Being There

A peaceful, fleeting, memorable, quiet, engaging, noteworthy, ethereal, early-morning moment at Boston Harbor, 05-21-22. Fog (almost) as thick as goddamn clam chowder. 

My working title for this was "Six Boats" which, while descriptive enough, rates low in je-ne-sais-quoi. "Here and Now" is fitting. And "From Here to Eternity" (after the WWII movie) was a contender, too, but seems pretentious for this composition. This print has a background of smooth, warm, sepia tones. The boats are painted soft shades of red, blue, yellow, green, blue, and gold.

An early method of colorizing black and white photos was to apply oil paints directly to photographs. Spread thinly and carefully, the paints deposited translucent hues, and the black and white emulsion provided the values or shading. Portrait photographers added skin tones and rosey cheeks with methods like that. In this piece, to paint the boats, I imitated that method with modern digital techniques.

Details

• Paper Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
• Image Size: 6 x 8 inches
• Margins: about 1.25 inches
• Paper: 100% cotton rag paper. Archival grade. Matte.
• Edition of 15 prints.
• Date: 2022