Buyers ask me about the stories more than they ask about anything else. The size, the price, the framing, all of that comes up. But the question that comes first is usually some version of: how did you make this one?
Fine art photography stories matter to buyers in a way I did not expect when I started selling the work. Some of the photographs have ordinary stories. I scouted a location, waited for the light, took the picture. Most have at least one detail that surprises people. A few are stranger than that.
Here are the stories behind some of the most popular pieces in my work.
August Afternoon
August Afternoon is the most popular piece I have ever made. It is a dory and a skiff in a Marshfield marsh, with a Night Heron in the frame.
I shot it within walking distance of my home. The two boats appear to have been posed by their owner Jim Fox, a famous boat builder and restorer who lives there overlooking the marsh. The bird flew over and landed while I was taking the photograph. With a large format camera, you set up, you wait for the light, and the world cooperates or it doesn’t. That morning it did.
I swam in this creek and played in these marshes throughout my childhood. The photograph is one image away from where I grew up.
Old Town Guide Model
Old Town Guide Model is the piece I consider my signature image. The canoe was built in 1935 by the Old Town Canoe Company in Old Town, Maine. My father bought her around 1960. He restored her. She has been in constant use since then, with a third generation of my family paddling her all over New England’s lakes and rivers.
I photographed her at dawn in the fog of Moosehead Lake. A photograph of a canoe that has been in your family for three generations is not really a photograph of a canoe. It is something else.
Madaket Autumn
Madaket Autumn was a complete accident. My wife and I were on Nantucket for our anniversary, and we drove out to Madaket. I had my gear with me, which I usually do.
I came around a corner and saw a weathered cottage and a boat in the marsh. The light was overcast and dim, which I thought was wrong for the scene. I shot it anyway. The next day I went back in better light and shot it again. The first day’s photograph was the one. The dim, overcast light gave the image a Wyethesque quality that the second day didn’t have.
I posted the test print online and a friend said: that’s Mr. Rogers’ boat. I had no idea who Fred Rogers was as a first name until that conversation. The boat belonged to him, and it sits in the marsh near the house he kept on Nantucket. Years later at a show on the island, a man walked up to my booth and said: my father built that boat.
Fenway Park Inside the Green Monster
Fenway #6 is the photograph from inside the manually operated Green Monster scoreboard at Fenway Park. It was made in the early 1990s with help from park personnel.
The Green Monster scoreboard is one of the last three manually operated scoreboards in Major League Baseball. The numbers are still hung by hand by a person standing inside the wall. The photograph is what they see while a game is going on. The access I had then is not available now. The original scoreboard has since been replaced. The era I photographed cannot be photographed again.
The piece is in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, along with a second image of the Green Monster wall from outside.
Spencer Bay
The Spencer Bay series was made on the northeast shore of Spencer Bay in Moosehead Lake, Maine. The black and white pieces show weathered driftwood with shadowed spruce trees as a backdrop.
Most of the images in the series were made while standing on a ladder in chest-deep water with a tripod and a large format camera. There is no way to do this comfortably. The cold was constant. The work pace was slow. The trade was being able to compose a shot from an angle no one else would attempt.
The series includes three pieces that buyers tend to collect as a set or pair by tonal weight.
Maison de Chamagnac
Maison de Chamagnac is a photograph of a 600 plus year old French country home in the Gers region of southwest France. I have stayed there off and on over the last thirty years.
Sleeping in a 600 year old home is an astounding experience. The light, the stone, the worn floors, the way the building has settled into the land around it. None of that is reproducible. The photograph captures one morning in one summer in a house that has seen more summers than any of us will.
Why these stories matter
A photograph by itself is just an image. A photograph with a story behind it is something different. The buyer doesn’t just hang the piece, they hang the story with it. The piece becomes harder to grow tired of because it isn’t only what is in the frame.
This is one of the things buying directly from a working photographer offers that mass market prints don’t. You meet the person who made the work. You learn what was happening when the shutter opened. The photograph becomes a piece of someone’s actual life, and yours.
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.
Browse the work
Each of these pieces lives in one of these collections:
- Vessels. Includes August Afternoon, Old Town Guide Model, and Madaket Autumn.
- Driftwood, Lake and Stream. Includes the Spencer Bay series.
- Great Escapes. Includes Maison de Chamagnac and other European work.
- Fenway Park. Includes Fenway #6 and the rest of the Green Monster series.
- New Releases. The most recent additions to the body of work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the stories behind the photographs documented anywhere else?
Some are. The Madaket Autumn story has been covered in interviews. The Fenway Park work has been written about in connection with the Baseball Hall of Fame. Most of the stories live with me and come out when buyers ask.
Do you talk to buyers about the work directly?
Yes. Most of my customers either come to a gallery or I bring work to their home. The conversation about the photographs is part of how the work gets sold. Buyers tend to know the stories of the pieces they own.
Can a piece be commissioned with a specific story behind it?
Sometimes, but not usually. The work depends on light, weather, and timing that cannot be commanded. I have made photographs for specific clients of specific places, but those are still working within what the location and conditions provide.
How do I learn the story behind a specific piece?
The collection pages have notes on many of the pieces. For more detail, the easiest path is to reach out directly. I am happy to talk about the work.
