wildwood, nj amusement park
As we head into December and it is getting colder, it was nice this week to revisit a summery place, Wildwood, NJ. This week’s photograph comes from my large amusement park series that I worked on for about 8 years. I started the project in a Documentary Photography class when I was in graduate school in San Francisco. We worked on one project for the entire semester. I remember that the instructor asked us to bring in several story ideas for the second week of class. We had to pitch these ideas to her and the rest of the class like they were photo editors at a newspaper or magazine who we had to convince. Going through this process was very valuable because it made you question why your project was good, why would someone want to publish it, and why would someone want to read it. I had several ideas. I recall that most of them were more traditional picture stories like following a homeless person, or chronicling trash in the city. I did not think that my amusement park idea was going to be approved. To me it was more about the feeling of an amusement park and the memories that everyone associates with it, then it was a statement piece. Once I sold the idea, then the next hurdle that I faced was that I wanted to photograph the 100 year old Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Amusement Park which was 70 miles away from San Francisco. I was required to go to the site at least once a week. It was such a nice drive down the California coast that for me it was a great part of the trip every time that I traveled there. The next hurdle was that I wanted to photograph the park in a fine art way using some of the Pictorialist style and making the images look romantic and old. You can read more about Pictorialism in my posts, ‘Photography Movements – Formalism‘ and ‘We Will Always Have Paris‘ . I did not think that my instructor would allow me to use such a fine art style, but she really loved it and let me continue. I guess that is one advantage of going to an art school. Even though our instructors were working photographers, mostly commercial ones, they allowed us the liberty to develop whatever personal style we wished.
The Santa Cruz project went over very well. That lead to several exhibitions of the work. So I decided to continue on and expand the project to include other amusement parks. For the next eight years as I traveled around the country and the world, I photographed more amusmement parks. I am not sure if I am done with it today and now it has been 10 years since I began. I just photographed an amusement park in China when I was there in June. You can see some of those images at ‘Photographs from my China Trip (Part 1)‘, and ‘Photographs from my China Trip (Part 2) – Revenge of the Tilt-Shift Lens‘. Something continues to draw me to this subject.
The image above is from Wildwood, New Jersey. This is one of the places that I went when I was a kid growing up in Philadelphia. Wildwood was always a fun seaside city with a beach, amusement parks, and other fun venues. It was the place for the younger crowd and my friends and I made trips there several times. Growing up close to Atlantic City and the New Jersey Shore may have planted the seeds of my amusement park interest. We also went to Ocean City, which was a similar place. You can see an image posted at ‘Amusement Park Photography – Ocean City, NJ‘. Either way, it is a great excuse to go to loads of amusement parks.
Gary Miller
Houston Fine Art Wedding Photographer
Eye Candy and Brain Veggies
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[...] I spoke about it before in ‘Amusement Park – Ocean City, NJ‘ and in ‘Amusement Park – Wildwood, NJ.’ A brief history for those who do not know. I have been working on a fine art project on [...]
[...] You can read other installments at ‘Amusement Park – Ocean City, NJ‘, ‘Amusement Park Photographs – Wildwood, NJ‘, and ‘A Photograph From the Iowa State Fair.’ I have a lot of these images since [...]