Up in Maine

“The air is different. The clouds look different.”

That was my good friend’s description of Maine just prior to my first visit way back in 2012.

And he was right.

As soon as I stepped out of the plane onto that deserted tarmac at the Bangor airport I instantly understood what he meant. The air was in fact “different” in the best way imaginable. Sweet, clean, earthy.

The Sky? Different. Clouds? Different. Everything was just miraculously different. Even then I knew Maine held a bit of additional spice.

It’s like when you’re eating an incredible plate of food and there’s just something “extra” in the mix. You can’t quite place it, but you know it’s good– very good–and you feel good for being there. You’re just happy to have been in the right place at the right time to enjoy the flavor.

Over a decade would pass before I would taste Maine again. Eleven years may not seem like that long of an absence but those years have clocked massive mileage. At this point I’m two lifetimes down the road from that first adventure to the Northlands. Finishing one career, beginning another, then ending that, too.

Somehow I’ve managed to find my way back here, staring out across that grand Gulf behind this giant camera.

It had all been a blur. All of it. Driving up to meet Ritter in Vermont to pick up this big 11x14, then deciding to steam further north through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, until finally experiencing that Forrest Gump moment of “Well, I’ve came this far…figure I’ll just keep on going.”

That’s how I wound up at this tiny campground on the coast of Maine. $15US per day. Just 12 sites and each only big enough for single cars. Cold spring water. Bathrooms. Hot shower. With enough whiskey in my system I could probably chuck a baseball into the Atlantic from my campsite.

We’re on the doorstep of Canada. Nova Scotia is only about 50 miles away over the water. The campground sported a 7-day limit. We stayed for 12.

The entire operation was part of a county park hosted by the town of…oh wait…I promised no less than three locals I would not disclose the precise location. Who am I if not a man of my word?

Besides who could blame them for playing it close to the chest? I wholly understand why those good folks politely requested that I keep this place a secret.

There’s no denying that the more remarkable destinations of the world possess an alure which walks hand in hand with their own demise; a sort of inverse proportion between popular enjoyment and inevitable destruction. Once the crowds move in it’s only a matter of time before the leeches suck it dry.

All I'll say is that a clever individual will likely be able to decipher where I spent those days up in Maine making my pictures. I will never confirm nor deny.

Naturally, I had the big 11x14 Ritter; the hulking beast of an ultra large format camera that was the impetus for the original pilgrimage up north. I have subsequently named the camera Eastwood. The story behind my finding of Eastwood is worthy of its own telling and it’s one I’ll pen in due time.

Additional implements of destruction at hand included Alice, Ishmael, and Olga. Respectively, my Hasselblad 500 C/M, Fuji X-pro 1, and the Holga 120Pan. Olga was resting herself after much toil during the drive up so there were no panoramic photographs made in Maine.

If I never left the campsite I would have still remained completely content with the photographic subject matter. The light was good.

What am I saying? The light was GREAT. There was never a day lacking opportunity.

The forest floor surrounding our spot was a blanket of lime green moss, thick and not too wet. A few minutes walk barefoot through those pines and the stress will evacuate from your soul. A total reset of body and mind.

Each clear morning Leia and I would stroll down to the coast to make pictures and collect the oceans easy pickings for that evening’s meal. “Winkles” (Periwinkle sea snails) and blue mussels were a perpetual menu item.

I would throw each mornings catch into the fridge after washing to send the little sea creatures off into a nice, deep slumber prior to meeting the pan. A little butter, a little green onion, a little garlic, nothing else but the Atlantic’s own special salt seasoning.

Woofing down a batch of fresh sea snails and mussels strait from the Gulf of Maine stands as one of the finest experiences of my life.

The 11x14 sheets of film and the 120 medium format rolls were developed on site in the Hive; my portable darkroom, travel bar and writing salon.

I exposed cyanotypes but no gelatin silver. Those silver prints would have to wait for nearly two months. Much to my horror, I recently discovered my Multigrade contrast filters had gone bad; a development (haha)I found particularly infuriating since those big 11x14 negatives don’t fit on my Epson V700. So, aside from the cyanotype printing the results of the ultra large format work remained unknown for quite some time.

While in camp I received an order for a cyanotype pulled from a negative I had exposed in New Hampshire on the way to Maine. It went to a lovely client located in Massachusetts. I prepared the print for shipping and drove into town the next clear day to the Post Office in…oops…I nearly did it again.

When such immediate and linear print sales transpire a people of a certain philosophical inclination tend to get the idea of “symmetrical perfection” stuck in their heads, at least I certainly did. In fact, since the beginning that was the goal for all this photographic madness. Own a small gallery in some map dot town, make pictures by day, print by night, sell them for just enough cabbage to buy food and film and whiskey; repeat the cycle until the day I die.

The endgame was never complicated. I came close. So close.

Wehit Maine in mid-September at the last dying breath of summer. Everything was preparing to shut down for winter, including our little campground. Bobby, the good-natured caretaker, said it would be open for about another week before closing for the season. Come to think of it, I believe it reopens in a couple weeks. Isn’t that interesting….

I hope you find as much enjoyment from the remainder of these photographs from Maine as I did while making them. A small quantity of hand made silver-gelatin and cyanotype contact prints from the ultra large format Maine negatives are available at my online site.