Thinking Back through Images

I became interested in photography during my sophomore year of college while taking a photojournalism course. I wasn't great at capturing journalism through photography, but I loved capturing nature, stills of people, food and ordinary items. 

I like seeking a new angle to what we see everyday, of making the ordinary beautiful. 

As I went through images recently on my computer, I found these images, taken when I was 19 and 20, in New Hampshire, Vermont and Scotland with a variety of cameras. As I viewed each, I remembered vividly where I was and who I was in the moment captured and  seeing them now, they were interesting and touching and brought back more of the memory than I could recall.

A rural road in Concord, New Hampshire, close to my childhood home. I walked this road in the summer, loving it at all times of year, but especially on hot days with the cicadas chiming every few minutes. It was on this road, as I passed open spaces, fields, rock walls, farms and barns I fell in love with silence and reflection.

A snow storm in central New Hampshire through a windshield on the last day of 2012, so many shades of blue between snow, trees, mountains and skies. I remember the frustration and sadness during that storm, the frustration with driving, the sadness with the end of a sad year, the limitations of the storm, being unable to see a change, or brighter skies.

That same rural road in glittering light.

Nearly same shot, the summer of 2012. I worked at a vegan cafe that summer during the day and walked this road in the afternoons.

My dorm room during my sophomore year of college. Something about the soft light and the wall decor and the bed and realizing how much happened that year and how shaping it all was. I remember waking up early everyday and falling asleep as soon as I could. I remember being wrapped in the thin quilt that was won in a community raffle nearly twenty years earlier, of the bright colors on the walls, of the celebratory music we played in the spring, of laughing with my roommate.

That same year, in the spring, President Obama visited Burlington, Vermont to campaign for his second term. Arguably the bluest state, Vermont was the state that had gone the longest without a presidential visit (...I think '95 was the last). I had a press pass and wrote and photographed the speech for the college newspaper. The experience was one I'll never forget -- the excitement and energy multiplied through thousands of people, unafraid to celebrate and absorb the event. I have so many images from that day just like this one of a crowd of a dozen or more people, some faces more visible than others, but all listening, wanting, hoping. 

Late summer in Concord, New Hampshire with the leaves of a tree I grew up loving and a skyline of trees I grew up seeing. 

A few months after arriving in Scotland, I took a solo trip south to London to visit a friend. It was a terrific visit for many reasons but when I see this image, I remember arriving in the city during the evening. It was dark and I didn't know where I was going or how to get there, but the lights of the city and the thrill of arriving overrode it. Parliament during the day was beautiful too.

Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. Exploring a fishing village with a friend in the fall of 2012 and leaning over a high stone wall to see this residence, garden and view of the sea. It was an overcast day, but the bright shutters and stone roof and brightness of the grass (after immense amounts of rain)   added color.

The North Sea and St. Andrews, Scotland. I look at this tiny university town and the clear sky and sea and remember how Scotland healed and inspired me in so many ways. Some days my time there is clear in my mind, the memories and experiences there, the growth and change and all that I learned and gained. Other days it feels farther away and longer ago, that what I learned there isn't used today. Then I see this image or think back on those thoughts and realize that for many reasons, it'll never be too long ago or beyond reach, but just as importantly, not to forget the lessons and growth that continues today.