Fort McHenry

Author's Comments

The shape of the fort is only visible from above, which is the central frustration of photographing Fort McHenry and also its strange gift. From the ground you are working with fragments - a bastion here, a powder magazine there, the low profile of brick walls that were built to disappear rather than announce themselves. This is architecture designed to be difficult to hit with a cannonball, and that same logic makes it difficult to compose. I have made my peace with it. What works is the relationship between the fort and the water. Walk the outer seawall at golden hour in late September, when the light comes in low across the harbor and turns the brick a deeper red than it reads at noon. The ramparts throw clean geometric shadows. The flag, which is enormous and always flying, becomes less of a symbol and more of a graphic element against the sky. I tend to shoot wide here and let the fort sit low in the frame, giving most of the image to water and sky and the distant cranes of the working harbor. Sunrise is the other argument. The seawall faces roughly east toward the Inner Harbor, and on a clear morning the skyline catches first light while the fort itself is still in blue shadow. That contrast is the photograph worth setting an alarm for. Come in spring before the humidity rolls in. The air is clearer and the color holds longer.

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