jersey Collective. It's my own "top 10" list, of sorts, with things to like about New Jersey.

- 1 -

Above are two images of Wesley Lake, with a distant view Ocean Grove from one of my favorite places: Asbury Park.

To get there, I drove down the Turnpike, past Linden's iconic roadside Citgo storage tanks (made world-famous by the opening credits of "Sopranos" episodes), to the Parkway, stopping along the way at the Jon Bon Jovi rest area.

At the Asbury Book Cooperative on Cookman Avenue, I attended one of Project Write Now's Tuesday evening "Write Out Loud" events, open to all.

I read this essay I wrote for one of their classes. I figured, "What better place to talk about Springsteen?" and I was touched to see the audience snap their fingers in appreciation. PWN has great writing courses/events for all ages, and the Asbury Book Coop sells copies of "New Jersey Fan Club" at the front counter. Check it out! Go during the day (after 11:30) and you can ride an Asbury Park Pedal Boat on Wesley Lake too.

- 2 -

More from Asbury Park, from visits over the past year. I like the place most when it's haunted, before and after hours, when the boardwalk is empty and streets outside the Wonder Bar and Stone Pony are quiet. I often visit with friends from Black Glass Gallery for photo meetups at sunrise. Check out the Black Glass Gallery Instagram account, where many of the best photographers from Asbury Park and around the state contribute photos from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.

- 3 -

58 years ago today (Aug. 30), the Beatles toured New Jersey in the back of a fish truck (a limo would have been too conspicuous) before performing that night at Convention Hall in Atlantic City. You can look it up (thanks, Weird New Jersey).

Today, such a magical mystery tour might take them to American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, where they (and now YOU) could ride in an air-conditioned cabin on the Dream Wheel, a 300-foot Ferris wheel, or stroll through an indoor rival to an Octopus' Garden, or film ski scenes for "Help!" at an indoor slope in the middle of summer. I'm not generally a fan of malls, but this one makes me feel about 58 years younger.

Pro tip: check out IT'SUGAR, the three-story candy store there.

- 4 -

What's your favorite place to view the New York City skyline from New Jersey?

Recently, I saw it from the top of the Ferris wheel at American Dream Mall (the top photo above, #nofilter).

Just about every day I sneak a photo while riding in a New Jersey Transit commuter bus (driver's side on the way in to work in Manhattan; passenger's side on the way home to New Jersey) on the Lincoln Tunnel Helix in Weehawken.

I've also seen the city's skyline from as far away as the beach at Sandy Hook.

When driving, the view often appears suddenly, as if approaching Emerald City. I've seen it from Route 17 heading south in Bergen County, Route 80 heading east in Hackensack, and... a favorite... Route 3 heading east in Nutley. I should pull over for that!

- 5 -

Fireworks and baseball are two favorite things.

I recently attended a Somerset Patriots game at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, where there were post-game fireworks DURING a distant thunderstorm (photo above, right). You can see the threatening clouds in the photo, but I'm pretty sure it was a Brett Baty HR that ignited the storm. The minor league season is short, but there's a final Patriots home stand you can attend Sept. 13-18 (with fireworks on the 17th).

Meanwhile, in Montclair, I attended a fireworks night (photo above, left) following a Jersey Jackals (love that name) game in July. Their season already over, the Jackals announced recently that the team WON'T be returning next year to Yogi Berra Stadium on the Montclair State University campus.

I'll miss seeing them there, but maybe there will be baseball to see in 2023 at a refurbished Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson?!?

Teams to see on my bucket list: the Jersey Shore BlueClaws, Trenton Thunder, and Sussex County Miners.

- 6 -

Where's your favorite New Jersey park?

Looking back to winter (feeling wistful during this summer's heat and draught), I visited two personal favorites.

New Bridge Landing, on the River Edge/Hackensack border, includes several historical buildings, particularly a red barn that's picturesque in the snow. The site is maintained by the Bergen County Historical Society, which is hosting its annual Baron Beerfest there on Sept. 24.

I also visited snow-covered Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton Township, where ticket sales are currently open for its Nov. 2022-April 2023 nighttime lighted exhibits.

More recently, thanks to NJ Spots, I found a new (to me) park to visit: the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Vernon, with well-kept walkways through beautiful greenery. NJ Spots is a great resource for exploring New Jersey!

- 7 -

Thursday is #DateNight, and while all these places may not be date-worthy (depending on your relationship status), all are wonderful, in a New Jersey sort of way.

Here are four possibilities: Rutt's Hutt in Clifton, Pizza Town in Elmwood Park (which is not closing, as rumored; it's just under new ownership... although, sadly, Tavolino Pizzeria in Wallington closed its doors Sept. 3), White Manna Hamburgers in Hackensack, and the Summit Diner.

Press of Atlantic City file photo

Earlier this week, I posted about the Beatles' visit to Atlantic City in 1964. There's an (infamous) photo of them holding a giant sub sandwich from the White House Sub Shop... so that's on my wish list too.

All these places are perhaps guilty pleasures. What places are on your Date Night list? Asking for a friend :) 

- 8 -

I posted this on a frightful Friday, facing the unofficial last weekend of summer (although the meteorological end of summer was Sept. 1). I'm wondering: What are your favorite haunted places in New Jersey?

Here are three places I've dared visit:

The Devil's Tree tree stands alone in the middle of a large field off Mountain Road in Bernards Township. It remains standing because anyone is cursed who tries to cut it down, according to local legend.

The Devil's Tower is located on Esplanade Road in Alpine, where a jealous lover leapt to death in 1922. As every schoolgirl at nearby Academy of the Holy Angels will attest, if you drive or walk backward around the tower three times, you will face the actual Devil.

Along "Annie's Road" in Totowa, you will see roadside memorials for the ghost of a teenager (sometimes called the "vanishing hitchhiker"), dressed in white, killed late night in the 1960s by a pickup truck as she tried to find her way to safety along unlit Riverview Drive. Local legend says she had fled her boyfriend's car after an argument on Prom Night.

PS- if ANYONE can tell me exactly how to find the Gates of Hell in Clifton (I've looked twice), I'd appreciate it.

- 9 -

Months ago, I caught a double rainbow over Paterson at the scenic overlook at Garret Mountain Reservation.

I like to visit Paterson when checking in on Mom, who lives nearby. Yesterday, I stopped by the Great Falls to see the Passaic River aglow with algae. I also strolled by adjacent Hinchliffe Stadium, now a full-scale fenced-in construction site (and future home of the Jersey Jackals?) where Dad played semi-pro baseball in his teens.

Need an occasion to visit NJ's 3rd largest city? I recommend the Paterson Poetry Festival, Oct. 1-3 (more information available at Word Seed). Allen Ginsberg grew up in Paterson, and the Poetry Center at Passaic County College sponsors an annual awards event in his honor every February.

Below is a poem I wrote inspired by the view from Garret Mountain. Forgive me, Allen.

A post here about the evolution of this poem 

- 10 -

Church buildings can provide quiet inspiration, and they often have wonderful stories to tell. I wrote about that as a contributor to "New Jersey Fan Club," so here's another shameless plug for that book.

About this image: Someone told me there had been crosses atop the two majestic front spires of St. Patrick's Church in Elizabeth, but that the crosses needed to be removed in 1961 due to damage from the vibration of low-flying planes at nearby Newark Airport.

Call me Doubting Thomas, but I didn't actually believe that until I visited there this past winter while a plane was landing!

This ended my week posting at Jersey Collective. At @foundinnj, I'll continue to post sights from around the state and, every Sunday, another image of another church.

See you there?

Hamlet in Suburbia: Why I Love Photography

Here's another shameless self-promotional photo of me (far left, which is as political as I dare get when posting here), holding a copy of the new "New Jersey Fan Club" anthology with some co-contributors.

We had gathered this past Saturday at The Corner (top right), a great little shop/studio in picturesque Flemington, NJ, to talk about photos published in the book... and what prompted our love of photography.

For me, it always comes back to Dad. He bought an Olympus 35 while overseas with the Navy, then took family photos in the ensuing decades. My Mom, sister and I used to love to gather in the family room to watch his slideshows. And now it occurs to me that exactly two years ago, I posted here about recovering Dad's slides from his 1955 trip to Barcelona.

Which I still haven't visited.

Several veteran news photographers who were artists at their craft also inspired me, and tolerated my questions, when I began my career as a reporter. I'm thinking especially of the late Tom Lynch. I once posted about him here. I still haven't collected and displayed his photos, as promised.

I'm also thinking of Chris Sheridan at Catholic New York, and Ken Lauben in my days as a corporate publication editor. I searched for Ken just now, and found his obituary. Nearly three years ago. I had no idea.

The older I get, the more I wish I could stop time. Which is why I love photography, and why these words from the recent finale of the TV drama "This Is Us" so resonate with me:

"We're collecting these little moments. We don't recognize them when we're in them because we're too busy looking forward. But then we spend the rest of our lives looking back…trying to remember them."

Anyway, since The Corner is owned and operated by the talented photographer Dave Norton, I booked a session with him so I could update my social media profile photos. Here's me, still left of center and wearing Dad's old tie, on Saturday, July 23, 2022, pretending the person in this image will never age:

Lord knows, I try to keep up with technology and social media... and I do love taking cellphone photos (preferring the camera I always have with me to the Canon I hang around my neck when going on photo-shooting adventures with friends).

As I explained to those attending Saturday's event, I even dream about these things.

This month, while in bed in suburban New Jersey, I dreamt I had created AI chatbot modeled after Dad, so that he and I could still have text conversations today, even though he died in 2005.

As our "conversations" grew more vivid, in my dream, I noticed that photos of Dad began appearing on my Google Photos feed. I had never seen these images of him before, and I couldn't fathom who took them. Dad was rarely in the family slideshow photos because he was always behind the camera.

One last photo stood out among the others. It was my Dad and Mom standing side-by-side, facing me, like the man and woman in Grant Wood's "American Gothic."

Scrawled on the bottom of this image, hand-printed in the same small lettering Dad always used when writing captions on the outside corners of his 35mm slides, was this message:

"Avenge My Death!"

A Valentine for New York City

I captured the image above while sitting in the back seat of a New Jersey Transit bus, stuck in traffic on the NJ Turnpike, during the morning commute to work last week.

I didn't mind the delay. It gave me time to enjoy the sun rise over the New York City skyline.

I returned to the office in February, after an Omicron-imposed work-from-home hiatus, and I've realized over the past two weeks just how much I missed the city.

Here are two Instagram posts with some context:

 

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A post shared by Bob Varettoni (@bvarphotos)

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A post shared by Bob Varettoni (@bvarphotos)

And here are three more images from just one day: February 2, 2022.

This is a footbridge over the FDR I hurried across at daybreak. It was Ground Hog's Day, of course, and the image here is over-exposed. I didn't see my shadow:

This is Grand Central Terminal a little later that morning. It's one of my favorite places in the city, and February 2nd also happened to be its 109th birthday:

This is St. Patrick's Cathedral even later that same morning. Police had begun gathering on Fifth Avenue (I had crossed Park Avenue accompanied by officers from San Francisco) for the funeral of NYC police officer Wilbert Mora. He was only 27 and had been shot and killed along with officer Jason Rivera while responding to a domestic disturbance on January 21.

New York is complicated.

It isn't like anywhere else.

I love that it has depth and substance and beauty, even when drained of color.

“To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.”

Scene from the 1979 movie, "Manhattan."

My view from the same location, returning on Feb. 12, 2022.

I Can Be a Hero...

On exhibit at Fotografiska NY in 2020:
Ellen von Unwerth's photo of David Bowie and Kate Moss.

... Just for one day.

Have you ever had a social media post go viral?

I experienced that on a small scale earlier today, with this Twitter post of a throwback photo of the epic Jersey City mural by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra:

Remembering #DavidBowie on his 75th birthday pic.twitter.com/bsWwbh0seV

— bvarphotos 📷 (@bvarphotos) January 8, 2022

Bowie's artistry deserves universal praise, so tributes on what would have been his 75th birthday meant something to many.

What I particularly admire is how Bowie remained productive, provocative and relevant as he grew older. I only wish I could be as creative.

His song "Life on Mars" gives me chills. I parroted it (without reference to Hermione Farthingale's hair) as part of a writing exercise this past April (read more here and here). New Jersey poet Alicia Cook had provided a prompt to write a poem with the line "life only exists where there's water."

I naturally thought of Mars. It was also days after the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in Minnesota. So for my exercise, I wrote this "Eight Line Poem," named after the song that immediately proceeds "Life on Mars" on Bowie's "Hunky Dory" album.

Is there life on Mars?
Life only exists where there's water,
in lakes hidden below the icy surface.

Here on earth,
it's a God-awful small affair.
Life only exists where we let it:

Take a look at the lawman
beating up the wrong guy.

As I grow older, I've grown to appreciate the limits of my creativity... and relevancy. But every once in a while, I write something or post an image that means something to someone else.

I love the magic of that.

Social media—as dangerous as it's proven to be—is also empowering.

One of the most extraordinary things in my life is that I'm able to publish without permission.

12 Days of Christmas: Middletown

Middletown Reformed Church

In early January, I need to return to the Middletown Arts Center to retrieve photos on display there through year-end.

The exhibit, by members of Black Glass Gallery, is open through Jan. 3. Hours are 11-4, Monday-Friday (evenings/weekends by appointment).

The arts center is located on Church Street, and indeed several churches are within walking distance.

Here are three I found there, adding to my collection of church images I post every Sunday on Instagram.

I had dropped off my photos in Middletown before the leaves had fallen; I've a feeling things will look very different when I return.

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A post shared by Found in NJ (@foundinnj)

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A post shared by Found in NJ (@foundinnj)

'New Jersey Fan Club' and Churches of the Garden State

25 years ago this past week, Bruce Springsteen returned to Freehold, NJ, to play a concert in the gym where he attended parochial school at St. Rose of Lima parish.

I know this because I'm both a Springsteen fan and a collector of images of New Jersey churches.

I took this photo of St. Rose of Lima Church a few months ago, and posted it on Instagram with the tag #njchurcheverysunday, where it joined about 200 other images of churches that have stopped me in my tracks in my travels over the past few years.

Why do I do this?

That's exactly what I explore in an essay (with photos) that will be published next year as part "New Jersey Fan Club," a Rutgers University Press anthology of artists and writers celebrating the Garden State.

Edited by Kerri Sullivan, founder of the popular Instagram account @jerseycollective, this is "an eclectic anthology featuring personal essays, interviews, and comics from a broad group of established and emerging writers and artists who have something to say about New Jersey. It offers a multifaceted look at the state’s history and significance, told through narrative nonfiction, photographs, and illustrations."

That's the way Kerri describes her labor of love at this site, where you can read more information about the project, access links to pre-order the book, and sign up for the Jersey Collective newsletter.

I'm proud to be associated with the many talented people who contributed to "New Jersey Fan Club." The cover was recently unveiled (see photo above), as well as the list of contributors. I'm already a fan of many of these talented artists, photographers, and writers.

Which brings me back to Bruce, who grew up in a house (number 39 1/2, see photo below) behind the St. Rose of Lima school parking lot.

As he wrote in his autobiography, "We live, literally, in the bosom of the Catholic Church, with the priest's rectory, the nuns' convent, the St. Rose of Lima Church and grammar school all just a football's toss away across a field of wild grass." He added, "Though he towers above us, here God is surrounded by man—crazy men, to be exact."

Crazy men, like me, who post images of churches every Sunday on Instagram.

Van Gogh, the Brand: Pictures at an Exhibition

I love technology; I love New York; I love art museums; I love taking photos; I love date night.

So I eagerly purchased tickets to attend one of the various “immersive Van Gogh” experiences now popping up everywhere following the wildly successful Atelier des Lumières installation in Paris in 2018.

People I admire whose opinion I respect have also wholeheartedly recommended a visit.

Since I find it hard to be wholehearted about anything, I wanted to post these thoughts about my visit last night. Most of the images speak for themselves.

Yes, I’d go again: It’s great for date night. I imagine, earlier in the day, lots of loud, happy children running around, but that’s OK too. I would have loved the opportunity to have taken my daughters to something like this when they were young.

Bottom line: It’s an Instagram and people-watching paradise.

Entrance, left; gift shop, right.

I’d temper expectations, though, with these half-dozen observations:

• It’s essentially a high-tech slideshow (reminding me of the highly choreographed July 4 fireworks displays).
• It’s not totally “immersive” (with all the pedestrian activity and curtains and pipes and scaffolding and neon Exit signs).
• Mind all the wandering people holding up cell phones (including me!).
• Mind all the restless people on never-ending searches for the best seat in the house (it’s all pretty much the same, but I admire their motivation).
• There’s an app for all this (and it’s quite good, too).
• There’s a gift shop about the size of half a football field (peppered with AR app-enabled activations), and prix-fixe $36 parking at the Pier 36 site.

That last is the point that disheartened me: all the commercialism, all the Van Gogh-branded merchandise.

Van Gogh’s work is now in the public domain — unlike all the Instagram photos taken at the exhibit that Mark Zuckerberg probably now owns.

A half dozen promoters of expensive, immersive Van Gogh exhibits are now profiting off the work of an artist who only sold one painting during his lifetime.

I went to the “original” exhibit at Pier 36 near South Street Seaport. I won’t risk copyright infringement by mentioning the exact name. Rest assured, there’s another similar immersive Van Gogh exhibit on the other side of Manhattan on Vesey Street, or coming soon to a town near you.

Juxtapose this commercialization of the artist with this sentimental, often-viewed video clip from a 2010 BBC episode of “Doctor Who”:

I get — and applaud — that immersive art exhibits are tantalizing glimpses of the quality of the entertainment and educational experiences made possible by technology.

I just don’t get the same connection to the source.

Not everything is a show, and Vincent Van Gogh wasn’t a brand. His painting of crows over a cornfield in Arles has long had deep personal meaning.

To me, it had always been a suicide note somehow translated to canvas.

Until last night, when it was just another Instagram post:

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PS- Sometimes the view outside the exhibit is just as lovely.