RECOLLECTIONS

There is a strong connection in my life from early childhood to all things nautical, family trips to visit ocean sites, toy models of historic ships like the Cutty Sark , world explorers fictional and real  like Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo and  the Spanish explorer Magellan, in particular the look and feel of the seascape, the shoreline, and the surrounding terrain. I have traveled to and photographed the Caribbean, in most recent years the island chain known as the Bahamas, and these journeys of discovery in many ways are a photographic exploration of ancient travelers and also a path to childhood visual memories of primitive oceanic land. In my retrospective research I have studied the watercolors of Winslor Homer, in particular ones that he created in the Bahamas during the years 1884-1904. And when I reread Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” I grew acutely aware of what my unconscious had been directing me towards for years. This continuing body of work connects the emotions of childhood memories and my study of photography as a personal vision to the ocean and ocean terrain. For me these kind of images are part of a landscape/seascape genre, one that in today’s photography connects me from the 1800s of George Washington Wilson's (1823-1893) photography landscapes to the contemporary work of Richard Misrach . (1949…) The image presented here is one example of my Recollections of Mariners Both Past and Present.

“Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner