Annapolis City Dock

Author's Comments

There is a particular twenty minutes in early October when Annapolis becomes the photograph you hoped it would be. Just before sunrise, before the charter boats fire their engines and the harbor goes into its working day, the water holds still enough to mirror every mast. The State House dome sits above the rooflines from almost any angle, and in that blue pre-dawn light it reads less like a landmark and less like a backdrop, more like something the town is quietly oriented around. I tend to start at the head of the dock and work outward, letting the wider compositions come first and the tighter portraits of individual boats reveal themselves as the light warms. The colonial brick takes color slowly. The rigging lines go from silhouette to detail. By seven the first crews are moving and the reflections break apart, and that is usually when I put the camera down and find coffee. Golden hour in the evening is the more famous version of this place, and it earns its reputation - the dome catches the last light, the harbor goes gold and pink, the sailboats come back in against it. But it is also crowded, and the photograph everyone makes from the dock at sunset has been made many times. I prefer the morning, or the shoulder hour just after the sunset crowd leaves and the dock lamps come on. That is when Annapolis feels like a harbor town again rather than a postcard of one.

Gallery