Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990 TAG: 9005060273
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO BOOK PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At first browse, "Chesapeake Country" appears to be yet another "coffee table" book: more soft-focus photographs that carefully avoid anything unpleasant accompanied by lightweight text that's equally rosy.
But that's not the case here. "Chesapeake Country" is appreciative of the wealth of natural beauty and history that can be found in and around the bay, but it doesn't flinch from the truth. As Eugene Meyer says on the first page of the introduction, "This is Chesapeake Country, the crucible of much that is America. It is the cradle of American democracy - and slavery." A strong thread running throughout the text is the environmental threat posed to the Chesapeake by the people who claim to love it most.
The authors take a broad view of the subject, encompassing Virginia plantations on the James, the Potomac as far inland as Washington, D.C., and Baltimore's Inner Harbor. But most of their attention is focused on the bay itself and the wildlife of the area. Photographer Lucian Niemeyer is particularly good with birds, capturing them as part of their environment. Even in flight, they are not separate from the water and wetlands.
His pictures also show how the bay consumes the artifacts of man. Boats rot; metal rusts; crab shacks sag over leaning pylons.
I can't claim to be any kind of expert on the Chesapeake. But judging by the places I have seen - Crisfield, Md., Tangier Island, Va., the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge - the writer and the photographer got it right. The pictures are what I remember, and the text tries to explain the effects of the recent overdevelopment of the area. Even the casual visitor can't help but notice how the bay and the Delmarva peninsula are being changed, possibly ruined, by their own popularity.
Meyer tries to describe the environmental dangers that the bay faces and the way people are trying to deal with it, but he's forced to conclude: "In the complex Chesapeake ecosystem, where nature and humanity are often at odds, it sometimes seems that nothing at all is simple."
Don't dismiss "Chesapeake Country" out of hand. It's more than pretty pictures.
by CNB