For Sharon Thorpe, photography opens a window to explore new worlds. It’s a storytelling medium that exposes viewers to diverse perspectives, new ideas and places they’ve never visited—or places they see all the time but, through her lens, can experience in different ways.
On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that might mean workboats returning to Dogwood Harbor, watermen carrying on generations of tradition, or a familiar landscape transformed by season and light. Sharon is drawn to these moments, but she is interested in more than merely capturing what she sees. She wants to dive deeper.
Sharon says she is getting more comfortable with the idea of herself as an artist whose foundation is graphic design. In her career, she has moved fluidly from photography to graphic design, collage art and visual storytelling. “I’ve always had an interest in photography, but I like many different creative avenues,” she says.
Increasingly, those disciplines are coming together. Some of Sharon’s photographs simply document a moment in time. Others become starting points for more abstract work, shaped and reconsidered through the eye of an artist who has spent decades communicating visually.
“I’m working on more abstract, less literal, less pictorial versions of these photos,” she says.
In many ways, Sharon’s work has become an evolving visual archive of the Eastern Shore—its landscapes and working waterfronts, certainly, but also the people and traditions that give its communities their character.
Sharon says, “The Eastern Shore has an inspiring landscape and environment, and it breeds creativity.”
Sharon grew up in Baltimore as part of a family that traveled often; although somewhat surprisingly, the Eastern Shore wasn’t a regular destination. She first encountered St. Michaels on a high school field trip. Years later, after a career centered largely around Washington, D.C., the Eastern Shore would become home—and one of her most enduring subjects.
Sharon trained as a graphic designer and spent more than 30 years leading a graphics team for the Department of Parks and Recreation in Prince George’s County. She also taught design, typography and illustration as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Her career included work for organizations such as World Wildlife Fund and the DC Environmental Film Festival, along with more than a decade of projects with National Geographic. There, she mostly focused on children’s publications including World magazine, as well as books, atlases and educational materials.
Being surrounded by National Geographic photographers, writers and explorers left a lasting impression.
“I was really lucky to work with some amazing photographers,” she says, recalling elevator conversations with photographers casually discussing assignments such as documenting giant squid. “It was just an incredible environment.”
It also reinforced an approach that continues to inform her photography today: images can explain, interpret and tell a story.
Sharon is particularly drawn to the individuality of Eastern Shore communities.
“Each little town is so different,” she says. “St. Michaels is different from Easton, which is different from Cambridge. They all have such unique flavors.”
Tilghman Island has become especially personal. Sharon considers it her community and serves on the board of the Tilghman Watermen’s Museum. She also volunteers her creative skills with organizations including the Talbot Watermen Association and other local groups.
Through those relationships, her understanding of what she photographs has changed.
“When I started photographing down there, I was just collecting and grabbing and looking,” she says. “I’ve learned to be a little bit more selective and careful and respectful.”
That distinction matters when the subject is not simply a picturesque workboat but the person whose livelihood depends on it.
Sharon often spends time around Dogwood Harbor, watching boats return and talking with watermen. She has heard some say that the attention from cameras can make them feel as though they are “in a zoo.”
“This is their vocation,” Sharon says. “They’re very proud and hardworking people.”
She asks her subjects’ permission to share.
“There are times I’ve taken photos where I’ll say, ‘I love this photo, but I really need to ask the subject if I can share it,’” she relates. “I just do it intuitively. I’ve never heard a no, but I think people appreciate being asked.”
Her work with the Tilghman Watermen’s Museum has taken that idea further. For a recent exhibit featuring photographs by Eastern Shore photographer Jay Fleming, Sharon organized imagery into subject areas and developed accompanying text explaining aspects of the watermen’s work, including gill netting and crab potting.
She interviewed watermen to make sure she got it right, and the conversations went beyond technique. Watermen talked about generations of families working the water. They also pointed out the uncertainty facing a traditional livelihood as the Chesapeake Bay and the commercial fishing industry continue to change. Photography, in other words, led to a way to learn more.
“It allowed me to really ask their opinions about things and interview them and hear what they were most proud of,” she says.
Sharon’s work continues to push beyond literal documentation. Her Look Again collection explores new territory, moving toward less pictorial interpretations of familiar subjects.
Other projects capture log canoe sailing and the working Chesapeake, while portrait, street and industrial photography allow her to exercise an entirely different visual muscle.
She often begins with a project in mind, an approach that reflects her design background. Rather than waiting for an image to happen, she considers what she is trying to explore or communicate and builds from there.
Still, there is plenty of room for spontaneity. And the Eastern Shore keeps providing material.
“The longer I’m here, the more I appreciate winter and off-season too,” she says. “It’s just so incredible all year long.”
Outside her home, ospreys nest nearby and bald eagles remain a sight she says she will never take for granted.
She also finds inspiration in the creative community around her. On Tilghman Island, she shows her work at 2Vintage Too. The space features 11 local artists working in mediums ranging from oils and watercolors to mosaics, found objects and photography.
Spaces like this allow artists to collaborate and connect—another expression of the creative energy Sharon sees throughout the Eastern Shore.
That community comes together in many forms, including Tilghman Island Day in October, when Sharon will once again be behind the camera documenting the watermen, workboats and traditions that make the island distinctive.
But whether Sharon is photographing a community event, experimenting with abstraction or quietly watching boats return to Dogwood Harbor, she is interested in what happens after the first glance.
“I feel so lucky to have all these creative opportunities,” she says. “The Eastern Shore is a plentiful land of creative people.”
Her advice is to participate in it. “I would encourage people to jump in and creatively enjoy all the different aspects that the area has to offer,” she says.
