Going Deep - by Peter Ralston (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Settle in and listen. It'll be worth it."--Heather Cox Richardson

A master storyteller's intimate visual portrait of Maine, on land and sea--opening the door to a world few outsiders ever see.

To a casual visitor, the coast of Maine is paradise--a place of summer respite and "vacationland" ease. But to Peter Ralston, it is a world of powerful beauty, unique character, and tightly woven communities that survive against long odds.

For over forty-five years, acclaimed photographer Peter Ralston has documented the working coast of Maine with a "clear-eyed outsider" perspective that has earned him the hard-won trust of its most working coastal and island communities. Ralston doesn't just photograph; here he learned to "go deep"--to look beneath the surface and to capture the emotional truth of this, his most celebrated subject to which he was introduced by Andrew and Betsy Wyeth in 1978.

In Going Deep, Ralston presents a stunning curated collection of his work, weaving together iconic images with the revealing stories behind them.

From hauling sheep in an open dory between islands, to the quiet resilience of winter harbors, Ralston's eye captures the liminal spaces between land and sea, hope and survival, outsider and insider.

Going Deep is far more than "just" a photography book; it transcends mere regionalism as a visual memoir of a life spent in a world of working waterfronts, the "lifeboat ethics" of small, working villages, and the enduring spirit of a place that offers profound lessons of community and caring, lessons that seem particularly stirring and applicable today.

Review Quotes

"The world's great storytellers are both outsiders and insiders, their craft an entry into closed villages and the tales they discover a gift they carry to the rest of us. This book is one of Peter's stories, full of tales about communities, family, love, art, and life. Settle in and listen. It'll be worth it."

--Heather Cox Richardson, from the foreword to Going Deep

About the Author

Peter Ralston grew up in Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, where he formed a deep lifelong friendship/mentor relationship with the Wyeth family. Peter worked for a decade as a freelance photojournalist, and then began photographing the coast of Maine in 1978, drawn especially to the working communities that define the coast's enduring character. He now owns and operates Ralston Gallery in Rockport, Maine, spending as much time as he possibly can "out there" on his boat.