“Always, the sea is not far from my mind,” says Jamie Fishman, whose photography exhibit is on view at the Feldman Family Artspace in the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center through Nov. 30. The show, curated by Featherstone Center for the Arts, reflects Fishman’s early fascination with the waters around us. “I was first brought to the sea at age 5, when my parents took me to Martha’s Vineyard in 1959 for a weekend. But I have had family coming here since the 1930s. I came back many times with my own family, renting a cottage in Eastville on the Vineyard Sound, across from the hospital. I remember crashing in the waves at South Beach and kayaking on the sound. Later, I brought my college girlfriend, and now wife, to the Vineyard, and she too fell in love with it.”
Windswept sand, rolling dunes, and lapping water permeate Fishman’s work. He says, “The sea, and its surrounds, is a captivating place for a photographer to capture imagery –– always different, always changing.” However, Fishman insists, “These are not postcard images. Instead, I choose to shoot and display visions that convey feelings and emotions rather than raw beauty; images that require thought and inspire introspection.”
Fishman’s light, imagery, and patterns draw you in, and the longer you look, the more you see. The contrast in “Wind Fence, South Beach” creates an arresting composition. We stand looking up at a dune filled with footprints in the sand, but there is nary a person in sight. The two luminous wind fences form a visual gateway, inviting us to walk up between them and see what is on the other side.
In a black-and-white beach scene, we see the sunlit tips of the tall seagrass in “Cow Bay,” which creates a feathered texture that draws our eye all the way back to the large cabana, piercing the white expanse of the sky above.
There is a meditative quality to “Ocean Beach, San Francisco,” as we view the scene from above. The dark, silhouetted figures dot the seascape. Together, they form a sinuous line that echoes the gentle ebb and flow of the waves. The figures walk amid a multitude of luscious shades of blue that ripple up and down the picture frame.
Exquisite colors also fill “Vineyard Haven, Harbor Sunrise.” Pinks, purples, and a warm yellow sun, streaked with clouds, envelope the familiar harbor scene, imbuing the manmade structures with a quiet, otherworldly beauty.
Fishman looks for striking imagery: “Sometimes, as soon as I see something, I say, ‘I’m shooting that.’ And some things are very serendipitous.” This is true of “Newcomb Hollow Beach, Wellfleet.” Fishman took the picture from a distance while sitting on the beach. Here, a father walks along the water’s edge with three children following behind, with a young girl farther back wading into the ocean. The bold colors of their beach attire punctuate the shoreline, linking the stretch of sand before us to the expanse of water, which itself bumps up against the wispy, clouded sky. “I saw this unfold in front of me, and I started shooting,” Fishman explains. “It was the combination of the light and the colors. I wasn’t even focusing on the people. But if you look closely, you’ll see that the father has an artificial leg. This brought out a lot more meaning than I initially saw. It’s emotional for me to see that.”
He continues, “I like pictures that evoke an emotional response — happy, sad, contemplative. Some make you think. Some pictures make you smile.” The circle of swimmers, submerged to their chests with arms raised in salutation in “Polar Bears, Inkwell,” does indeed bring a smile. People’s delight is contagious. Fishman took this shot from the nearby jetty, rather than from the beach, where most photographers capture the summer ritual in which a dedicated group of swimmers gather every morning for a workout focused on health, wellness, and fellowship. “It’s a glorious moment. It’s spiritual. It’s joy. It’s Martha’s Vineyard.”
“Stonewall Beach, Chilmark” has a mysterious, otherworldly quality. The brown pebbles and sand beneath our feet appear in sharp detail. The tips of the waves surge forward, reaching out to pull these small treasures back into the ocean’s depths. The indistinct turquoise water is gentle and hazy, stretching to the horizon, above which moody clouds hang like a low, celestial ceiling. The scene has a painterly quality — an art form that interested Fishman as a child.
He says of his artistic journey, “My father was a semiprofessional photographer. We had a darkroom in the basement. I was always interested in him making pictures. But I was mostly interested in painting and drawing as a kid. I didn’t pick up a camera seriously until 1980, a year after I [became a lawyer]. So it’s been a passion of mine for a long time.”
“At the Sea” is on view at the M.V. Film Center through Nov. 30.
