David Peabody photographs

I have been following the progress of several young couples who are building homesteads in our area of Maine. Each has chosen to live outside of the consumer culture, quietly, in their own way. I see in them the same tenacity and resilience of the original European settlers of New England, but with a profound difference in their relationship to the land. What they are doing is important for the future.

One of the couples, Hannah and Colby, teach classes in primitive skills at their homestead in East Blue Hill, Maine, and you can learn more about what they do at wayoftheearth.com.

Streams, ponds and quarries in East Blue Hill, Maine 2019-2024

These photographs were made during five years of seeking out traditional boatyards—in New England, the mid-Atlantic and the Gulf Coast—and photographing those bits and pieces of them that I found beautiful or interesting.  The idea began almost accidentally when in 1998 I photographed an overturned dory in a neighbor’s yard in East Blue Hill, Maine where we spend summers, Across the street, in the local boatyard, I photographed the hull of a boat wrapped in a tarp.  Although I didn’t realize it at the time, these two photographs—the boat in the landscape, with its sometimes startling or disturbing juxtapositions or perspectives, and the shrouded boat, were my starting point.

All photographs taken in Mississippi between 1990 and 2018 unless noted otherwise.

These photographs grew out of the boatyard project. Walking around yards seeing boats laid up for the winter, I became fascinated by what sun and salt water, critters and chemistry do in that littoral zone where the hull meets the water. Most of the images were made between 2001 and 2004., though I continue to be drawn to the subject. More recently the project has included looking at waterlines from the water.

When I began practicing architectre, I no longer had access to a darkroom, and first began making color pictures. Most of these are on Kodak VPS 120 film.

I began this series of photographs when I was in college in 1970-71 and completed them in 1972. I was moved by the vernacular architecture I had grown up with in rural Mississippi, and set out with my camera to capture a world I saw disappearing around me.  My great influence was Walker Evans, who became my teacher and mentor during the project.  When I turned from documentary photography to become an architect, the negatives went into boxes, where they remained some forty odd years. In the past three years I have scanned them and begun making prints.

In trying to identify people and places taken during my year documenting Mississippi rural life in the 70’s I have made several visits back to the state in recent years. It is a changed place. What I saw as disappearing has disappeared. Where there were viable small towns and communities there is an empty landscape, populated by prisons and industrial farming. For the most part, the people are gone.

I first visited the Gedi ruins in 1986, and returned again in 2015. Believed to have been built in the 13th century, this Swahili city on the east coast of Kenya was abandoned in the 17th century, most likely due to the lack of potable water. Excavations began in the late 1940’s and have continued sporadically to the present time. On a given day, you can wander the site and see no more than a few people all day. It’s mostly you and the monkeys.

To learn more about this World Heritage site and its history, go to https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5501/.