Scherman-Hoffman Sanctuaries

Article & Images by Manny Lekkas

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When I lived in New Jersey, one of my favorite places to visit was the Scherman–Hoffman Sanctuaries located in Bernardsville, NJ. It was well within an hour of my home in Jersey City but, when there, I was a million miles away from the noise and traffic and hectic every day life. The sanctuary is run by the NJ Audubon Society, while I’m not much of a birder, I often enjoyed walking the paths and spending many hours by the Passaic River. The river is little more than a trickle at the sanctuary, winding its way for miles until it becomes a river capable of handling commercial shipping that empties eventually into Newark Bay. It has a long and important history including concerns over pollution but at the sanctuary it’s a clean pristine running stream.

My interests were photographing the trees at different times of the year and looking to the river for the patterns in the water and leaves and rocks by its banks. Deer always seemed to be present as were chipmunks chattering and scurrying about. The approaching of the fall season was probably my favorite time of year. Often colors just abounded and the paths covered with colored leaves. Most of these photos were taken with a Canon EOS system. A few shots may with Olympus OM cameras as I changed systems a few times. I almost always carried a tripod and wore a photo vest to keep my lens and filters. Usually the lenses I took were a 28–105 mm, a 24 mm, and a 100–300 mm. I would also take a 25 mm extension tube for the 100–300 mm for macro shots. I tried not taking a tripod several times to enjoy the hiking a little more but the covering of trees and late afternoon light made shooting difficult particularly at f/11 or f/16. So I lugged my favorite tripod with me.

A curious thing about this type of tripod is that the more tired you get during your journey, the more the tripod seems to realize you’re tired and begins to take on a life of its own, attacking you with its legs flaying all over the place. This never seems to happen when you start out when you are fresh. At that time you can set it up at any angle at any different height on rocks or in the water and take all the pictures just as you want them taken. But if it gets wind that you are tired, look out…Very curious.

You don’t realize how much you miss a place until that place is no longer easily accessible. For me, it’s been over four years since I’ve been at the sanctuary and I miss it often.

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