Yeah, it can be freezing out there...

"Tryin to get to heaven fore they close the door...", lyric by B Dylan, photo by Tim Connor

I didn't make the list of finalists in Photo Lucida's Critical Mass contest. Time to belt out one of those Broadway musical numbers about starting all over again? What do you think? Nah, I'm going to bed.

Here's the 10 photos I entered.

Here's the statement I included with the pix.

I set out to explore the interaction of beachgoers with the ocean. My setting was the South Wellfleet beach I have walked since I was a small boy. In my lifetime, the ocean has moved inland perhaps a hundred yards, but down on the sand, between the bluffs and the ocean, everything is exactly the same as it was. Every other important place in my life has changed significantly or even disappeared. Not this place.

Here at the Atlantic’s western edge, vacationers sometimes experience a similar sense of timelessness. The land-water margin is an elemental zone of transition, a liminal space in which internal transformations are possible. For many, the beach becomes a stage that metaphorically opens on eternity. Normally driven by clocks and to-do lists, beachgoers sometimes find themselves distracted, even staring out to sea -- without becoming impatient -- for hours at a time.

I photographed strangers as they walked and watched or played and swam at the land-water divide. My idea was not to make portraits but to illuminate behavior.