Parrish Dobson

I grew up along the Connecticut coast. Changing light, tides, seasons over the water were and still are, a deep fascination in my photographic work. For the past several years, I have had reasons to travel the Amtrak from Boston to New York City. Always with my camera in hand, I love particularly the stretches of track that come close to the coast and salt marshes. Here, even at ninety miles an hour, the sea seems unchanging. The light on the grasses softens with the speed. My life has moved on from the town I knew as a child. But still I ask myself and the viewer: in our rush through time, what does not change? The photographs from this series entitled “Flying By” suggest one possible answer: the longing of the heart to see more deeply. That longing is pitched against the fact of continuing development of our shores, the climate crisis we are in, the speed of our lives, and the threats we are all enacting on the air, the oceans, and the wildlife. We are “flying by”, but still we have this brief moment to see, to respond.