Joe's photos capture moments of ephemeral grace and beauty in places
that are forgotten or hiding in plain sight. Smelt Brook in Castine is
not on any standard itinerary. Neither are South Addison, Merrymeeting
Bay, the Scarborough Marsh, and many other places Joe has explored over
the years. Even places that are familiar to many--West Quoddy Head, Old
Orchard Beach, Monhegan Island, Pemaquid Point, Portland Harbor, Acadia
National Park, and others--are revealed by Joe's camera in moments of
other-worldly allure. There are surprises on every page, just as there
are surprises around any bend of a Maine coastal road. Every photo in
this book was taken from a public vantage point you can reach by car or
ferry. An appendix offers directions to each place. Ken Textor's essays
reveal hidden nuggets on every page: why the shade on a Castine street
has a strange, nostalgic feel; what to think of a mauve lobster boat or
a seemingly abandoned dory in the weeds; how a lighthouse surrounded by
granite quarries came to be built of brick; which is the front and which
is the back of a house built between Main Street and the harbor; how to
enumerate the many services provided by a salt marsh; why the lobstering
isn't better in upper Blue Hill Bay; why sea air makes us hungry; and
how a wormdigger turns a mudflat into money. The great naturalist Louis
Agassiz believed that the only way to discover the truth of a thing is
through sustained attention. In THE HIDDEN COAST OF MAINE, Joe Devenney
and Ken Textor share the results of three-and-a-half decades of
attention to an amazing place.
