By Bob Keyes
Mark Marchesi's "Portland Harbor February 2015." The photographer walked across the Casco Bay Bridge in subzero temperatures to get the photo of the harbor filled with ice "because I might never see it again."
The photographer (click here) Mark Marchesi documents landscapes in transition. He spent four years traveling between Maine and Nova Scotia to take pictures of the Acadia that poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about in his epic tale “Evangeline.” The cultural exodus that Longfellow described in his 1847 poem felt tangible to Marchesi when he began visiting Nova Scotia in 2012, prompting him to tell stories of displacement and loss over generations with photographs of empty landscapes dotted with abandoned communities and homes.
Marchesi’s latest photographic effort feels similar, if less dramatic. Marchesi, who lives in South Portland, has spent more than 20 years photographing in Portland, capturing the city’s most interesting and arresting landscapes in his ongoing “Greater Portland Project.” With his photos, he reveals the soul of the city, showing us the places – but never the people – that link Portlanders across generations with a shared sense of ownership and community. This month, he self-published his second book about the project, “Greater Portland, Volume II.”...
