SEARSPORT, Maine — Photographer Pim Van Hemmen slipped into his Zodiac inflatable boat in the inky darkness, just before dawn. Piloting his stealthy vessel across Baltimore Harbor, Van Hemmen pulled right up under the towering bow of America’s first nuclear-powered merchant vessel, the Shennendoah.
Then, when the dawning sun’s golden rays began radiating over the horizon, striking the massive ship’s bow, he started snapping pictures.
About that time, a head appeared over the side of the boat, far above, and a voice yelled down at Van Hemmen, demanding that he stop his shutter clicking.
“I thought, here we go, this is it, they’re going to threaten me with arrest,” said Van Hemmen, remembering the 2012 incident.
Instead, the photographer shouted back up that his somewhat suspicious behavior had been cleared by the Shennandoah’s engineer the night before. Van Hemmen also said it was that very member of the ship’s crew who had suggested that he come before first light, to get pictures of the vessel during the golden light of dawn.
With the man above placated, Van Hemmen then kept on shooting.
Van Hemmen, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor and Maine resident, will show the results of his dawnlight photographic raid on the Shenandoah, and about 100 more of his striking ship photos, during a slide presentation at the Penobscot Marine Museum at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday night. The event, which will also be available live online, is part of an exhibition of Van Hemmen’s inventive vessel portraits called “In Extremis, Historic Ships in America.”
Focusing on historic ships barely hanging on just this side of the scrap heap, the photos in Van Hemmen’s show are on display in the museum’s Old Vestry gallery until Aug. 5.
The vibrant, large and ultra-detailed photos are printed on sheets of aluminum using a heat-transfer process which temporarily transforms the inks into a gaseous state. The resulting prints are luminous and seem nearly translucent and lighted from behind.
“I love the aluminum prints,” Van Hemmen said. “Ships are industrial strength and I wanted something with a similar quality — as durable as a ship.”
The Savannah was launched in 1959 and cost nearly $50 million. It was part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s peacetime nuclear power demonstration scheme meant to showcase the technology’s uses beyond war and killing.
It operated until 1972 and had its nuclear reactor disassembled in 1975. Since 2008, it’s been tied up at Canton Marine Terminal’s pier 13 in Maryland.
Another ship included in Van Hemmen’s show is the Milwaukee Clipper. Originally launched in 1904 as a wooden boat, it was later redesigned and fitted with a steel superstructure. The photographer captured the vessel’s visage against crisp blue sky as it lay tied up at Muskegon, Michigan.
Van Hemmen said the old boats’ mix of beauty, history and condition are what draws him in, visually. Some, festooned with rust and peeling paint, aren’t classically handsome. Still, he said, there’s a stalwart grace to them.
Penobscot Marine Museum Photo Archivist Kevin Johnson appreciates that about Van Hemmen’s photos, too.
“It’s a unique perspective that they’re not all traditionally sexy,” Johnson said.
Van Hemmen was born in the Netherlands and spent 10 years as a newspaper photographer before working 15 years as a photo editor at the Star-Ledger in Newark, NJ.
There, he assigned, facilitated and edited photographer Matt Rainey’s story on the aftermath of a tragic fire at Seton Hall University that killed three students and injured more than 50. The photo story won a Pulitzer in 2001. Van Hemmen and his coworkers later won another Pulitzer in 2005 for their team coverage of New Jersey Gov. James C. McGreevey after the official announced he was gay and then confessed to adultery with a male lover.
Currently, Van Hemmen lives in New Harbor and is executive editor at Soundings Magazine.
During his slide presentation, Van Hemmen said he’ll tell stories about various ships and explain how he got some of his shots, as well as showing pictures.
“It’ll be an inside look at my process,” he said.
