Jones Beach Dream (boardwalk) by Chris Mottalini

The series Jones Beach Dream was originally photographed for a story about Jones Beach and its connection to the controversial/notorious planner Robert Moses. Moses was responsible for much of the modern New York landscape and highway system. The article was photographed for Curbed in collaboration with the writer Michael Adno. The duo spent several days wandering around in the off season mist, in early May 2017. The photographs were made using Kodak Portra film and Mottalini's all time favorite camera, the Mamiya 7.

Mottalini’s Jones Beach Dream series was originally photographed for a Curbed story about the beach and its connection to Robert Moses. In early May 2017, Mottalini and writer Michael Ando spent several days exploring Jones Beach together. That they wandered its ins and outs in the misty spring off season meant all the more opportunity for Mottalini to hone in on the unique elements of the park’s design. He captured the scenes he came across on Kodak Portra film, using his favorite camera, the Mamiya 7. This special fine grain film is sought after by professional photographers as an ideal medium for shooting portraits—in this case, the moody countenance of a beach equal parts picturesque and contentious. The film’s effect is hard to reproduce on a digital camera, and the Mamiya 7 offered Mottalini the highest real world resolution of any hand-held camera. Jones Beach Dream (dunes) and Jones Beach Dream (boardwalk) were taken with the special attention befitting a manically detail-oriented park design, perhaps a nod to the complex relationship between New York and the controversial man behind Jones Beach. For better or worse, that man had an abiding impact on NYC urban development ... Read more on the blog!

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Chris Mottalini is a partially colorblind photographer based in New York City. He grew up in Buffalo and studied journalism and photography at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Uppsala University, Sweden.

Mottalini’s evocative architectural photographs have been widely published/commissioned (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Town and Country, New York, Casa Vogue, Pin-Up, etc.) and internationally exhibited.

Much of Mottalini's work deals with the photographic preservation of Modernist architecture and its place in the American landscape. His acclaimed first book, 'After You Left/They Took It Apart', is a final portrait of demolished Modernism. His new book, 'Land of Smiles', is a surreal exploration of the built landscapes of Thailand.

He splits his time between Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley with his family and Burger the Corgi.

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Jones Beach Dream (boardwalk)

Chris Mottalini

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