Ports and Ships: Photo Exhibit Preview

• ships
• transportation
• photography
• MIT
• Massachusetts
• ports

According to the International Maritime Organization, world shipping is dominated by only a handful of countries, at least in number of boat registries. Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas, Greece and the Marshall Islands account for 48 percent of the world fleet between them.

The "Ports and Ships" collection began, as many watery adventures have, in Venice. MIT lecturer Andrea Frank was on a two-month fellowship in the old Italian city when she and a friend were struck by the look of the giant tankers and industrial shipping boats in the harbor. They decided to photograph them. "We took a motorboat, and just made it out there without running out of gas," she says. Though Frank notes that shipping is inextricably linked to Venetian history, she was struck by the dichotomy between the fragile city and the maritime behemoths of modern industry. After her stay in Venice, Frank spent four years traveling the world, taking some 2300 photos in about 15 different ports.

Frank was impressed by the monumental nature of shipping boats and their profound importance to the global trade that ties all countries together. The International Maritime Organization reports that the total tonnage of world shipping rose from about 2.5 billion in 1970 to 7.4 billion in 2006. That figure represents about 90 percent of global trade. The port authorities in a few of those ports gave Frank VIP treatment. And some, she says, just handed her a pass and told her to stay out of the way.

For more information, you can reach Andrea Frank at Carroll and Sons art gallery in Boston. More photography from Ports and Ships, can be found at her website.

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