Seashore Digital Diaries, a fall semester course taught by visiting filmmaker and Coastal Studies Scholar David Conover ’83, P’17 and cross-listed in three departments — visual arts, environmental studies, and cinema studies — used video production as a tool of inquiry at the seashore. We continue our weekly series featuring a selection of the videos produced with “Fort Popham,” with description and commentary provided by Conover.
In the opening tracking shot of this short video, Lucy Green ’15 takes us to the edge of the Maine coast, just a few miles from the cabin where Rachel Carson once lived and wrote. Lucy then turns and follows the line between sea and shore, weaving the external landscape into her own interior observations, feelings, and thoughts. We cut from Reid State Park at dawn to a two-camera sequence her crew shot at Pemaquid Point with Marine Ecologist Bob Steneck, to the marine lab and shores of Bowdoin’s own Coastal Studies Center.
Along the way, Lucy shares a highly personal and compelling visual diary of eye-opening discovery, reflection, and insight. Whoever imagined that barnacle activity could respond so quickly to changing light? Her writing and voice-over is succinct and deliberate, allowing plenty of time for silence. I’m impressed by her consistent control of tone, by the cross-disciplinary awareness she exhibits, and by her own articulation of how her relationship with the sea evolved in the three short months of the fall semester. Kudos, Lucy! This is a wonderful expression of liberal arts coastal study on the coast of Maine.
