Fort Adams State Park

Author's Comments

The peninsula does most of the work. You walk out past the granite walls of the fort and the bay opens around you on three sides, and there is a moment in late summer when the light comes off the water in every direction at once and you understand why this site was chosen for fortification in the first place. It commands. The Pell Bridge spans the East Passage in the middle distance, and at sunset, from the west-facing shore, the suspension cables go to silhouette against a sky that runs from pale gold to something deeper. That is the photograph people come for and it is worth coming for. But the fort itself is the quieter subject, and I think the better one. The granite throws hard shadows in the last hour of light, and the tunnels and sally ports frame the harbor in geometry that no landscape photographer would invent on their own. I like to work the walls first while the sun is still above the horizon, then walk out to the shoreline as the bridge begins to silhouette. September evenings are the best I have found here. The summer crowds have thinned, the light has lengthened, and the boats in the harbor are still numerous enough to give the foreground something to do. Avoid the festival weekends if you can. The lot fills early and the grounds belong to the music then, which is its own thing and not what you came for.

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