572 - Cape Porpoise
Nothing like arriving in Portland, Maine with a serial killer on the loose.
Real story.
After spending a couple weeks up in Acadia National Park, I figured I’d head down to Portland to check out the city. It was supposedly the biggest town in Maine, which was its main draw for me. I’d just spent a few weeks living in the depths of nature, and it was time to emerge into civilization.
But within two days of my arrival, some psycho went into a bowling alley 45 minutes north of me, and killed 18 people. Welcome back to civilization, I guess.
The city went from a grumpy Maine seatown to a complete horrorshow in just a few hours. Nobody knew where he was, and an intense uncertainty filled the air. I could just feel darkness closing in on this town.
Businesses began to close down. People wished me “good luck” when I was out on deliveries. Everyone glanced at you uneasily when you entered a store. It felt like a movie was unfolding.
The wild thing is that Maine’s homicide rate is far below the national average, so the shooting hit the community a little differently.
How did I feel about it? A little scared. I did live in a car, after all. And my Prius was not a bad setup for someone on the run. But the population of Portland was around 70,000, so the odds of anything happening to me were still extremely low.
What I really felt like was an outsider observing the situation first hand. I didn’t know anyone here, so it felt like I’d just landed in a city plagued by tragedy… Although I did feel an intense empathy for the people around me.
This wasn’t my first rodeo. Back in 2021, I was fifteen minutes away from the Boulder mass shooting when it happened. And that was my hometown, so it took me a good couple weeks to process what had happened. It’s one thing to see all this stuff happening in the news, but when you’re around the people it affects first hand, it gets real, very fast.
For example, as I was getting my hair cut, I talked to the hairdresser who grew up in Lewiston, the town where the shooting happened. She’d spent many days in that exact bowling alley, and knew many people there. That intense energy somehow transferred into my hair, and I still replay that conversation in my mind sometimes.
Then I got a call from my mom, who knew I was in Portland. “Why don’t you just leave…?”
Which at the time, was honestly something I hadn’t thought about. I’d gotten so lost in the surrealness of it, that I felt like I’d become a part of it. But at the end of the day, I had no ties here.
I left. No use exposing myself to that kind of darkness, especially with that psychopath still on the loose. Two days later he was found dead in a river, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The weirdest thing about traveling as fast as I do is how certain events define cities forever in my mind. Who knows if I’ll ever end up back in Portland, Maine again. But until then, it’s the serial killer city to me. That’s all that happened there.
Just like Nashville is the city I had a major breakup in, the Grand Canyon was my escape from the pandemic, Guatemala is where I broke my foot in a van, and San Francisco is the city all of my camera gear got stolen in.
All intense situations that seem to define these places. But that’s why I do photography. To fill in these gaps with spickets of positivity. Now I can look back on my photos of these places and say, “you know… it wasn’t all that bad.” But I have to actively make an effort to do this.
Actively seek positivity.
As I drove down the coast of Maine, I decided to take a stop at Cape Porpoise. A quiet fishing town with absolutely nothing going on.
Small towns have a way of cheering me up. I think there’s something about the human experience that thrives in small communities. Everyone knows each other, which creates an effortless sense of caring amongst your peers. Almost like a family.
I rolled into this town around midnight, slept in a sleepy bed and breakfast parking lot, and set my alarm for sunrise. Just down the street I snagged this photo of a small fishing shack in a marshy bay:
“The Fish House”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 1600 ~ 12mm ~ f/7.1 ~ 1/320s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
That’s what I’m talking about. Beauty among the storm. It always exists, you just have to look for it. Then, like some kind of strange memorial, a bushel of new flowers floated by wearily in the water:
“Lost Love”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 24-105mm f/4 G
[ISO 1600 ~ 105mm ~ f/7.1 ~ 1/400s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
RIP to the victims of Lewiston. I don’t know how this stuff happens. But it does.
I kept driving down the coast, wondering where I’d land next. What would my next city be defined by? Darkness or beauty? …Or both?
Eventually I stumbled upon one last scene on the highway that I couldn’t pass up:
“Decay Abyss”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 24-105mm f/4 G
[ISO 1600 ~ 105mm ~ f/8 ~ 1/2500s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
It was as if my mind just manifested that landscape. Darkness and beauty, all combined into one. I’d like to pair that with my shot at Tight Lake a few weeks ago. Maybe get a New England reflections gallery going.
Anyway, my next stop is Boston. Let’s see what this city has to offer…
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