Chesapeake Focus Is Open: Fine Art Photography for the Bay

Today I’m announcing the launch of Chesapeake Focus, LLC — a fine art print collective dedicated to the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America. It drains six states, sustains hundreds of species, and has shaped life along the mid-Atlantic for centuries. It has never had a dedicated fine art collective committed to documenting it with the care and depth it deserves. Chesapeake Focus is that collective.

What’s Available at Launch

The launch collection is my own photography — fine art prints of the landscapes, wildlife, and waterways of the Bay watershed, all captured in Southern Maryland. Prints are available as archival-quality paper prints and framed canvases at chesapeakefocus.com.

The collection covers five areas:

• Birds of the Bay — Ospreys, great blue herons, bald eagles, brown pelicans, and more. The osprey population on the Chesapeake was nearly wiped out by DDT in the mid-twentieth century. They recovered. Photographing them at close range on the nesting platforms of the St. Mary’s River is something I don’t take for granted.
• Landmarks and Heritage — The Chesapeake’s lighthouse network is one of the most intact historic lighthouse systems in the country. Screwpile and caisson lighthouses, sparkplugs, and shore-based lights — each one marks a specific hazard on a specific stretch of water.
• Landscapes and Waterscapes — Tidal marshes, open Bay, the Potomac and Patuxent, and the patterns of the watershed at different seasons and light conditions.
• Limited Editions — Numbered prints in limited runs. Once a run sells out, it closes.

The Longer Vision

The launch collection is a starting point. The goal is a growing community of visual artists — photographers, painters, illustrators — building a serious, lasting archive of Bay life. Documentation that matters more as the Bay changes, and that gives people a reason to care about what’s here.

The Chesapeake is worth the effort. It holds centuries of American history, supports one of the most complex estuarine ecosystems on the continent, and is home to species that exist nowhere else in the same concentrations. It deserves art that takes it seriously.

See the Work in Person

A rotating selection of prints will soon be on display at Social Coffeehouse and Cocktail Bar in downtown Leonardtown, Maryland. If you’re in Southern Maryland, stop in and see the work at scale before ordering.

The full collection is at chesapeakefocus.com. Printed in the USA and produced to archival standards.

— Ryan Lott, Founder, Chesapeake Focus