It would be another fifteen years before Billy Joel would give Long Island’s working boats an anthem with The Downeaster “Alexa”, but his words could just as easily have risen from Montauk’s docks sixteen years earlier in 1974. One cloudy late-summer morning, I stepped aboard Dick Stern’s commercial trawler Ranger as he eased her away from the Town Dock and out through Montauk Harbor.

With the trawler’s starboard side sliding past the Shagwong Rock buoy and the hidden ledge below, Dick held a brief course past the Montauk Lighthouse before turning southwest along the ocean side under a light following breeze. As Ranger’s nets spooled out, he advanced the throttle, compensating for the heavy drag of lead-weighted mesh pulling through the briny Atlantic and across the sandy bottom.

The crew fell into the harsh, familiar rhythm of the work. They moved in practiced sequence to the diesel’s thrum and exhaust, the high whine of winches, the creak of cables through salt-stiff pulleys, the heave and swing of the gallows, the slap of flapping fish on wet deck. Hands, backs, and shoulders carried the weight of another day’s chance at a living, measured in knots made good, fuel burned, and the catch that might or might not—come aboard.

No single image truly settled in my mind until Ranger returned to the Montauk Town Dock. As Dick began slipping her stern back into her berth, lines ready and pilings drawing close, Mate Tommy Hempler paused. For an instant, the motion, fatigue, and noise fell away. Tommy stood at the rail—a moment of stillness amid the exhausted choreography of docking and unloading. In those few seconds, as the background shifted and the harbor arranged itself behind him, the composition quietly resolved: a working man at the end of the day, framed by his boat, his harbor, and his trade.

Yet even then, with Ranger in continual motion, the background kept shifting. I worked the stripped-down, manual-wind Nikon frame after frame, the 105mm lens nearly wide open, the shutter hovering at the edge of motion blur—waiting, hoping, for Ranger, Tommy, and the harbor to fall into a single, balanced composition of form and color. By the time the crew had tied up, I still didn’t know if I had captured the image I’d been struggling to compose. As with so many photographs I make, it wasn’t until the film was laid out on the light table that I realized I had captured this iconic, unguarded moment. The serenity here is reminiscent of a world away in Mona Lisa di Gratteri.

It was around this time, early in my career, that I began to understand the influence of photographers Sam Abell and Jay Maisel—their assertion that luck favors preparation, perseverance in pursuit of the subject and its composition. Of equal importance is a keen attention to the edges of the viewfinder and a precise crop as the elements within dance, shift, and intertwine. In the end, it is the photographer’s responsibility to release the shutter at the precise instant those elements converge—a moment that waits for no one.

It was a good catch for Ranger that day—and, in that brief, unguarded pause, for the photographer as well.

It would be another fifteen years before Billy Joel would release The Downeaster Alexa, but his words would have rung just as true in 1974. One early, cloudy late summer morning, I joined Dick Stern and crew aboard his commercial trawler Ranger as he motored out of Montauk Harbor. With the trawler’s starboard side passing the Shagwong Rock buoy and its hidden ledge below, Dick set a brief course past the Montauk Lighthouse, then turning southwest along Montauk’s ocean side under a light following breeze.

As Ranger’s nets spooled out, Dick eased the throttle forward, compensating for the drag of lead-weighted nets pulling through the briny Atlantic and across the sandy bottom. The crew worked with relentless, backbreaking precision—moving to the rhythm of the diesel’s thrum, the whine of winches, the creaking of cables through pulleys, the hoisting of nets, and the slap of flapping fish on deck.

No image stood out until the Ranger’s return to the Montauk Town Dock. Then, as Dick began slipping her stern home, Mate Tommy Hempler paused—a moment of stillness amid exhaustion and motion. In the process, the background shifted, until the composition aligned, and the photograph resolved itself in quiet grace.

It was a good catch for Ranger that day—and for the photographer, too.

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