Mamiyaroid 59

Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge, 2024

May 08, 2024

When you love someone, you start to love the people they were before you met them.

One memory I love about G is he anticipated being too shy to make friends, so he dyed his hair orange before leaving for college so the other freaks would find him.

People jump into the Atlantic on New Year’s Day to prove their mettle, to check it off the list, for the cold plunge health benefits, to wash away another bad year, to preen, or to get simply get a paper certificate that reads “I did it.”

I photograph the Polar Bear Plunge (three years going now), not because I want any of the things the participants want, but because while I grew to love animals during the pandemic, I missed people’s faces even more. Not smooth faces mediated by screens, or filters, but the craggy faces that stream past you on the street, or the subway, or the boardwalk. I can’t get enough.

But loving someone also means knowing their comfort zones, and a crowded beach full of New York brio, attention seekers, and spiritual baptisms isn’t one of G’s comfort zones, so this year I went alone to the Polar Bear Plunge, but I brought my modified Polaroid Big Shot camera to ingratiate myself with my subjects, and like G’s flaming hair, it worked. People wondered what it was, happily posed for it, and photographers stopped to admire it. For someone who wants to observe the crowd without being in the crowd, it was the perfect tool.