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There’s something about a beach that suspends reality: Strangers become neighbors, politics shrink beneath umbrellas, and the only performance required is presence. In Nat Ward’s latest book, Ditch: Montauk, NY 11954, the photographer turns his lens on the Hamptons hamlet’s Ditch Plains Beach—not to romanticize its surf-soaked iconography, but to expose its peculiar gravity. The project, born on a whim during a residency at the Edward F. Albee Foundation, unfolded over four summers as Ward returned again and again, panoramic camera under his arm, to capture the human drama that unfurled across towels and tide lines.

CULTURED spoke with Ward about the genesis of the book, the politics of shared space, and the characters who make Ditch Plains a crucible of American contradictions.

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CULTURED: How did this project begin?

Nat Ward: I was a resident at the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the barn in Montauk, in 2018. I had purchased this very unique camera—a medium format panoramic camera. It’s a nerd camera that spawned  a million Flickr accounts of people taking pictures of sunsets with perfectly aligned horizons.

At the time, I had long hair and a big beard—I was a bit of a peacock. Between the camera attracting attention and engaging with people, I became really interested in the fact that Ditch Plains is very much like the beaches I grew up going to on the Jersey Shore—crowded, full of potential relationships. It becomes a vibrant, diverse community in the summertime.

CULTURED: What kept drawing you back?

Ward: It has to do with my own reaction to the social and political moment. Man, I was stressed out. It was chaotic and fractious—and still is, although I’m managing it better now personally. In 2018, 2019… I had to break up what almost became a physical fight in a college classroom while I was being observed teaching [at FIT]. It had nothing to do with what I was saying—it was just that everybody was ready to go after everybody at the drop of a hat. Those interactions at the beach were a restoration of faith. From a data-based perspective, I had nothing in common with most of the people I met there.

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CULTURED: Is there a particular person who comes to mind?

Ward: There was this woman who would come to the beach with her red MAGA hat every single day. She was the only person nobody talked to. So I went up to her. I know she was looking to talk politics—that’s why she wore the hat—but I didn’t want to talk about that. I wanted to know where she was from, what her family was doing. She was a grandma from Suffolk County. Hearing about what her grandkids were up to was much more interesting than talking about social strife or the breakdown of our political system.

CULTURED: Did you share the images you made with your subjects?

Ward: Oh, yes. But months afterwards, because I’m slow. People were psyched. I know it’s silly, but the radical position of saying, “Let’s go out and have some fun talking with strangers,” in this moment where you can’t even talk to your uncle… I’m so moved by that idea.

CULTURED: What was the most memorable discovery you made at Ditch Plains?

Ward: I found the level of honesty—the physical performance or lack thereof—generated so many discoveries for me. On the masculinity spectrum, there’s a photograph of a young man. He was stunning and he knew it. I loved that particular combination: the charisma of knowing how desirable you are and being willing to present that in public for a photographer… I mean, how do you say no to that? Other men just could not care less. I’d be like, “Can I make a picture?” and they’d say, “Yeah, whatever. Go ahead.”