Book Description

In the summer of 1979 Nubar Alexanian stepped aboard the vessel Joseph and Lucia II for ten days of fishing on Georges Bank with the Brancaleone family of Gloucester, Massachusetts and their crew. More trips followed in 1980 and 1981, and the photographs taken on those voyages form the heart of this book. They show the photographer's intimate connection with his subjects, and with Gloucester itself.The sea gives and it takes; fishermen and their families look mortality in the face every working day. We cannot say what gives the people of Gloucester their determination and perseverance, but photographs capture the spirit when words cannot, and they can make time and tide stand still. When Alexanian was taking photographs aboard the Joseph and Lucia II, he was documenting a way of life that would soon slip away and never return. His photographs lay bare the heart of a city that literally and figuratively faces the sea, its most enduring ally and its nemesis. He has chronicled both life at sea and the upland rhythms of Gloucester in images taken over a period of four decades, weaving from Georges Bank through the streets and woods, beaches and baptisms, the granite and the granite-willed. In these images of day-to-day life, of rituals, celebrations, and the ever-changing landscape, people coexist with nature's bounties and uncertainties as they have for hundreds of years.Gloucester: When the Fish Came Fish is as much an invitation as a documentary work. Alexanian's photographs reveal the spirit of this place and the strength of her people. Complex and ruggedly beautiful, they honor Gloucester's enigmatic soul, her resilient spirit, and her hard-won character. Against all odds, this is a place that continues to believe in itself.