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By Robert Haywood | Photography by Jay Fleming
Above Johnson Creek, Somerset County
Jay Fleming’s two masterful photographic books, Working the Water (2016) and Island Life (2021), document, with enormous resolve, the Maryland seafood industry and the Eastern Shore’s waterways, its fragile ecosystem, and its islands. In this photojournalism work, he is a historian of sorts, recording everyday ways of life that are forever changing and, in some instances, disappearing (e.g., Smith Island, which is sinking).
It can be misleading to describe his work as photojournalism because there is more at work than a photographer simply aiming and snapping a digital camera. Fleming has an expert knowledge of light, weather, and winds and the sharp, experienced eye of an artist composing a picture. With great deftness, he presents the most poignant moments of weather-worn watermen harvesting crabs and oysters or a local woman icing a seven-layer Smith Island cake.
Raised in Annapolis, Fleming got a jump start on photography from his father, Kevin Fleming, who was a photographer for National Geographic. The son learned from his father but has developed a style and artistic voice of his own. This is evident in his fine art photographs of boat bows with their calm, streamlined aesthetic, and their decisive and colorful forms.
When I met with Jay Fleming and interviewed him in his studio on the Eastern Shore, we talked about his photographic books, his subjects of choice (i.e., life on the Bay), and the character of his photography.
Robert Haywood: Can you talk about the two books you have published about the Chesapeake Bay?
Jay Fleming: I have one book out that was published in 2016, Working the Water. That book’s all about the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry. So, it’s a lot of stuff on the Eastern Shore. Most of the photography is on the Shore because that’s where most of the watermen and seafood industry is. But there are still some watermen in Annapolis, Solomons, Patuxent River, Potomac, and then on into Virginia as well. Then I also have my second book, Island Life, which is all about Smith Island and Tangier Island. It’s all about how the isolation of those two communities has shaped the way that people live out there and how the landscape is changing as the environment changes.
RH: You spend so much time out on the water. From your perspective, how would you describe the essence of the Eastern Shore, its character, and what makes it distinct?
JF: To me, the Eastern Shore is a way to get away from Annapolis. Coming across the bridge, Annapolis is busy; it feels a little bit like the city. I know it’s not when you compare it to DC or Baltimore. But the Shore has a different pace of life. Unfortunately, now, Annapolis and the Western Shore are pushing over to the Eastern Shore.
The people who have been here for their whole lives, like on Kent Island, they see the development, and there’s just no more open space. [The open space] is what a lot of people like about the Eastern Shore. That’s why they might move here. But they don’t realize that just by them moving here, they’re taking away the character of the place that they came here for.
But there are still a lot of places on the Shore that retain that authenticity and retain that traditional character of the way things used to be. And you just have to go find them. Fortunately, my job has allowed me to spend the time to go and find all that stuff, becoming immersed and photographing these waterman communities, whether it’s Tilghman Island, Hoopers Island, or Crisfield. On the Western Shore, there’s some really cool places, too.
RH: What is it about the waterman and boats that continues to attract you and inspire you to photograph these subjects?
JF: Well, I love seafood. I recognize that seafood’s a big part of the heritage of this area. It’s an important part of the economy in certain communities. And I’ve become an advocate for the waterman in a sense, encouraging other people to eat local seafood as much as they can and support these communities, support these small businesses, and also encouraging people to recognize where their seafood’s coming from. And that’s a whole ’nother story with crab meat from overseas.
The demand for crab meat and crabs here far outweighs the local supply. So, there’s no way that Maryland crabbers, or even Virginia crabbers and Maryland crab picking houses, could supply this whole region with crab meat. We’ve created a huge demand here, and people are just nuts about crabs in the state. So, unfortunately, as the stocks of crabs have declined and the number of watermen has also declined, there aren’t as many crabs coming out of the Bay as there used to be. So, we import live crabs from Louisiana, the Carolinas, and elsewhere. And then also, crab meat comes in from overseas, including Asia.
There are crabs all over the world. And that’s filling the void that we have because there’s just not enough local product. Also, that product is cheaper for restaurants to buy.
RH: Can you taste the difference between a Maryland crab and a Louisiana crab?
JF: Probably not. But I could taste the difference between Maryland crab meat—local crab meat—versus Mexican, Venezuelan, or Indonesian. You can taste the difference.
RH: From your experience, what makes a great photograph?
JF: So many things: lighting, color, perspective. You want a picture to have some sort of action or like a verb going on in it. With the boat bow prints, for instance, what makes them is the simplicity of the scene. The fact that they’re so easy to look at. You’ve got a horizon line background. You’ve got incredibly calm water with the boat reflected in it. You’ve got nice, soft, like muted colors. So, what makes those photographs is a little bit different than what makes, like, a photograph that would be published in my book Island Life—that like tells a story about something. So, different things and different styles of photography work better than others.
For the boat bow pictures, I’m constantly watching the weather, looking at the wind forecast, and trying to figure out when the conditions are going to be optimal for me to take these pictures. You could have those flat calm conditions and fog one day, and then the next day, it could be blowing 25 miles per hour and crystal clear, and it just wouldn’t work. So, it’s all about timing it right with the weather conditions.
RH: What sets your work apart from all the people taking nature photographs and pictures of the Bay? Why should people pay attention to your work?
JF: This is what I do for a full-time living. Like, I have no other job. This is my bread and butters, taking pictures. So, I’m constantly trying to improve my craft. I would tell people that “I’m only as good as my next picture.” I have a huge body of work, but I’m always searching for new imagery, new places, a new story to tell, new people to photograph. So, I’m always on a constant search for my next picture and constantly working on the next project.
To learn more about Jay Fleming and to purchace his prints online, visit jayflemingphotograpy.com or visit The Annapolis Collection Gallery, annapoliscollection.com.
© Annapolis Home Magazine
Vol. 15, No. 4 2024