These photos were taken as an independent study project in my senior year at St. Mark's School, Southboro, Mass. Phil Stern and I spent two weeks in the spring of 1979 on Little Cranberry Isle, photographing the people and places of this small lobstering community. Heartfelt thanks to our hosts Warren and Ann Fernald, to my brother, Mike for arranging this trip, my shooting partner Phil Stern, for putting up with me for two weeks on a small island, and especially to the people of Islesford, for opening their homes and their lives to strangers with cameras.

Technical details I remember: the photos were shot with a Pentax ME 35mm SLR and probably a 50mm Pentax lens. I also had a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 zoom. Phil and I shot on hand-rolled Kodak Tri-X film, processed in D-76 mixed 1:1. We printed in a make-shift darkroom set up in the penthouse at St. Mark's, on my Beseler 23C enlarger with a Nikkor lens. The original prints were on Ilford Pearl polycontrast RC paper.

For the record, I am a much better photographer now than I was then, and if I could do it all over again, I would.

If you want an excellent read about Isleford, some of the people in these photos, and everything you wanted to know about lobster life, read Trevor Corson's excellent book, The Secret Life of Lobsters.

If you are from Islesford and can identify any of the people or places in the photos, or it's you in the photo, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page for each photo. If you do leave a comment please sign your name.

NOTE: THESE PHOTOS ARE COPYRIGHTED BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND CANNOT BE REPRODUCED OR DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER, JOSEPH HEWES.