Freedom at the Pier

For the past seven summers, I’ve returned to Fire Island for a single weekend—a brief but grounding tradition. Each year, I’m drawn back to the ferry pier, a space that feels suspended in time. It’s here that I photograph children and adolescents as they gather, not just to wait, but to play, to test boundaries, and to claim a moment of freedom.

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One of the rituals I’ve come to know well is how the kids linger at the edge of the pier, eyes fixed on the departing ferry. Only once it pulls away—once it’s safely out of reach—do they leap into the water with joy and abandon. That moment, full of anticipation and release, is at the heart of this series.

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These images are about more than summer play—they’re about the fleeting nature of youth, of freedom untethered. The children are carefree yet alert, bold yet vulnerable. I watch how they interact with each other and with the space around them, how they claim a public place as their own through movement, laughter, and stillness.

Fire Island is my meditation on these liminal moments—between land and sea, between childhood and adolescence, between pause and motion. Through these photographs, I hope to capture not just what’s seen, but what’s felt: the exhilaration of being fully alive, if only for a few suspended seconds.

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