Dunes and Estuaries is the most local of my collections. Most of these photographs were made within a thirty mile radius of where I grew up. The North River, the South River, Gurnet Creek, the Weir River, Saquish, Duxbury Beach, Powder Point, Plymouth Beach. The dune paths of Cape Cod National Seashore. These are the places I have been walking with a camera since the late 1980s.
The collection is limited edition fine art photography, hand-numbered, printed in small runs. Every image is captured on film with a large format camera. The work tends toward the quiet end of the spectrum: marsh grass at low tide, a single lobster boat in a tidal creek, sand under wind-scoured snow, a fence post that has stood since 1900.
This is a piece about the photographs in the Dunes and Estuaries collection, and the years it sometimes took to make them.
October, Gurnet Creek
I saw the scene that became October, Gurnet Creek and waited a week or two to come back. I needed the high tide to coincide with the sunset. The grass colors deepened in the interim, and I was lucky to have virtually no wind, which preserved the reflection of the clouds. Most of the photographs in this collection have a story like that. The light, the tide, and the weather have to agree before you press the shutter.
Damons Point #3
This lone red lobster boat at Damons Point has been one of my favorite muses. You’ll notice a number of my images have a single red spot of color in them, whether it be a boat, a lighthouse, or a channel marker. There is something about a single point of warm color in a wide, cool composition that the eye finds before it finds anything else.
View from Plymouth Beach
It was an extremely long hike to get to View from Plymouth Beach, made worse by carrying sixty or seventy pounds of camera equipment. The lighthouse is Bug Light at the entrance to Plymouth Harbor. The land mass in the far right distance is Clarks Island, where the Mayflower Pilgrims spent their first night in the New World. It was only new to them, of course. I have found a number of Wampanoag arrowheads on Clarks Island. The actual Plymouth Rock is there, by the way, not on the mainland.
Rexhame #1
I photographed Rexhame #1 at the end of a massive February storm. It was the first time I had seen windswept sand on top of snow. The pattern only lasts a few hours before the wind erases it or the sun melts it. I have been back many times trying to find conditions like that again. I have not.
Why film, why large format
People ask me all the time why I still work on film. The honest answer is that the camera I use, a large format film camera, makes a different kind of photograph than a digital sensor does. Film holds tone. It compresses highlights softly. The pastel range you find in a salt marsh at the right hour is something film records gracefully and digital sensors tend to flatten.
Digital is a wonderful tool. It just isn’t this tool.
The other reason is pace. With large format, you set up the camera, you compose, you wait for the light, and you commit. Each frame costs something. You think before you take it. That slowness shows up in the work, even if you cannot put your finger on why. It is the difference between a snapshot of a marsh and a piece of fine art photography of a marsh.
More from the collection
Path to the National Seashore, Wellfleet. I scouted multiple dune paths at Cape Cod National Seashore in Wellfleet until I found one pointing in the right direction to illuminate the path without the shadows being too deep. Then I waited for the weather to deliver clouds that would balance the horizon.
Salted Cedars. These weathered cedar tree trunks in the marsh along the North River have stood since around 1900. The soft edges of the trunks are actually cattail down that has blown off the plants and caught on the bark.
Lighthouse Beach, Chatham. The fence in this image goes at least four feet down into the sand. The animal tracks in the foreground are from a fox.
Plymouth Beach. The sand here reminded me of Lawrence of Arabia in a miniature scale.
Saquish Autumn. A portrait of a decades-old cedar post at Saquish Beach. The grass and background just serve to frame it in its environment.
Passage. All the elements coalesced for this image. I hadn’t scouted it. I just showed up because I knew the sky would be dramatic. I needed to find a foreground, and the balance of green and blue with the warm sand all came together.
Weir River. Still one of my favorite images. The huge range of tones in September marshes is one of my favorite subjects.
On limited editions
Every photograph in the Dunes and Estuaries collection is a limited edition fine art photograph, hand-numbered, printed in small runs. When the edition is sold, that is the end of it. The negative still exists, but the edition does not get reopened.
I mention this because there is a great deal of fine art photography for sale online that calls itself limited edition without actually being limited. I print mine in genuinely small runs. When I say the edition is closed, I mean it.
Bringing a photograph into your home
Marsh and dune photographs are quiet. They tend to land best in rooms that have a little to say already, where you want the art to settle the space rather than dominate it. Living rooms, primary bedrooms, dining rooms, library walls. A few have gone into hospitality lobbies and waiting rooms where the goal is to lower the temperature of the room.
These are images of place. Buyers from Marshfield, Duxbury, Hingham, Cohasset, Scituate, and the Outer Cape often choose pieces from this collection because they are recognizable. The photograph becomes a window into a place they already know.
If you want the room to feel calmer, the marsh photographs will tend to do that work better than almost anything else.
See it in your space before you buy
One of the things I built into the website is a tool called See It In Your Space. You upload a photograph of your wall, give me rough measurements, and pick a piece from the collection. I send back a rendered preview of the framed print on your actual wall, in the size and frame option you are considering. It takes about a day. There is no charge and no obligation.
Buying fine art photography at this scale is a meaningful decision, and a flat image on a screen does not always tell you what a 60 inch print is going to feel like in a real room. For sizing reference and current pricing, the Print Sizes and Pricing page lays out everything from the 40 inch standard up through custom installations.
See the full collection
You can browse the full Dunes and Estuaries collection here. The collection is updated when new work is finished, which is a few times a year.
Related collections you may want to see
If this collection speaks to you, the work in these collections often appeals to the same buyers:
- Water and Sky. Open coast and surf from the same shoreline, the simpler companion to Dunes and Estuaries.
- Vessels. Wooden boats, dories, skiffs, and lobster boats from the marshes and harbors of New England.
- Driftwood, Lake and Stream. Black and white work from the Maine lakes.
New Releases. The most recent additions to the body of work.
Are these photographs digital or film?
Every photograph in the Dunes and Estuaries collection was shot on film with a large format camera. Nothing is generated, composited, or digitally captured.
How large can these prints be made?
Standard sizes range from 40 inches to 90 inches on the long edge. Custom sizes beyond 90 inches are available for installations that need them. The largest prints I have made have been over 10 feet wide.
Are the prints framed?
Framing is offered on every print. I work with museum-grade framers and match the framing to the image. Unframed prints are also available if you have a framer you prefer.
Are these limited editions?
Yes. Each photograph is hand-numbered and printed in a limited run. Once the edition sells out, no more prints of that image are produced.
Where are most of these photographs taken?
The Dunes and Estuaries collection is shot along the South Shore of Massachusetts, including the North and South Rivers, Gurnet Creek, Duxbury, Marshfield, Scituate, Hingham, Plymouth, and Saquish. The collection also includes work from Cape Cod National Seashore in Wellfleet, Chatham, and Race Point in Provincetown.
Do you offer trade pricing for interior designers?
Yes. The Designer Trade Program is open to working interior designers, architects, and stagers. Trade pricing applies to the full collection.
