Phil Mello who has worked and been active in the fishing community since the mid 1970’s has seen and chronicled the many changes that have taken place on the New Bedford waterfront. Seldom seen without a camera in hand Phil has amassed a significant portfolio documenting these changes and the people that were instrumental in making them happen. Several exhibitions have taken place in and out of the New Bedford area showcasing Mello’s work including a November 2009 exhibit at the New Bedford Whaling Museum entitled “Working Waterfront: Photographic Portraits”, at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage August 2017 – October 2017 “Nautical Tattoos & the stories behind them”. The Archie Green grant given by the Library of Congress to the New Bedford Fishing Center to document the working waterfront has allowed Mello’s works to be viewed at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. since 2019. Phil’s own personal project documents the lives of a dozen people living during the Winter on Cuttyhunk, a tiny remote island on the outermost chain of the Elizabeth Islands located off the Massachusetts coast. Cuttyhunk was perhaps one of the first English settlements that was a small outpost occupied for a time in 1602 for the harvest of Sassafras.