Where these photographs come from
About this work
I live and work in New England, born and raised, where the landscape is ever changing. Much of my photography is made along New Hampshire’s Atlantic coast, forest trail systems, marshes, and river estuaries. This area is always providing dramatic seasonal shifts, each change a relief from the last. Winter is brilliantly bright and quiet, with clean, crisp air. Autumn is colorful and whispers of welcome change, harvests, and preparation for winter's hardy challenges. Spring is the most welcome invitation back out to the gardens and excites the soul as fruitfully as it does the budding trees. And summer. Summer begins with emergences of everything wakng from sleep; fireflies, flurries of polinators, the chirping and singing of frogs and crickets that surround us. The sounds of tree frogs in every damp recess is a moment of joy unmatched. I love New England, and I love the photos that help me re-live these small joys of nature.
I’m a recreational hiker and kayaker, guided by principles of conservation, especially when I’m out photographing my little part of the world. I stay on trails, leave nothing behind, and take nothing with me except images. When I photograph animals, I keep my distance, allowing them to remain safe in their own spaces.
Photography gives me a way to relive these experiences long after I’ve left a place. Deep in the forest, kayaking through marshes and estuaries, or standing at the edge of a reservoir, I notice moments I want to return to later. Images become prompts for memory. I absolutely love the shimmer of light on water, the way it filters through trees in the forest, or how stillness settles over a place for just a moment.
I started taking photographs as a child, around eight years old. My earliest images were mostly of the sky, because I loved those blues. I photographed my chickens. I photographed my little brother, who was ten years younger than me and my constant companion. One of my favorite early photographs is of him perched in a tree is an image that earned me a bit of trouble when my mother saw it. I still have that photograph decades later, because it's a hilarious moment in time and a part of my personal childhood story.
The impulse to record my experiences hasn’t changed much. I love zooming in on details my eyes alone can’t fully see: blossoms, insects, mushrooms, frogs, salamanders, snakes, chipmunks. Although the critters often refuse to stay still for my camera. I’m especially drawn to the way light moves through the landscape: how it rests on flowers, catches on stone walls in the woods, or shifts constantly across water. I’m interested in contrasts wherever I find them, and lately I’ve been curious about still lifes too — we’ll see where that goes.
This project is simply how I choose to share what I see. The photographs come from walking slowly, paying attention, and returning again and again to places that never look quite the same twice.
