“At Sea”

Abstract

Beeke began this project with considerable reluctance. “I’ve never wanted to go on a cruise,” she admits. In fact, “the whole idea of going with three or four thousand people to see the same thing just seemed strange to me.” Rather, Beeke is a solitary traveler. But the sea seemed like a good antidote to a year photographing in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Eastern Seaboard. And she could see the creative potential in documenting cruise culture’s strange juxtaposition of relaxation and overstimulation. As long as she could find some unpopulated spot on a deck to indulge a sense of being alone at sea, she could then dive back inside for balloon animals and the midnight buffet. In the end, she says, “I was surprised that I kind of enjoyed it.”