This Sunday I drove up the coast to Harbor Works, a small gallery in Harpswell, Maine that showcases "documentary stories of working landscapes and seascapes." My trip up was beautiful; the tree tops were red, the water teal, fishing boats cutting slivers of color into the waves, and me driving along down an increasingly narrow and overgrown road, wondering if I was going to dead end in someone's front yard. The museum is actually in the last house before the dead end, a straight-backed white house facing both the Harpswell harbor and a tiny little general store that's been in operation since 1850.The show on display at Harbor Works (until October 11th) is Up River, which documents the lives of two families in a small Maine fishing community. The photos are by Olive Pierce, an established photographer who spends part of each year living in Rockland, Maine, and they allow us an incredibly intimate view into the lives of the two fishing families: we see them at work on their boats, playing with their kids, watching tv, and sitting down to Christmas dinner. Pierce clearly followed this community for a long time, for the photos span several seasons.
The most fascinating thing about the show is the relationship that must have developed between the photographer and her subjects. To produce such intimate photos, Pierce must have spent a long time with the families, becoming quite familiar with a community known for its insularity. To me, the photos feel like such a gift, as they expose me to something that, while local, I never would have been aware of.
Photos in the exhibit are compiled in a book, also titled Up River, which is now out of print. Olive Pierce's photos and manuscripts are in the permanent collection of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.
