The Quaint Architecture of Bearskin Neck, Rockport, MA

Rockport, Massachusetts is a lovely small town that hugs the coastline of an area called Cape Ann. North and east of Boston, it was settled in the 1620’s and took up a little over seventeen square miles of this rocky coast that seems to reach out in the ocean towards the cold Northeast. It has a year-round population of about 8000 people who earn their money in the variety of ways that other towns boast about but also, in the tradition from literally centuries past, they still trap for lobsters or pull fish from the sea. If you buy a lobster or sit in front of a plate of fish and chips, chances are both the lobster and the fish had been swimming in the ocean the day before. But Rockport is also a tourist town and no place draws the tourists more than Bearskin Neck. It is a stretch of old fishermen and lobstermen shacks that have gradually been turned into shops and galleries with apartments for the locals and tourist rentals above. The owners have tried to keep the exteriors as close to original as possible and if you take the time, look closely, you'll find plenty to photograph. Rockport was my home with my husband and we walked from our home down to the center of town and out on the Neck hundreds of times in all kinds of weather where I took thousands of photographs. It is a lovely place to wander, to shop, but most of all, at least for me, to take pictures.  If you look closely at one of my photos below, you'll find that sometimes wandering into the shops has added excitement from how the building is propped up more than from what's inside it.  Always look for the small things to take pictures of on the Neck.  You won't be disappointed.