About

Edwina L. Rissland is Professor Emerita of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts/Amherst. Her specialties include Case-Based Reasoning and AI & Law. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University and her Ph.D. from MIT. She also received a graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance from the Longy School of Music (now part of Bard College).

As a photographer, Edwina focuses tightly on form, texture, and color. Known for painterly, color-intense images, her favorite subjects are boats of all kinds, bustling markets, and places near the sea. She delights at being up and about at first light and shooting while out exploring at sunup, often in her single rowing scull. She has been coming to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard her entire life.

She often finds subjects for her painterly abstracts – like in the ongoing Hull Studies project – in boatyards that build and overhaul wooden boats, like Gannon & Benjamin in Vineyard Haven. Even a hull whose paint is being scraped and refreshed can present a universe of its own to explore with eyes and lens. 

She loves the dynamic bustle of working markets: Tsukiji, the old wholesale fish market in Tokyo, LaBoqueria in Barcelona, the Mercado in Lisbon, and Pike Place Market in Seattle. Engaging in a sort of guerrilla photography, she captures the energy of the market without getting in the way of vendors and shoppers.

Visits to vibrant cities like Lisbon and Tokyo and to quieter places like the Irish countryside and the colleges at Oxford – often in conjunction with professional travel – have allowed her to explore varied environments and cultures.

Her book Morning Shore: A Turn of the Year on Chappaquiddick contains her images paired with prose, lyrics, and text to capture the landscapes and moods of Chappy over the course of entire year.

In January 2021, she co-curated and exhibited in Attention to Detail at the Cambridge Art Association, a four-person show of Massachusetts artists whose photos, prints and sculptures delved deeply into rich visual details of their subjects. In November 2022, she had a solo show Hull Studies at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center under the auspices of the Featherstone Center for the Arts. She is an Artist member of the Martha’s Vineyard Art Association/Old Sculpin Gallery in Edgartown.