Crossing the Merrimack
The southernmost bridge across the Merrimack River is 5 miles from my home; the northernmost crossing, at the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Boscawen, NH, is 73.4 miles from my driveway. There are 43 crossings in between and in April 2015 I decided to make photographs of them all. There would be photographs from both the eastern and western shores, from below the bridge, and, when possible, images of the river seen from the bridge. Defining the project in these procedural terms was a simple self-management stratagem, as my preference when making landscape photographs has been to approach each project with an empty mind, allowing the world to surprise and seduce me, and to teach me unforeseen lessons.
This project is shaped by several rivulets of influence, some flowing from personal history, some from the influence of artists I have admired, and some from prior photographic projects. I have for most of my life, sought out the water as a place to live near, to play in, and to contemplate. Bridges and rivers play prominent roles in the history of landscape art, and an emerging interest in 19th century Japanese prints, especially those of Hiroshige and Hokusai, has brought me closer to that tradition. Previous work has centered on how bodies of water define urban landscapes or, more generally, the intersection of human intention and geological structure and river crossings are a very manifest embodiment of human intention.