Photographer Kristin Rutkowski captures an inspirational and perspective-changing vista of women in charge on the water
Written by Kristen Hampshire
Kristin Rutkowski, a boutique portrait photographer, was on a storytelling mission. Deciding to use her non-studio time for a personal project during the summer of 2020, she set her course for one that veered slightly off her usual route.
Having always been quick to see beauty in people, she asked herself: “Who do I want to meet and photograph?”
Her answer surfaced quickly: Women who are in charge of boats.
Her Helm, the resulting project and hardcover book, is a testament to the many ways that women make waves on the Chesapeake Bay, in charge at the helm. An exhibit at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
is on display through 2024.
It’s a photographic celebration that captures the powerful and unique position of women captaining their own vessels. While lifting up women who shared their stories and shedding light on their accomplishments, the project is designed to inspire and empower the next generation of female captains, Rutkowski says.
“To showcase these women’s accomplishments and for them to step back and be appreciated was so meaningful, and it was amazing to get to offer them that.”
Her Helm is a tribute to women in boating who inspire those around them. The sun and sea call to these women who love to be outside on the water. And as Rutkowski points out, they are forging their way in a culture not historically meant for them. “I wanted women from all backgrounds to be the faces we may see on the water,” Rutkowski relates.
To accomplish her goal, Rutkowski traveled up and down the Chesapeake Bay, throughout Maryland and Virginia. She met, interviewed, and photographed women from all walks of life—and on all manner of boats.
Kristin Rutkowski: Photographer and Sailor
Redefining ‘Captain’
To stick to her goal, Rutkowski had to set specific parameters that would clearly define the project and target subjects. She didn’t want to limit her scope to sail boats, her comfort zone after sailing the Chesapeake Bay waters with her husband, who taught her to take the helm. So, she expanded her project to include any variety of vessel while ratcheting the geographic scope to just the bay.
But the primary guideline was that each featured woman had to be steering the ship. Rutkowski included women who owned the boat themselves, shared ownership with a partner, hired to captain the watercraft, serve as an educator or coach, or run the vessel as a pilot.
Some boats featured are slightly under 30 feet, but none are trailer-able for dropping into the water. This parameter helped Rutkowski trim down a growing number of women warrior kayakers and anglers, another empowering way that more women are taking to the water and owning it.
The smallest watercraft and operator captured in Her Helm is a fishing runabout. Some of the largest are cargo ships.
During the three-year project, Rutkowski discovered a bevy of water-based careers from ferries to boating coaches, educators, towboat captains and even a pilot she met when the project was nearly wrapped up and off to print. Initially planning to include 50 captains, Rutkowski says she couldn’t pass on this significant last addition—and it tipped the Her Helm total up to 51.
Cutting through Wake
In doing the project, Rutkowski learned even more about sailing and the wide range of vessels cruising the bay than she understood while navigating her own boat for 15 years. “My eyes have been opened with the different ways you can run a boat and the different types of boats you can run on the Bay,” she says.
She also had an opportunity to look deep inside herself as a feminist and soon realized that even she had sunk into the “this is the way it is” mindset that she was trying to break when diving into the project.
“Before Her Helm, I had also fallen into a trap that society perpetuates of not seeing women in charge of boats,” she says of the eye-opening experience.
“Another growth thing personally was putting myself out there, talking to new people with a goal of making them feel comfortable and celebrated,” she says. Doing so “provided me with many fresh perspectives.”
Rutkowski hopes that the impactful Her Helm photographic journey helps to dismantle an age-old nautical stereotype.
“There are increasingly more women present behind the helm,” she says. “The more we can recognize and celebrate women who are in charge, it will invite even more women and girls to look toward that and realize this is possible,” she says.
“To showcase these women’s accomplishments and for them to step back and be appreciated was so meaningful. It was amazing to get to offer them that.”