A very long time ago, as a teenager, I saw some paintings by Martin Johnson Heade. They were fascinating. He depicted an approaching storm on Narragansett Bay. The sky was very dark, almost black. The water was still. The storm had not reached the shore yet. From time to time I see a painting by him in a museum that is one version or another of the same idea.

I sometimes see things in museums and think I would like to do something like that. Most of the time, these are just fleeting thoughts. They disappear into the dark recesses of my mind. They can lay there for decades. Then one day it just happens.

I was on Prudence Island in the middle of Narragansett Bay. It had been a sunny hot summer day. The kind of day that would sometimes bring in a late afternoon thunderstorm. I knew the storm was coming. I thought that it would be a good time to go out to photograph. Sure enough, the storm rolled right over us. I took quite a few photographs.

In the moment I did not think of Heade’s paintings. But I certainly did when I got around to printing them. I love the dark sky moving in. The reflection of sun on the water. It was my Heade moment. That day I was just in my photo mode. Just letting the visual work through me without much conscious thought. I wonder if somehow in an unconscious way the Heade paintings I had seen throughout my days affected the way these photographs turned out.