By DANA KLOSNER-WEHNER
So reads one of the memorial plaques embedded in the many benches lining the Long Beach boardwalk. This particular plaque was dedicated to Evelyn and Murray Bruder by a long list of family members, from their children to grandchildren. It is remembrances like these that inspired Tom Large (also known as Atom Lark) to take up the arduous task of photographing all 715 plaques and creating his “Library in the Sun” collection.
“I read that one and thought, ‘Wow,’” said Large, a Long Beach photographer who takes to the boardwalk each day. “I started to read a few more and saw some 9/11 memorials. There is such wonderful sentiment stored there.”
The plaques are mostly memorials and tributes to families’ loved ones, and people can now read them all by surfing the internet instead of walking the 2.2 miles of boardwalk, since Large has catalogued and posted their photos on his Web site, Atomlark.com.
Large started photographing the plaques about two years ago, took a hiatus for about a year when parts of the boardwalk were under repair, then picked up where he left off. He estimated that it took him, in total work time, about three months to capture all the plaques.
“The photography was, while time consuming, relatively easy, and the processing, editing, cataloguing was the fun part,” Large said. He compiled a section called “Taken Too Soon,” dedicated to the many people who died before their time, particularly victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Others include a person among the 270 killed when terrorists blew up a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, a man who died in a fire on Father’s Day in 2001, and a troop killed in Iraq. Under each of their names, Large created another browser window that leads to web-based information about them, along with photos.
“The sentiment that is expressed by the relatives, the awesomeness of the spirit, is touching and uplifting,” Large said. Among his favorites is an anonymous plaque that simply reads: “For the love of my life.” He likes its ambiguity.
“That could be anything or anyone and only they who wrote it, who we don’t know, knows,” he explained.
Another favorite reads: “Sit Long/Talk Much/Laugh Often,” a courtesy from the families of Conlon, Silverman and Riel.
Large has catalogued each plaque with a name and number after it (e.g. Smith-27), so that people can look up and more easily find a person’s plaque. He lists their location on the boardwalk, using the lamp post numbers to the west of the benches as markers.
Large, 53, who produces and sells special computer mice designed to prevent or correct Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, was nine when he collected all his saved pennies to purchase his first camera.
“I love capturing moments and freezing them,” he said. “When you watch a movie you look at the whole thing. When you look at a photograph you take the time to take in what you’re seeing. You feel the sun on your face and smell the flowers. You experience what your eye has seen.”
He displays his work, which includes snapshots of Long Beach and Manhattan, at the Evers Gallery on West Beech Street. One of his favorite shots is a bolt of lightening extended behind a lifeguard chair, which he calls “The Electric Chair.” There are also photos of a moon-lit boardwalk, a sunrise in Montauk, a sunset in Santa Monica, California, and canyons near Las Vegas.
Also a poet, Large calls himself a “thought conservationist” both in words and pictures, describing words as the bricks people use to build thoughts in the air.
“People piled their own thought bricks into these wonderful snippets of emotion, a library of sentiment if you will,” Large said, “so that they might share, with strangers, some small insight into the lives of people important to them that we'll never likely meet. My objective in doing this was simply to extend the audience for that intent.”
Visit Large’s “Library in the Sun” collection at www.atomlark.com/atomlark/Library_in_the_Sun.html.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
