BATH

Two Bath residents have set out to capture the true face of Bath Iron Works — its workers.

“Over the years living here in Bath and driving past the gates, I’ve always seen these faces, these shipbuilders are very striking looking people, and we didn’t know much about them. And that bothered me, and I know it bothered Heather as well,” said Hopper McDonough. “And we wanted to both capture their images and their voices, and also to get to know them as well.”

“Southgate Faces” is a collaboration between McDonough, a stay at home father who owns a travel company, and Heather Perry, a professional photographer of 20 years. Over the course of 12 days, Perry and McDonough photographed and interviewed 50 BIW employees during their lunch breaks outside of the South Gate.

Of course, photographing and speaking to the BIW employees presented a number of obstacles. While Perry’s photography studio was only a couple blocks away from the shipyard, they knew that they couldn’t convince the shipbuilders to travel there and back in their short, 30-minute lunch break. If they wanted to capture photos in a studio environment, they would have to bring the studio to the workers. Using PVC piping and sunshade fabric, they constructed a small, portable studio that they could bring down to the shipyard gates and set up in a two-hour parking spot next to Fiona’s Catering, just outside the shipyard gates.

“We really didn’t know what sort of response we would get,” said Perry. “We had this ridiculous alien vessel in the middle of what is their turf and their territory.”

During the workers’ lunch break, Perry would work the line of shipbuilders, trying to convince them to spare three minutes of their break to be interviewed and photographed in their makeshift studio. Some days, no one would take her up on the offer. On others, they could end up with five or six volunteers.

“Y’know, we’re asking total strangers to come in and be vulnerable and have their pictures taken and tell us something in front of all their buddies,” said Perry.

“We really didn’t want it to feel like we were coming in to exploit anybody or to observe. We wanted it to feel like we’re just interested in who you are, and what you have to say, and what you do. How can we best make ourselves approachable?” said Perry.

Perry would work her best to get portraits to the participants that night. McDonough, the audiologist, would compile the brief interviews into audio clips to play with the portraits, which can be viewed online at southgatefaces.com. Perry took the fact that many of the shipbuilders made that their profile picture on Facebook as a sign of approval.

With the election of President

Donald Trump in November, their work photographing the blue collar workforce of BIW took on a new meaning.

“When the election approached, Heather and I started to become aware of the fact that what we were doing might have a significance that we hadn’t expected regarding class and blue collar vs. white collar,” said McDonough.

As the media organizations worked to understand who it was that defied the polls in electing Trump president, Perry and McDonough realized that they were talking to the very people that helped propel Trump to victory.

“To a person, at least the ones we interviewed, they were all supporting Trump and very optimistic of the future of the yard in relation to this,” said McDonough. “We’re hoping that this contributes to the larger dialogue about the choices people make when they go the voting booth.”

“One of the things that was sort of interesting to us is that this is sort of one of the United States’ last factory jobs,” said Perry.

“When we put all the audio together one of the questions I asked was, how do you feel when the boat is finished and it sails down the river?” said McDonough. “They’re so prideful in that, and in many of the interviews their voices crack as they’re explaining it, and I can’t imagine that sort of emotion or pride coming out of a retail job for a big box (company).”

Both Perry and McDonough hope to continue working on the project. Because of the nature of the shipyard, over time different crews work closer to the South Gate, and they’ve begun seeing different faces around the the gates. Perry expressed interest in expanding the portable studio to be able to photograph multiple workers at once and record conversations.

“This is ongoing and open-ended,” said Perry.

Their portraits will be part of an upcoming exhibit at the Maine Maritime Museum, “Through these gates: Maine shipyard photography 1858-2016.” More than 60 images will be included in the exhibit, including 10 portraits from Southgate Faces. Accompanying audio will be played in a kiosk, and a small theater space will also feature audio, as well as behind the scenes interviews with McDonough and Perry. The exhibit will run from Feb. 7 through September.