In the past few years I have produced 4 more books bringing my total number of books I have done to 10.
Current Books
The Nature of Vermont–
A Year-long Photographic Journal. 2003
The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT
ISBN 0-88150-529-3 $35 144 pages, hardcover.
This book was an 8-year project that captured the beauty and diversity of the natural year in Vermont. I ended up taking 40,000 images (including in camera dupes), saving 4000, submitting 400 and using 200 in the book. In other words, I ended up using 5% of the available pictures I took.
Why did I take so many? First of all, with wildlife you have to take a lot of pictures to get the few screamers that you want. Secondly, the best landscapes (or close-ups, etc) I had the first year were not as good as the ones I took the second year and those were not as good as those I took the third year and on and on. Right now I have a couple dozen even better shots than are in the book that I have taken since the book has come out. Such is the joy and agony of ending a book project.
There is also text in the book…little snippets of my impressions throughout the year. Here is the introduction to The Nature of Vermont to give you a little taste:
Danby, Late October
I am sitting on a hill above my house in an island of uncut grass, in an ocean of unkempt brambles. The view from here falls away at my feet through meadow and wood to the northern tip of the Valley of Vermont pinched, here, between the eastside granitic rise of the Greens and the westside, marbly peaks of the Taconics. In the valley bottom Otter Creek snakes quietly north. There is room enough there for a creek, a farm and a road but no more.
All of the nature of Vermont, save lake and bog, is before me. To the north the Taconics drift into rafts of ever-smaller hills until they are lost to the broad limestone bottomlands of the Champlain Valley. To the south the Valley of Vermont ever opens wider until by the time it bottoms out in the corner town of Bennington it is several miles wide and several highways full.
At my back, to the west, the rambling geologic chaos of the eastern New York borderlands lolls, uninviting. My view is east, held by the long green wall of the gray granite Greens. Upon that ridge a trail long is traced, a path that leads to country north and to altered states on south.
Before me, as well, are all of the seasons of the year. I see fall in the golden leaves of maples and birch and summer in the green of the oaks and aspens. Winter lies hidden in the fleeting snow patches destined to disappear after last night’s storm and spring I hear in the twittering notes of nearby robins and wrens.
One hundred years ago this meadow and wood were pastures and my home a farm full of cows. The maples and oaks were rough meadows then too, cut to build my house and those of others and to give work to the valley’s people. Back then there was no distinction between nature and not. There was outside and in, daylight and dark, that which is worked and that which will soon be.
Today, we name all that we see – wild or not, mine not yours, annuals, perennials and weeds - and then pay it no attention as we pass on by. We think nature is to be found over the far ridge or in large parks out west and beyond. Wildness is defined by lines on a map and nature can be found therein. It is something we hike to or drive to all day –it is not in a neighbor’s backyard. All else we call The Rest of Vermont and we give it just one glance a day.
This book is about The Rest of Vermont, the everyday, anywhere part where wild can be found wherever you look and nature is a notice away. The peopled and natural landscapes are one in Vermont so no remote parts were particularly sought. This is roadside Vermont and barnside as well and fenceside and streamside to boot.
It was not my intention to record all that is wild in Vermont. This book is not an encyclopedia. These are just my nature impressions of a Vermont year. A regular guy with a wandering spirit and a camera and notepad in hand. As such, this book is really The Nature of My Vermont with the hope it is The Nature of Your Vermont as well.
Vermonters live in this place with snakes in our basements and mice in our walls and dreams of blue skies in our heads. It is our nature to live with the wild in Vermont. It is the nature of Vermonters. It is the nature of Vermont.
I have put a number of images from the book in part of my web site gallery.
The Photographer’s Guide to Vermont. 2003
The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT
ISBN 0-88150-533-1 $16.95 96 pages
The Photographer’s Guide to the Oregon Coast. 2003
The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT
ISBN 0-88150-534-X $16.95 96 pages
The Photographer’s Guide to the Maine Coast. 2003
The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT
ISBN 0-88150-535-8 $17.95 112 pages
These books present all my favorite and all of the standard places to take pictures in each of the areas covered by the book. There are 167 sites in the Maine book, 145 sites in the Oregon book and 108 sites in the Vermont book (it’s a pretty small state after all). I give detailed directions to each site and insider-type information such as when the best light is, what season is best and some composition suggestions. When I think about it now, it is actually astonishing that I was so darn comprehensive and thorough.
These are extremely useful guides, especially if you aren’t familiar with an area or if you go to one of these areas but you always go to the same places again and again. All the above books are available in local bookstores and can be ordered at any bookstore. You can also contact me directly if you would like me to scribble lies and put my signature in your book. All kinds of lies and innuendos are accepted.