The Boat Yard

The J. O. Brown Boat Yard, on North Haven Island, is over 100 years old and has been in the Brown Family since its beginning. It's not large, maybe a few acres or so in area and comprising several buildings. Being on an island ten miles in Penobscott Bay, Maine, the boat yard provides essential services to the local lobstermen, the summer and year-round islanders, as well as transient sailors and boaters. Among its other attributes, it is the only gasoline station, hardware store, and fuel oil delivery service on the island.

J. O. Brown's provides moorings, fuel, engine and boat repairs, a laundromat and assorted other boating and sailing essentials. It is a working boat yard, and over the years, the list of boats constructed by the Yard is quite notable.

The yard is not a pristine place; it's more of a time capsule, museum and a depository, however unintended, of visually interesting boat-related objects. I have photographed the yard over a period of years, mostly in the summer but also in the fall and winter. The goal was to capture the diverse "stuff" in the yard in ways not often seen by the casual visitor or even the yard workers. These images are often abstract shapes, textures of all types, and colors of common yard objects.

Click on this link to buy a book of The Boat Yard photographs.

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