Image of the Week: Sandy Hooked

Like most New Jersey natives, photographer Tim Sharkey is rightly proud of the Garden State and its stunning shoreline. In fact, Sharkey spends at least as much time photographing the area’s waterways such as Sandy Hook Bay—captured in this spectacular image—as he does shooting high-performance powerboats rocketing across them.

As witnessed by this image, photographer Tim Sharkey’s passion for the waters of his home state never fades. Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images

A longtime contributor to speedonthewater.com and its bi-monthly digital magazine, Sharkey snagged this gem late last month on the day after Christmas.

“New Jersey finally got a taste of some sunshine,” he recalled. “We’d been plagued with cloudy days for what seemed to be weeks at a time, so I just had to take advantage of the day. I’ve been revisiting areas of shore towns I shot during Super Storm Sandy to see what progress has been made, and to update some of the town’s latest progress.

“Just prior to this shot, I took one I’d wanted to get for years,” he continued. “But the timing had never been right to have the sun line up with the wooden bridge. This time it was lined up close enough to get the image I was looking for.”

In framing the bridge image, Sharkey noticed the tidal movement of the water. But he needed a tool in addition to his camera to nail the shot.

“I saw that the water had broken through the sandbar, and there was a steady flow of water rushing out to Sandy Hook Bay,” he explained. “With my homemade camera dolly I composed this shot as low to the water as I possibly could getting as much sun reflection into the running water as I could.”