Boston Color

When I came to Boston it was a predominantly gray town, with a tint of sooty brick. Months of dirty snow and the cloudy skies of a northeast coastal breeze dampened its traditions, a persistently Puritan atmosphere. It was a black and white town with documentary de rigueur. And for photography, color remained suspect. But if Paul Simon could have his Kodachrome, so would I. Yes, those "nice bright colors" – actually much more subtle than that, qualities that the vintage Cibachrome prints I made would only marginally portray. And artistically as exploration of a “new color” began its invasion of the monotone domain, I began collecting street documents with the idea that color might additionally inform the narrative of an image. Today, color dominates. And pigment printers with ten inks will reach to the depths of the Kodachrome palette. Expressive neutrals, richly warm pastels, truth in earth tones, bright reds, varietal greens, shaping blues all contribute to these colors of memory. At this time too, while on a trip away down east by ferry and coastal steamer, I picked up on a curious term used occasionally in remote fishing settlements. The heavily accented Newfoundlander’s voice would refer to where I came from as the “Boston States”. It is as a tribute to this maritime tradition that I identify with the region covered by the Boston Color series.