While exploring the database of the Digital Commonwealth, Massachusetts Collections Online, I came across a 35mm slide from the Edmund L. Mitchell Collection. It was captured (according to the database) in September 1959.
Mitchell, Edmund L. "Along Maine beach." Photograph. September 1959. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/tq57rd06p
I really enjoy old images. But I especially like old images that have an artistic quality, regardless of whether the creator of the image aspired to create an artistically meaningful image or not.
And when the medium, (such as black and white images, due to necessity because color photography didn’t exist; or 35mm film because it was the film of choice by necessity, not an artistic choice, or the old slides from the 1950-1980s that are so warm after years of sitting around in storage) enhances the experience, it is an added layer of interest for me.
The image above is entitled “Along Maine beach” (a relatively undescriptive title, all things considered). Let us examine the image:
There are nine, dark, cold Atlantic Ocean seawater-washed wooden poles, pointed nearly straight up, all save one, out of the water. The first three wooden poles (from left to right) are nearly equal in height. Poles four and five quickly shorten to almost the waterline. Then, pole six is notably diagonal, seemingly falling over towards closer to the shore and touching the top (though it may be an optical illusion) of pole seven.
Pole seven and the final two seem a bit closer to land then previous six and the last pole is short and almost at water line.
The body of water the nine wooden poles are in, as portrayed in the image, is a rich mix of textures of calm water movement. The colors of the water is a mix of warm blues, greens with white and black adding to the complexity of the water coloring.
Then, a creamy white sand beach juts out above the water inlet in the bottom half of the image, with some people distantly visible across the small beach, enjoying a September day on the ocean.
Lighter colored blue and green water, more active ocean waves, with white tops, are sweeping in towards the sandy beach vigorously.
Finally, even lighter blue sky tops the image.
For me, the image caught my eye the moment I saw it. I won’t over-intellectualize. I just like the image. It is artistically intriguing and it made me happy to look at it and imagine what it would have been like to be there that day.