Trip to Central New York
This past Wednesday my pal Craig Williams hired me to take some photographs of the old Lock 52 in Port Byron, NY. It is now an historic site with a great visitor center (open seasonally).
The entrance to the site is off the New York State Thruway and is really interesting and well worth a stop if you are driving East.
These limestone blocks are enormous.
Craig had me photographing some views to match historic photographs of the lock when it was still in use. We worked for a bit before lunch which was at a really great diner in Port Byron. I sat facing this flag, which I had seen before but never understood.
Here is the text from the card above the stars. “This is a police flag. Each strip on the emblem represents certain respective figures. The blue center line represents law enforcement, the top black stripes represents the public, the bottom black stripes represents the criminals.” I hesitate to be negative here, but as someone who is really interested in design as a way of conveying ideas, this seems completely wacky to me. / Great lunch though, fine diner with nice people.
I am really digging this fish display on the wall above our table. Award winning!
At lunch Craig mentioned that Brigham Young lived in Port Byron before heading west and that his house was still standing but in rough shape. Some work was started on a restoration, but due to poor health of the two contractors, it was stopped.
The plaque on the door reads “This wood frame house built by James Pine circa 1818 and later occupied by Brigham Young and family. Young’s first child a girl named Elizabeth, born here September 1825.” Given the Mormon’s interest in history and genealogy, I was shocked to see this property is such a state of neglect and apparent disinterest by the church.
A restored tavern is on part of the historic canal site. These bottles sit atop the bar, which is partly original. It seems rye whiskey was seriously popular in the 19th century. / After Port Byron I drove down to Ithaca to spend the night with my friends Brad and Tania.
Their house is filled with great things including tons of Fiestaware.
A trip to Ithaca is never complete without a visit to the Lincoln Street Diner.
Peter had just received the latest OSMO camera and we got the chance to goof around with it.
Very cool.
Lookin’ good Sport!
Thanks for following. Happy Holidays.
Tilghman(‘s) Island/DuPont Circle
I have spent the last two days on Tilghman Island shooting more artifacts and a bunch of really interesting artwork. It is a remarkable place, and I just love working there. The above shot is a detail from a very old linen map of oyster beds near the island. It was literally falling apart but is an amazing remnant of work life on the bay.
After 6 months of really hard work, it looks like Peter has found a job. It will be a few weeks before he starts, but we are so happy for him. I took a quick shower after the drive back to DC from Tilghman’s and we went right out to buy him some work clothes. There is a GAP practically next to Nando’s so we ate some chicken and then went to Larry’s for ice cream. It is a wonderful place on Connecticut Avenue. I had lavender, which was probably the most interesting flavor I’ve had in years.
Home tomorrow.
I-95
I was meant to be driving to DC as I am writing this, but due to the winter storm nailing the I-95 corridor, I ended up leaving last night. I stopped just North of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, got a room for a few hours and was on the road again by 6.30 this morning. It started snowing just after I parked in Peter’s apartment building in DC, and now at 2.15 it is really coming down. And cold to boot. I really wanted to make it here today as it is his 25th birthday. We’ll get to spend the whole day together and then go out to dinner somewhere in the neighborhood this evening.
Tomorrow I am off to Tilghman to shoot Chesapeake Bay related artifacts for the Watermen’s Museum. Originally Peter Carroll was going to be shooting video as well, but he basically had no safe way of getting here from Ithaca due to the weather. He and I have been working on the island on and off for over 5 years now and it is such an interesting place. / The second of his films about the watermen and their families will be shown on Maryland Public Television Tuesday, 23rd April at 8.30 PM. Here is a teaser. And here is a link to an earlier post of mine about one aspect of the project.
Tilghman in Transition
The second film Peter is shooting deals with the transitions that Tilghman folks have been making as a result of the changing situation with the bay. Larry Gowe was in the Navy and when he returned to the island he used what he learned in the service and became an appliance repairman.
His brother Edward works at Walton’s Seafood counting and sorting crabs.
And this is Darnell Murray who was working at Walton’s with Edward. Darnell was in the Marines for 18 years and served for most of that time on the USS Nimitz. His grandparents worked at the Tilghman Packing Company.
Here’s one of the soft crabs from this morning’s catch. We had some for dinner the other night. Really tasty.
The folks at Tilghman have really opened up their lives to us. Peter and I have made some very close friends.
Pound Netting on the Chesapeake
This is going to be a fairly picture heavy post. On a technical note, all of the pre dawn images, and most of the early morning ones were shot at an amazingly high ISO of 12,800. No flash, just the boat’s work lights.
Peter and I got to the dock at 4.00 AM to meet Robby Wilson who runs a pound net operation not far from Tilghman’s Island in the Chesapeake Bay.
We were on a scow that had been converted from an old houseboat, and his 2 crew were on a smaller skiff. We motored out of Tilghman for about 40 minutes and got to the first of 4 of his nets before 5.00 AM.
The two guys in the skiff had arrived some minutes before us, and were already hauling up the “pound”.
I asked several people where the term pound net comes from and there seems to be no consensus. It might come from the early American idea of a collection point for animals. The FAO has a pretty good description here.
The two boats work together to roll up the pound and then scoop the fish into the scow with the help of a winch.
The primary species Robby is fishing for is alewife. Many different fishes are caught in the nets, so the crew’s job is to cull most of the others, of which rockfish (striped bass) are the commonest. Some catfish and flounder are kept to sell as food fish. The alewife are sold mainly as bait for crabbers. After the first of June, the season for rockfish opens, and he is allowed to sell those.
It is wet, strenuous, and demanding work. It was unusually calm and clear yesterday, but the boat was still rocking, and water and fish scales were flying everywhere. After the cull, the crew would hop in the skiff and motor to the next set of nets.
The culling goes on until the pound is empty and then the crew moves on to the next location.
The process is repeated for each of the four sites. Travel time between them us usually less than a half hour.
Below is a good shot of system. Robby and the crew usually are out putting the stakes into the bottom around the first of March. They fell the trees and sharpen them in the off season. The depth of the water is anywhere between 7 and 15 feet.
Robby’s dad Clifford “Big Daddy” Wilson came out to help out. He is also a waterman; a few years ago Peter and I went out on his crab boat.
On the way back to the dock, the fish are shoveled into plastic baskets so they can be off-loaded into one of Robby’s trucks to be taken to Cambridge, MD to be sold.
They were nice enough to stop for a minute for a photo, but other wise they are constantly in motion.
The boats were back at the dock around 8.00 AM.
It’s about an hour to unload into the truck, and then the scow is cleaned up and made ready for the next day. It is pretty much a seven day a week job as the nets fill up pretty fast.
An amazing day. We are very fortunate to hang around with these guys and document their work. They couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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