Chris Bonney's Vineyard seen

"Vineyard Impressions" (book cover), Christopher Bonney, All rights reserved

A lot of Flickr users have been enjoying Chris Bonney's take on Martha's Vineyard for years. Well, now he's gone & made a book of it! And a fine book it is, self-published through Blurb, which also sells it online & even offers a very nifty preview.

I've been looking at Chris's pictures a while & have concluded his biological clock is set very differently than mine. He's an early riser, early shooter, beneficiary of the gorgeous soft yellowy light that first caresses a night-washed world. It's a gentle but very precise light, one that suits the Vineyard's comfortable graces.

My favorite pictures by Chris tend to be over water . They remind me of the boating pictures by Thomas Eakins, the great 19th century American painter, whose style, like Chris's, is very exact in pursuit of pleasure.