Thank You Paul Boyd

Paul Boyd was my father in law. He grew up around Boston and spent most of his life there. Paul was the consummate people person, a connector. If he didn’t know someone, he knew someone who did know that person. He loved real estate and knew most of the great buildings in the city of Boston. My wife and I gave Paul and Donna’s mother Eleanor a copy of my MFA thesis portfolio. He knew what I had been working on and had seen the images in progress. When we were down visiting one weekend, he told me there was a place I had to see.

He made a phone call and then we were out the door. I had no idea where I was going or whom he had called. We eventually showed up at this old but beautiful building which I now know as the Lower Service of the MWRA Chestnut Hill Pumping Station.

We walked into a vast room filled with light and these great engines that had been used to pump fresh water to the citizens of Boston and surrounding areas. They were out of service but held as back up in case something happened to the modern system. In my mind’s eye I slipped back 75 years in time to when these engines were running, they were living machines. I knew that I wanted to photograph in this beautiful space.

Paul introduced me to the manager, who said I could come back and photograph. He was expecting me to show up with a 35mm camera and maybe a tripod. The next day I showed up with my 8×10 view camera and seventy-five pounds of gear. I stayed all day. Moreover, thru Paul and the station manager, I was able to get permission to continue photographing in both the Lower and Upper Service buildings.

These engines were the apex of technology in the 1890s. Moreover, their beauty was evident. I photographed in these two buildings for several years. The images were part of my first major exhibition at Vision Gallery in San Francisco in 1994, and some were in the book Tillman Crane STRUCTURE in 2001.

I reprinted several images fomr the Chestnut Hill Pumping Stations for the exhibition Alchemy Of Light, at The National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 2016. I loved revisiting these images more than 20 years after they were made. Later it was fun walking through the galleries in Beijing and watching people stare at my prints of these remarkable machines.

Thank you, Paul Boyd, for leading me to my second major photographic project.

tillman