Mill Basin, Brooklyn, from the series Outer Lands

Today is the winter solstice—the longest night of the year. Many cultures treat the solstice as a holiday, a tradition which dates back to ancient times. It is no coincidence that many contemporary holidays also take place in late December, and that many of those holidays involve lights and candles. While it is dark outside, I hope you are keeping warm and sharing time with loved ones.

I promised myself that I would embark on a new project this winter, which I have begun. This is actually something that has been kicking around the back of my mind for at least a year now, but has finally begun to solidify in the last couple of weeks. The project, loosely, is a survey of the “Outer Lands”—the archipelago off of the southern coast of New England, comprised of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island and Long Island. Brooklyn makes up the western-most part of this archipelago, so I decided to start here and make my way east.

Embarking on a new project is always an interesting process. The scope of Outer Lands could easily grow to fill a lifetime of work. There are still so many decisions to be made, but so far, I know a few things: the series will be in color (I might still make the jump to large format, I’m not sure yet), I will be focusing mostly on the coastal areas, and the series will be limited to images from winter and early spring.

I hope to post a short series of images from my first few excursions in the next couple of weeks, and then it’s onto the real work!