The bluff house, Swept Away, is being moved now. Last week we had noticed more undercutting close to the house and tonight, we found the patio had finally fallen. It is being moved back 20 feet to allow for a little more time at this location.A house was lost on Smith’s Point due to the recent storms and beach erosion there.
We have a new fine art folio of our project, Questions of Privilege, about Nantucket’s ‘Sconset Bluff. The folio includes photographs of the southern end of the bluff which retains its gentle slopes and the northern end which has been ravaged by erosion this year. This project was photographed from October 18, 2009 to March 18, 2010 and includes 36 black and white images in a handcrafted folio cover. The folio is sized 11 inches by 8.5 inches. inches.
The folio edition prints are printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber paper, a heavy-weight art paper. Larger silver gelatin photographs are available individually from the projects page.
You will find the entire project here – Questions of Privilege.
I was on the bluff yesterday evening. While I was down on the beach, the sky was completely obscured by clouds and heavy fog. It was too difficult to continue shooting so I went to the top of the bluff to see an area that I have loved to shoot from in the past with a small stretch of beautiful grass. Here is a link to a shot from this area taken last October – Sconset Bluff. Recently, I have found large clumps of this grass along the bottom of the bluff and I wanted to see how much was left.
As I got out of the truck, the fog lifted briefly and I was treated to this glimpse of heaven for a couple of minutes before it was covered in fog again.
Saturday, I returned to ‘Sconset beach. It was a beautiful sunny day. I waited for a period of low tide to make it safe to venture into this area of the beach as there is no way to quickly exit. I haven’t been down in this part of the beach for 9 days and I was amazed to see how much has fallen in that time. There was a great deal of top soil and clay that had fallen in large clumps and more of the mid-sections of the bluff have become sheer drops. One has to be extremely cautious as there are areas of the bluff that are unstable and there isn’t much room to get out of the way of a slide on the narrow beach.
While I was on the beach photographing, Dirck attended a seminar about erosion in the Nantucket and Cape Cod area given by Dr. Fred Ehrlich, Dr. Graham Giese, and Dr. Sarah Oktay.
I put this in a slide show form so you can see larger pictures than what the blog format allows.
This is a guest post from Brook Hedge whose family owned the bluff house, Twin Chimney in years past. She also provided the photos showing the bluff as it once was.
“These photos were taken to capture the bluff I loved where many wonderful summers were spent. Fortuitously, the casual shots of my mother, Ellie Ness, on the bluff near our then house, Twin Chimney (79 Baxter Road), and of my stepfather, Fred Ness, on the beach in front of the house, both taken in 1967, became place markers for the future sad plight of the bluff. Little did we realize when I shot the view from Twin Chimney’s roof in 1964, that the seemingly endless beach grass would soon begin to fade as is evident from the 1975 shot of what was called Ness’ Nest, the contemplative spot tucked half way down the bluff to the water. When these shots were taken, one could walk the Bluff Path to Sankaty Light, which we did nightly.” ~ Brook Hedge
From the roof of Twin Chimney - 1964
Ellie Ness - 1967
Fred Ness - 1967
Ness' Nest - 1975
All photos courtesy of Brook Hedge.
We spent a few hours on Sconset Beach last evening when low tides allowed us access. You have to be as careful below the bluff as you are on top as there are large, unstable areas that are poised to fall.
I went to the bluff again tonight. It was a beautiful evening with a light breeze, warm temperatures and a huge, orange sun low on the horizon. The water was clean – free of the sand and dirt that has been stirred up lately. I saw a whale blow a large burst of spray in the distance.
The beach was mostly clean on the southern end of the beach. There was a chest of drawers rolling in the surf.
These photos were taken 11 days apart. I apologize for the lack of quality as these were taken facing north during nor’easters.
You can click on the photographs to see a larger image.
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