North Side. Casino Pier – Seaside Heights NJ. August 2012.

It was an early morning in late August on the South side of the old-skool Casino Pier. The ocean was flat and at peace licking my bare feet as I was wrapping up my first professional Seaside Heights sunrise photoshoot. Towards the end of this shoot, a stand up paddler drifted past as I grabbed a slew of shots of him floating on molten colored sunrise ocean gleam beyond slabs of wooden pier.  It was an awesome bonus to an already ultra rad sunrise. Yet my head is thinking maybe I’ll get him again on his way back. At this point the sun is up and gleaming. Sunrise over! But before I leave, l have to see if I can catch up with the SUP’r surfing his way back on the Jet Star side of the pier. I pack up.. Walk over to the North Side and there he is, floating on this endless water into sky horizon.

Sadly, just two months later, the peace in the sea had recast as the wrathful & infuriated Superstorm Sandy. Coming in like a dragon attacking a mouse, she swallowed whole taking this coaster, this pier, and half this town into the sea. -AJD