Introduction and Site Guide

The photographs on the following pages were originally taken to document the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers beachfill project in Manasquan, NJ. On May 4, 1997, prior to the start of the beachfill, I photographed the one mile stretch of beach in Manasquan. The beachfill commenced later that summer. Six years later (the projected time to re-renourishment) on May 18, 2003 I photographed the beach again, trying hard to stand in the same spots.

Now the photography has been rolled up into a long-term documentation of the evolution of Manasquan beach. Further sets of photos were taken in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010. This project has also unintentionally become a retrospective on the redevelopment of the Manasquan beachfront.

All photographs in all years were taken on 35mm film using the same Canon AE1 Program camera and 50mm lens that I started with in 1997. The negatives were developed and scanned onto CD's by a commercial photo processor. Those higher-res .jpg's were downsampled by me for use on these web pages.

 

Map and index of photo sites and photo sets

When viewing the photographs remember that the ocean is to the east in this part of the world. So if the sea is at the right edge of the photo you are looking generally north; if it is on the left side you are looking mostly south.

General notes to the photos

Aligning the photographs is aided by recognizing that the the streetlights along the boardwalk have not been changed since they were all replaced after the storms in the winter of 1992-1993. The Manasquan Inlet jetty and the condominiums across the river in Point Pleasant Beach help orient the views looking south. The magenta tick marks on the photo set pages indicate how I line up the photos for presentation on this web site.

Many, many of the old bungalows that were still around in 1997 have been razed and large new homes have replaced them, so be careful trying to match up houses from year to year.

The beach sand color looks different from year to year, and there are several possible explanations:

  1. Time of day, day of year, and therefore sun angle, varies.
  2. Moisture content probably differs.
  3. The proportion of sun and clouds differs.
  4. It is widely believed that the sand that was dredged up by the USACE in 1997 is darker. We were promised that it would bleach out, and it has, but I think it is still darker than the pre-beachfill sand.

The Manasquan beach crew rearranges the beach every May, to prepare for the tourist season, so the beach may be artificially different looking in photos from 2003+ because the Army Corps of Engineers gave the crew some sand to move.

Tidal record at times of photography

As shown on the tide page, it was low tide for each set of photographs.

Radio tower at the Coast Guard station

After the 2003 photos were taken, the Coast Guard built a new (and much higher) radio tower at Ocean Avenue. In May 2008 the old tower still stood. By May 2010 the old one had been removed. I think it was taken down in Fall 2008. If you can document that please get in touch.

Compare any two photographs

Select the photography set numbers and the years of any two photographs to see them together. Be aware that a few photographs are missing, or were mis-taken.

If you want to compare different years of the same Photo Set, then be aware that misalignment and other errors could make 1:1 out of context comparisons problematic.

Follow squanbch on Twitter

Yes, Manasquan Bch Photo can be found at http://twitter.com/squanbch.

I promise not to spam you every hour, day, or week. I will be surprised if I get out a dozen tweets a year. I know you want substance, not constant status updates. Give it a shot.

Contacts

I would love to hear your feedback about the Manasquan Beach Photography site.