Comments/Context: Caleb Stein’s long term photographic project “Down by the Hudson” lyrically oscillates between the specific and the universal. As seen here in the format of a tightly edited gallery show, but also taking shape in a more expansive photobook, Stein’s images document a particular location in upstate New York (and the people that visit that place) while also representing moods, moments, and summertime rites of passage that many will find altogether familiar. Made over a period of some thirteen years, his photographs settle in with patience and languid restraint, waiting, looking, and interacting with understated attentiveness and curiosity.
While not exactly an American invention, the very idea of a not-so-secret swimming hole feels resolutely community-based and locally egalitarian, common all over the United States. Perhaps such a place is a small hidden pond, a spot where the road comes near a creek, or a bridge where people jump into the river when the water is high; maybe there is a place to climb up (like a jutting rock face or a ladder), an improvised rope swing, or just a muddy wash where people can get in and out. Swimming there is generally an open secret and oftentimes vaguely illegal, maybe on private property but not always policed with aggressiveness, its location and details (which path to take, where to park etc.) often passed around by word of mouth or local lore. A great swimming hole is a place many people know about but is somehow still a little bit special and private, where people of all kinds congregate and intermingle to share the joys of a refreshing (and plausibly illicit) summertime dip.
The specific watering hole seen in Stein’s photographs is located somewhere along Wappinger Creek, not far from Poughkeepsie, New York, where Stein was an undergraduate student at Vassar College back when the project got started. So the swimming population for this lovely spot was drawn from a wide ranging mix of locals and college students, seemingly mostly teenagers and kids, many presumably living nearby in Poughkeepsie, a small working class city set right on the Hudson River that is still very much trying to find its path to revitalization after an earlier industrial heyday. This geographic context is only important to Stein’s pictures in the sense that it reminds us that a swimming hole is inherently a flattener of differences – the water, the activity, and the surrounding natural beauty bring people together in a shared experience, regardless of who they are, where they have come from, or who they voted for in the last election.
Even the most cursory glance at Stein’s photographs makes one thing immediately clear – this is not a huge spot. The creek isn’t particularly wide at this location, and the central swimming area is seemingly defined by a few trees holding up a muddy bank where some boards have been nailed to one of the trees to enable higher jumping and acrobatics. This leads to a couple of important conclusions for Stein’s project – one, the spot functions best with just a handful of visitors (almost like a stage set), and two, there is no way Stein could be hidden or work in a sneaky or voyeuristic manner when making his photographs. These constraints ultimately frame a set of intimate photographic exchanges and interactions, where calm trust and collaborative connection seem to have been necessary, overt, and understood on all sides, even among relative strangers.
Not surprisingly, many of Stein’s strongest images feature the interplay of bodies in water. “Shamus in Embryo Pose” captures a boy tucked into a fetal position amidst the flow of water over a line of rocks, the water seemingly cradling him in a gently protective embrace. “Matthew, Jackson, and Oden Floating” documents the idyllic vulnerability and dream-like tenderness of idly drifting, with three heads popped above the water in succession, like a lineup of graces or turtle shells. “Statue in Water” turns the clingy wetness of clothing worn in the water into an echo of the stone drapery on an ancient statue. And still other images use the mirroring, immersing, and enveloping aspects of water to alternately surround a cozy couple and a boy with a tattoo of tree roots on his torso, and watch as light turns a water spray left by a moving arm into a magically sparkling cloud.
There’s likely a different edit of this body of work that would strip out any female swimmers and landscape details, leaving behind a narrower study of masculinity as expressed by the behavior of boys (and young men) at the swimming hole. Several images on view in this show linger over the subtle interactions of multiple boys in a single frame – as we might expect, there is wrestling, pushing, and horsing around (which Stein sees with formal clarity), but there is also the intimacy of shared discovery, teaching, and learning, and the closeness of group presence. Stein also shows us moments of individual introspection (almost always viewed indirectly), with boys looking out over the water, waiting for the rain to stop, or testing their strength against the massive bulk of an immovable tree. Seen together, these pictures offer glimpses of boys not just gathering and relaxing, but also evidence of momentary freedom, the support of a community, and the emotional power of play.
Mixed in with these environmental portraits are Stein’s precise observations of the surroundings, which provide scene-setting context for the more numerous images of people. Detail and texture come to the forefront in these photographs, from the thin tangle of fishing line caught in a gnarled root system to the intersecting angle of a fallen tree and a line of rocks. Several images return to the three trees that form the center of the action, seeing them as repeating verticals, or noticing how their roots reach into the creek. Together, they construct a visual backdrop against which the nuanced theatrics of the various swimmers play out.
Of course, Stein isn’t remotely the first photographer to understand that photographing people in their bathing suits (at the beach, at the pool, or swimming almost anywhere) might be a good opportunity to catch them authentically at ease or with their guard down. What stands out about his approach is his commitment to paying close attention to this one modest location, and coming back again and again to see what it might slowly reveal. With time, the ordinary has been transformed into the extraordinary, and Stein has been there to notice. Stein himself might not have really guessed at what watching the action at a muddy swimming hole in upstate New York might come to represent, and maybe he’s not yet entirely finished figuring it out, but as a project to date, “Down by the Hudson” successfully taps into a surprising number of elusively elemental truths. The best of the works here exhibit a consistent eye for fleeting subtlety, the kind only ever captured by someone who is already paying attention.
Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced between $900 and $18000, based on size. Stein’s work has little secondary market history at this point, so gallery retail likely remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.
