Them windward girls, they all love me

[sovay]

Late this afternoon, I sat on the wooden shoring of Derby Wharf in Salem, near where a replica of the Kalmar Nyckel was tied up; the sky was the overexposed blue of summer that swims with sun and a daymoon hung up in the masts, like a stamp. I watched seagulls and tourists and the burls of reflection forming and breaking on the water, oils of light, bird's-eyes. On the next pier over, a man with his back to me was playing a cornet, but I never made out the tune; I could hear him only when the wind shifted. It was the end of the Salem Maritime Festival, which I hadn't known when I got there. (I went to see the Dutch seascapes at the Peabody Essex Museum. I came home with a book of maritime photographs. The rest of their collections will require hours in the near future.) I didn't go to the contra-dances or aboard the small tall ship, though I walked past someone who had a beautiful face for his turn-of-the-nineteenth-century collar and hat. Even if it was the harbor, I could breathe in salt. This was better than counters and cabinets.

Comments

[sovay]

Which Frank Meadow Sutcliffes?

"Women and Children of the Fishing Port of Whitby, England, circa 1890." It has the composition of a painting and the lighting of a stage design, but the three women at its center are engaged in the kind of work—making lace, knitting jerseys—I imagine they would have done with or without the camera's eye. The boy on top of the capstan probably would not have struck that pose without suggestion, but the other two leaning over the sea-wall look as though they haven't even noticed Sutcliffe is there.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

His vision was painterly. His exposures were insanely long.

This is one of the stormy ones; but take a look around the gallery.

Nine

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

My, those are gorgeous photographs. Thank you for linking the gallery.