Presented by Consociate Media and York & Main

Throughout rural coastal Virginia, water drives life.

In Working Waterfronts, award-winning photojournalist Rob Ostermaier of Consociate Media captures the many ways people live with and depend on the water — working on it, living beside it, enjoying its beauty and being sustained by it.

From the back of a working boat to the quiet edge of a shoreline at sunrise, these images, exhibited in York & Main on Gloucester's Main Street, celebrate a region shaped by tides, tradition and change.

This exhibition honors the enduring relationship between people and water and the ways it continues to work even as it evolves.

These images are part of a broader storytelling effort led by Consociate Media to document and elevate the voices of the people who live, work and endure along Virginia’s rural coastline.

Through intentional visual journalism and community-based storytelling, our team seeks to preserve the authenticity of working waterfronts while honoring the resilience, heritage and evolving realities of coastal life.

Each photograph reflects not just a moment in time, but a deeper narrative about livelihood, legacy and the quiet strength required to survive — and thrive — where land meets water.

A portion of sales from this show will benefit Gloucester, Virginia-based Hold Fast, a nonprofit that brings veterans on the water to crab and oyster as a therapeutic way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.