Village Beaches

People have always found respite at the beach. The sun, sand, and surf are an alluring cure for cabin fever, an activity as much as an escape. Using pinhole photography, art photographer Philip Lehans captured five empty East Hampton beaches while people were isolating during the pandemic. His medium--slow, old-school, and distant--proved fitting for the times, and his panoramic images evoke the serenity we dream of at the beach. Using a wooden camera with a manual shutter, his prolonged exposures create an ethereal atmosphere, awash in pastels and reminiscent of watercolor paintings. Every subtlety of nature is recorded: a brisk wind pushes clouds across the sky, creating smooth streaks of white and pastel, while the tides render the ocean in creamy tranquility. In these infinite variations we are reminded of the cycles of nature, the course of time, and the optimism of tomorrow.