VERMONT: A FEELING

I grew up on Zoar Road in the Sandy Hook district of Newtown in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Zoar Road, as it is today, was a very rural dirt road meandering past a few houses, brooks, pastures with cows, ponds and woods. A peaceful and quite place; a place where I was allowed to wander at will with the stipulation that I be home for meals. I loved the changing seasons, the woods with their large trees and granite outcroppings, the pastures with old, abandoned quarries, the rushing brook in the Spring, the ice-covered ponds in the winter and walking or biking on the dirt road.

As Newtown’s population expanded, a great deal of the small-town feelings started to be lost. Fifty-one years ago, I left my home in Newtown and moved to northern Vermont in the hope of finding the same type of environment that I had loved so much as a child.

I found this wonderful reward I now call home. I have tried for years to capture the sights and beauty of this amazing place through the camera’s lens. Some of my photos take-in subjects that are quite beautiful – sometimes less so. I have tried to capture sights that are bright or dark, dramatic or humdrum, unusual or common. My aim is to see AND feel the emotions that speak to me and translate this to the viewer.

I have always believed that black and white photos help to stimulate greater emotions as the color spectrum is reduced.

My philosophy is: Feelings first, viewing second.