My newly-released piece, Hublein’s Retreat, offers a panoramic view of the autumn ridgeline on Talcott Mountain in the north of Connecticut. This image embraces a more simplistic view of nature, emphasizing two contrasting expanses of texture and color. The vivid forest canopy, grainy with millions of leaves donning their fall hues, climbs to reach the smooth, blue yonder above. Hublein Tower rises proudly from the ridge top, adding a sense of scale and helping to balance the otherwise abstract composition.
Spanning more than a dozen miles, Talcott Mountain is part and parcel to the Metacomet Range, a chain of long, narrow traprock ridges which extends from the Connecticut coast to the southern borders of Vermont and New Hampshire. Talcott Mountain can be seen from countless places throughout the towns of Bloomfield, Simsbury and Avon, its wooded slopes rising prominently above the surrounding landscape. And if there should be any doubt as to whether or not the commanding shape on the horizon is in fact Talcott, one can quickly scan the ridge line for the impressive Hublein Tower. Standing 165-feet tall upon the crest of the ridge, this beautiful tower is just as much a local landmark as the mountain itself.
My piece, Talcott’s Crown, offers some insight into the reason why Hublein Tower is such an iconic structure. In this image, I’ve captured a magnificent and rather massive white cloud as it drifted slowly over Talcott Mountain. Although this is actually a very wide, sweeping view of the ridge and the sky, we can still easily pick out the tower perched upon the mountain top, its white walls practically glowing in the afternoon sunlight. We find an even wider view of the mountain in Talcott Mountain Rustic (below), which portrays a long stretch of the ridge on the horizon behind an old tractor. Remarkably, we can still discern the towering gleaming in the distance. In an era when so many of Connecticut’s prominent ridges are topped by decidedly unattractive cell and radio towers, its refreshing to see such a beautiful and unmistakable piece of architecture gracing the crest of Talcott Mountain.
Built in 1914, Hublein Tower was originally the summer home of Gilbert Hublein and his wife, Louise. In their younger days before the turn of the century, the couple had enjoyed taking walks on Talcott Mountain and, as the story goes, Gilbert promised Louise that he would one day build her a castle there. Since the Hublein family was actually quite wealthy, Gilbert was able to make good on that fairy-tale promise. At the time of its completion, the six-story Hublein Tower was a place of superlative luxury, including a spacious living room, three bedrooms with their own fireplaces, a cigar room and, at the very top, a window-lined ballroom that offered spectacular panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. As if that wasn’t enough, guests could be shuttled to the upper floor by what is believed to be the first elevator ever installed in a Connecticut home!
Hublein Tower enjoyed quite a storied past through the 1950s, far too voluminous to describe here. However, by the 1960s, the 450-acre property came under the ownership of a corporation that intended to convert the tower into a restaurant and develop the ridge as a suburban neighborhood. Thankfully the idea was vehemently opposed and sufficient money was raised to buy out the development rights. The land was eventually dubbed “Talcott Mountain State Park” and has since expanded to encompass well over 500 acres of land with a beautifully-restored Hublein Tower at its heart.
My piece above, “Talcott Mountain Rustic”, was exhibited in the 2013 Arts & Agriculture exhibition hosted by the Granby Land Trust. You can read more by revisiting my November 2013 blog post here on From the Field.
It’s difficult to overstate the degree to which life in Connecticut has changed since 1907. For instance, big cities such as Hartford and New Haven probably had limited access to electricity at that time, but it would be at least a decade before such a luxury appeared in the average Connecticut household. Folks of that era still had to light their houses at night by candle or lamp, heat their homes with wood and quarry their their ice from nearby lakes. The state was criss-crossed only by rough dirt roads and rails; local travel was by horse or horse-drawn carraige, while longer trips were by train. For the ordinary resident of Connecticut, travel was by no means impossible, but it was still difficult enough that you didn’t tend to leave town for the day unless their was a good reason to do so. Most people spent most of their waking lives within just a few miles of their home.
But why do I refer specifically to 1907? Well, that was the year that Sperry Park, the subject of my newly-released work, was created in the rural town of Woodbridge, Connecticut. And the reason that I’ve offered an account of life during that era is because we probably need a bit of context these days to understand why a small place like Sperry Park, at a size of only 4 acres, was once a celebrated town landmark.
My piece, The Pride of Old Woodbridge (above), brings us to the aesthetic heart of Sperry Park: a calm, shady pool in the woods where the Sargent River is cleft into two sister waterfalls as it plunges some 6 feet over a shelf of weather-beaten bedrock. Hardy shrubs and trees grasp the faces of bare stone which rise from the river gorge and transition seamlessly into hilly forests blanketed by leaf litter. A few more of my pieces from Sperry Park are portrayed here, as well, so you can really get a feel for this lovely woodland oasis.
If Sperry Park strikes you as an exceptional place for a tranquil retreat into nature, then you can probably get a sense of why Nehemiah Sperry decided to donate this four-acre parcel of his family’s ancestral land to the Town of Woodbridge in 1907. At that time, he was an 80-year-old US Congressman and there must have been times that his memories drifted fondly to the old farm where he had grown up in the 1830s. For that matter, Sperry Falls had been passed down in the Sperry Family from generation to generation for nearly two centuries. In protecting a piece of that land as a park, Nehemiah was preserving the waterfalls that had been at the heart of Sperry family heritage for as far back as anybody could remember.
Of course, in modern times, a four-acre nature preserve seems awfully small. Indeed, it was not the sort of park where one could go hiking for hours on end, but then again, that wasn’t really what the people of Woodbridge needed. In the early years of the 20th-century, when life for the folks living in rural Woodbridge was centered mostly around town, Sperry Park was truly a treasured place where locals could go to relax and unwind without the difficulty of distant travel. Many publications from that era extolled the virtues of Sperry Park, with one hailing it as “the most celebrated natural feature of the town.”
In 1911, just a few years after donating Sperry Park to the town, Nehemiah passed away. Around the same time as his death, there also began the incidental decline of that rural way of life which he had known throughout the 19th-century. The famous Ford Model T had been introduced in 1908 and, by the 1920s, the price of automobiles had fallen to levels at which even ordinary middle class families could afford them. By the 1930s and 40s, it was easy for the people of Woodbridge to leave town for leisure. Amidst the flurry of changing times and a world that was growing ever smaller, Sperry Park was largely forgotten.
These days, the tiny park lies nestled within the vast, woodland watershed area of a few reservoirs in eastern Woodbridge. The public is still welcome to visit —a fact that would certainly make old Nehemiah proud— but few people venture out to see it anymore. As much as Sperry Park is a historic treasure to Woodbridge, it’s overall remoteness and proximity to public water supplies surely make it something of a liability, too. The result is that the park is quietly kept open for those rare few who learn of it by word of mouth or who stumble upon it while perusing a map. And, in truth, maybe that’s a good thing. A small, out-of-the-way park like Sperry simply cannot exist in this day in age unless its visitors bring along a healthy measure of respect for the landscape and a mindfulness that the origins of this place stretch deeply into the past… back to a simpler time when a few tranquil waterfalls on the Sargent River were the truly the pride of old Woodbridge.
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.'”
-Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
As we move into the month of March here in Connecticut, the sentiment among most folks is that we’ve had more than our fill of winter. Temperatures have remained anchored below freezing in spite of our advance towards springtime and we’ve found ourselves knee-deep in a persistent snowpack that has certainly overstayed its welcome.
I’ve observed that we here in Connecticut have an interesting relationship with winter. We are charmed by the aesthetic range of our landscape as it transitions from the dazzling displays of autumn to the contemplative dormancy of winter. But, without fail, early March finds us increasingly eager to escape the frigid temperatures and meager daylight that we’ve endured for months on end. Our winter wonderland starts to feel more like a winter wasteland, and in spite of our experience and good sense, there brews in the back of our minds an irrational concern that the snows might never melt and the trees might never again bear leaves.
But with my new work, Winter on Eightmile Brook (above), I challenge us all to put aside our quarrels with the frigid weather, even if it’s only for a moment! Produced in Connecticut just last month, this piece brings us to the foot of Southford Falls where Eightmile Brook plunges a dozen feet before meandering through a snowy gorge that straddles the borders of Southbury and Oxford. The Sun hangs low on the horizon, peeking through the woodland canopy and imparting a feeling of warmth, even if there’s little it can do to banish the frigid air that has pooled in the gorge overnight. Winter on Eightmile Brook embraces all the icy bitterness of our tough winter and seeks to find something comforting —perhaps even inviting— in nature’s patient hibernation.
And don’t worry, friends… springtime is right around the corner!
To see more of my work featuring Southford Falls and Eightmile Brook, be sure to visit my Southford Falls State Park collection.
As part of J. G. Coleman’s Decor Series prints, all of the works seen here are available at Fine Art America. You are encouraged to visit J. G. Coleman’s Fine Art America eStore, or see all of Fine Art America’s snow art or forest art.
Even though Connecticut is among the most densely populated states in the entire nation, it can nonetheless boast a landscape that is well over 50% woodlands. “Few places on earth,” stated a 1992 USDA report,” have as many people living among so much forest”. Unfortunately, the wildlands along Connecticut’s coast haven’t fared nearly so well as the rest of the state. Almost all of the nearly 100-mile seashore has succumbed to significant development in one form or another, with most being consumed by suburbs and cottages. It would seem that the invigorating sense of solitude and wildness that one can enjoy in Connecticut’s sprawling inland forests has been thoroughly erased from the coastline. Mercifully, at least one place has been spared. Encompassing more than 800 acres on the coast of Groton, Bluff Point State Park is Connecticut’s last vestige of coastal wildlands and the subject of my newly-released prints.
Vital Tides I and II (both above) are two of my new works, bringing us to the coastline of Bluff Point in the early hours of morning as waves thrust from Long Island Sound break upon the boulder-laden seashore. I recall that upon first seeing the distinctively rocky beach of Bluff Point a few years ago, I was compelled to describe it as Connecticut’s “Little Acadia”. Most of our experiences of the Connecticut coast tend to be on well-groomed sand beaches, so the especially rugged seashore at Bluff Point offers quite a unique contrast. But maybe the most unique part of the Bluff Point experience is simply in getting there, because once you leave the parking lot in the northern end of the park, you’ve got to hike through more than a mile of forest before this beach comes into view. Such a degree of remoteness is mostly unheard of anywhere else on the Connecticut coast these days and it’s nice to know that at least a sliver of that long-lost solitude by the shore is still available to future generations.
As we peer down the shoreline in Sunrise on the Groton Coast (above) or take in the breadth of the scenery in Groton Seaside (below), we begin to get a feel for the uncommon beauty that distinguishes Bluff Point from so many other heavily-trafficked beach parks across Connecticut. As with most places in Connecticut, though, things weren’t always so wild and remote at Bluff Point. Even as early as the 1890s, a resort had been constructed near the sandy tombolo that projects westwards from Bluff Point. In the decades that followed, Bluff Point became quite a beloved destination for those seeking some relaxation by the beach. Droves of visitors showed up each year to enjoy sunshine, camping, cottages and a seaside experience more like what you’d find at Connecticut’s more developed beaches in modern times. For those who vacationed at Bluff Point in the 1920s and 30s, the notion that their summertime beach hang-out would somehow revert to 800 acres of wildlands in less than a century would’ve sounded preposterous.
Of course, what they never could’ve seen coming was the dreadful Hurricane of 1938, which effectively leveled almost every structure on the property. This single, cataclysmic disaster conspired to return Bluff Point to the jurisdiction of Nature; she has worked upon it ever since with spectacular results.
I’m pleased to announce that my piece, Roaring Brook Autumnlands, has been selected to receive the Best-in-Show Award at the 2014 Our Natural World photography exhibit hosted by the Glastonbury Audubon Society during the month of February! Produced on an outing in Cheshire, Connecticut during a cool October morning last year, this piece is surely among my favorite works from 2013.
Since I already introduced this piece in my January 2014 blog post, Autumn Meditations, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to discuss how Roaring Brook Autumnlands came together and explain the methods I used to get the shot.
This piece grew out of an early morning trek into the woodlands of Cheshire. My plan was to set out from the trailhead well before dawn, make the 3/4-mile hike up to Roaring Brook Falls, then take advantage of twilight to capture some images that emphasized the exemplary autumn colors we enjoyed last year in Southern New England. Everything went according to plan, with the glaring exception of the light. Twilight conditions just weren’t offering up the subtle color tones that I had been envisioning. I experimented with a few perspectives of downstream cascades, eventually finding myself at the very base of Roaring Brook Falls just as the sun began to peek over the wooded hilltops behind me.
Within only a few minutes, the lackluster conditions were swept away as I watched a stunning scene unfold before my eyes. The sun had risen just enough to set ablaze the autumn canopy at the precipice of the falls, but was still low enough on the horizon that the glistening rock faces below remained cloaked in shadow. The contrast of vibrant, glowing color and dark stone made for a captivating moment that I knew I wanted to share.
Roaring Brook Autumnlands wins Best-in-Show at the 2014 Our Natural World exhibit, on display through February 28 in the Glastonbury Audubon Center.
From the standpoint of technique, a sturdy tripod was absolutely critical since the exposure ran for two seconds. But even with a stable platform from which to shoot, there were a few other considerations. The significant disparity in brightness between the falls and forest could only be tamed by calling upon two different filters. A circular polarizer helped to remove glare from the leaves and slightly deepen the tones of the blue sky. I also held a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter over the lens to dial back some of the the brilliant light of the forest canopy. The resulting exposure was balanced fairly well, ensuring that I kept detail in both the shadows and the highlights.
You can see Roaring Brook Autumnlands, as well as many other fine photographs, at the Glastonbury Audubon Center located at 1361 Main Street, Glastonbury. The exhibit runs through February 28 and many of the excellent works on display are framed and reasonably priced.
“The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks, almost gleam like iron on the excited eye.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1844)
Nestled in the forests of Plymouth within Connecticut’s Central Naugatuck Valley, Buttermilk Falls Preserve is among those small and relatively obscure nature preserves that most of us will never set foot upon. It’s not that there’s anything stopping us, mind you; the public is welcome anytime to visit this shady grove of hemlocks that crowd the boulder-laden banks of Hancock Brook. It’s simply that, at a size of only a dozen acres, folks tend to assume that this diminutive swath of open space is just not worth the trip.
As part of my years-long project to capture in photographs the aesthetic essence of Connecticut’s waterfalls, I became familiar with Buttermilk Falls Preserve in the Summer of 2011. In fact, I was so impressed with its incredible beauty and arresting atmosphere that I’ve returned several times since then. My goal has been simple: to catch conditions that help me tell the story of this jewel in a way that is befitting of the magical impression it makes upon its visitors. As it would happen, I managed to get out to the Preserve on an early May morning last year as a dense fog drifted through the forest, producing subtle tones and contrasts that brought to the surface what Emerson would have called the “anciently reported spells” that linger in the wilds of Buttermilk Falls.
One of the pieces that emerged from that morning, Plymouth Wildlands (photo at top), brings us to a magnificent whitewater cataract on Hancock Brook. Plummeting more than 50 feet over a steep rock face, Buttermilk Falls is the namesake landmark of the Preserve, as well as its aesthetic epicenter. This glade feels like some verdant amphitheater where soft light filters through the greenery of the hemlocks overhead and every surface of the forest understory lays cloaked in a generous blanket of moss and ferns.
Another of my works, Hymn of the Hemlocks (above), takes us upstream from the falls and into the imposing vertical expanse of the seemingly primeval woodlands that envelop Hancock Brook. We find ourselves surrounded by towering hemlocks, most perched mightily upon bare rock, that cast whorls of wizened branches into the air as they reach skywards from the shadowy gorge for a taste of precious sunlight.
Finally, in Hancock Cascades, we find ourselves squarely in the middle of Hancock Brook, almost as if we are wading barefoot in its cool waters. Peering ahead, we watch the stream spread and splinter into myriad cascades as it struggles to clear ancient boulders and weather-scarred bedrock. Wherever the water cannot reach, the mosses have staked their claim, thriving amidst the cool, moist air that settles in troughs of the gorge.
Rendered in a written chronology, the story of Buttermilk Falls is long and varied. People have enacted their influence upon this place for centuries, if not millennia, and there’s little doubt that the landscape has been shaped and re-shaped by the rigors of time and water. But for me, all of those disparate verses of bygone times found a focused voice in the tranquil mists that drifted over Hancock Brook on a quiet morning in May.
Want to See More?
To see more of my work from Buttermilk Falls or buy a fine art print of the pieces introduced here, be sure to visit the Buttermilk Falls collection at my online galleries.
“A brook there is all children know,
Upon whose banks the wild flowers grow;
A brook that from its hill runs down,
And wanders wanders past the town.”
-Susan Pendleton
“Hebron” (1908)
Grayville Falls is a hidden gem nestled in the wooded wildlands of Hebron, a small town which bridges the low-lying Connecticut River Valley to its west and the hilly uplands of Connecticut’s “Quiet Corner” to its east. Although these falls had been on my must-see list for a few years, my attention was somehow routinely pulled elsewhere even as I passed within only a few miles on my way to shoot at more distant locations. It wasn’t until last summer when I finally managed to get out to the forests of Hebron on a warm July morning to visit Grayville Falls for the first time.
Grayville Everlasting (above), one of my pieces from that shoot, embraces the essence of these tranquil cascades on Raymond Brook, beginning with their steady persistence. Over thousands of years, Grayville Falls has ceaselessly carved its way deeper and deeper through several feet of stratified bedrock, leaving shadowy recesses along the periphery of the brook where weaker layers of stone have been gouged out by running water.
There’s also a measure of human history to be found at Grayville Falls, as evidenced by the remnants of a large boulder dam that rises over the cascades in Grayville Everlasting. In Hebron’s earlier days, when industry was still tethered to water power as the sole means of animating machinery, William Gray operated a carpet factory along the banks of Raymond Brook. The dam ruins we find today suggest that Gray utilized a fairly crude dam constructed of boulders and earthen mortar to impound several thousands of gallons of water upstream, ensuring that his factory could run even during dry spells.
Interestingly, old William Gray wouldn’t have recognized the name “Grayville Falls” during his lifetime. That name didn’t appear until the 1970s, when Hebron purchased the property for use as parkland and held a town-wide contest to determine what it would be called. “Grayville Falls Park” emerged as the winning name; a clever tip of the hat to a man that might otherwise have been lost to history.
That narrow interval during Autumn, when the forests transition to a collage of saturated colors, is always a magical time in the American Northeast. It’s a fleeting crescendo in which we bid farewell to the warmth and past experiences of spring and summer, enjoying one last, vivid hurrah before being plunged into the frigid months that will see us into a new year. Autumn resonates deeply within the collective psyche of New England. But now that winter is upon us, already blanketing the Connecticut landscape in a few successive layers of snow and ice, I’d like to bring us back just a couple months to the warm colors and soothing temperatures of Autumn 2013.
Housatonic River in Connecticut’s Northwest Hills Cornwall & Sharon, Connecticut
In my new piece, Housatonic Reverie (above), we find ourselves peering out over cold rapids on the Housatonic River in Cornwall, Connecticut. As we follow the undulating waters deeper into the landscape, we are surrounded by woodlands still cloaked in the shadows of twilight. But with fresh morning sun being cast from the east through a veil of mist, a gently-sloping hill on the horizon is set ablaze, becoming a glowing beacon of autumn color in a landscape that is still waking up to a chilly October morning.
Housatonic Reverie is just one of several pieces that I managed to produce as this truly glorious morning on the Housatonic Valley unfolded before my eyes. But if there’s one view of a landscape that I almost never capture, it’s a view which includes me! After all, I’m alone for most of my shoots and I’m generally busy behind the camera. But on this particular morning, I was out shooting with long-time friend and photographer, Ryan Dolan. While I was down on the boulder piles beside the river producing Housatonic Reverie, Ryan managed to frame me up in a unique exposure on black and white film (below).
His resulting image, which actually appears to have been taken perhaps five or ten minutes after I shot Housatonic Reverie, possesses a fascinating aesthetic that is a world apart from that of my own piece. What I found especially intriguing about his photograph was the timelessness that it so effortlessly conveys. Although we may know that it’s me on those rocks and that this image was taken only a few months ago, when we explore the world that Ryan has framed up here, we find almost nothing that tethers it to modern times. There’s the sense that this image could just as well have emerged from a century-old chest in some dusty farmhouse attic… that the photographer down there on the Housatonic is some anonymous soul of the 1800s that has long since been swallowed up by time and all but lost to history. There’s surely a vein of potent nostalgia in this emotive image, but this piece barely scratches the surface of Ryan’s work. I encourage you to explore more of his photography at ryandolanart.com.
My next piece brings us just a few miles south to Sharon, Connecticut, where the wide, shallow breadth of the Housatonic River snakes peacefully through a deeply-furrowed valley. At every turn the river is flanked by picturesque wooded hills, each one with a distinctive profile wrought in radiused slopes.
Shadowy blue tones, swirling mist and the leafless crown of an overhanging tree conspire to produce a mournful aesthetic in my piece, Twilight on Housatonic Meadows. The conditions on the Housatonic that morning were touch-and-go from a photographer’s perspective, for while the drifting blankets of fog lent a powerfully ethereal quality to the landscape, they also threatened to blot out key elements of the vista. I managed to take Twilight on Housatonic Meadows during a fleeting minute when the dense atmosphere thinned out just enough to reveal sparse wispy clouds and the contour of a distant hill.
Recently, I released a brand new fine art photography collection titled “Waterfalls of Connecticut“, the culmination of some four years of waterfall photography throughout Connecticut (if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check it out). Included in the collection are a few pieces that I managed to produce over this past Autumn, but which were still so new that they hadn’t even been released on my online galleries until now! I’ve finally rolled them out at JGCOLEMAN.COM and here we’ll explore these new works and take a look at how Fall 2013 produced some great conditions for waterfall photography.
Roaring Brook Autumnlands (at right) exemplifies the vivid color palette that we associate with autumn in New England. In this piece, we follow the waters of Roaring Brook Falls as they careen dozens of feet down a cliffside in the woodlands of Cheshire, Connecticut. At the precipice of the falls, we are treated to a cornucopia of saturated colors, from the glowing shades of orange in the forest canopy to the bold blue sky overhead. In truth, it can be extremely difficult to pull colors this “pure” out of any Autumn scene. The critical element in Roaring Brook Autumnlands —the condition that really brought this shot to life— was the magnificent, early-morning sun, which cast warm light upon the forest at the brink of the falls while leaving the cliff-face below painted in shadow. The contrast between dark, glistening rock and fiery, luminous woodlands really breathes life into this vista and reminds us of just how awe-inspiring our landscapes can be during those fleeting months of autumn.
My next piece, titled Falls Along the Gap (at right), brings us 40 miles east to Franklin, Connecticut, where gentle wisps of Bailey Brook plunge over rocky outcrops layered with a collage of fallen leaves. Connecticut was particularly dry during much of the Autumn season, a condition which can oftentimes leave smaller waterfalls throughout the state nearly dry. In the case of Falls Along the Gap, however, the reduced water volume on Ayer’s Gap Falls was the crucial ingredient which allowed thousands of autumn leaves to accumulate in areas that might otherwise have been scraped bare by swift currents.
Within At the Northgate (below), my new piece from Northgate Falls in Simsbury, Connecticut, fallen leaves have completely blanketed the forest floor, dramatically framing off the reflecting pool at the base of the cascades. This piece captures a different side of the autumn aesthetic: that wistful atmosphere in which the last throws of autumn feel more like a beautiful, bittersweet farewell rather than an eager stride into the coming months of snow and ice.
Here again, the dry months of summer and early autumn had left this branch of Bissell Brook with greatly reduced water volume. Northgate Falls is not a particularly large waterfall to begin with, but it was rendered especially tranquil at this point in late October.
Click on any of the waterfall photographs above to see a larger of version at my online galleries. Or, if you’d like to see other work from a given location, check out my galleries for Roaring Brook Falls Park, Ayer’s Gap Preserve and Northgate Falls.
Wind Gate at the Hudson Highlands Cornwall, New York
Of course, New England isn’t the only place that offers stunning scenery during Autumn. My next piece brings us 20 miles east of the Connecticut state line to a celebrated place in the history of landscape art: New York’s Hudson River Valley.
In my piece, Storm King Mountainscape (above), we peer out over the wide expanse of the Hudson River beneath a dawn sky awash with color. The facing slope of Storm King Mountain, a prominent, dome-shaped peak that abruptly rises more than 1,300 feet over the river below, glows with with molten color as the earliest sunlight of the morning carves blazing gashes into the shadowy bluffs.
Although Storm King Mountain is the star of this new piece, the photograph was actually taken from the opposite side of the river on a rocky promontory of Breakneck Ridge. Breakneck and Storm King are the distinctive sentinels that form the “Wind Gate”, the mountainous northern entrance into the Hudson Highlands region of New York. While it was early Dutch settlers that coined that term (originally “Wey Gat”), it was the painters of the famous Hudson River School that took to channeling the sublime qualities of this place into profound works of fine art. Throughout the 1800s, Storm King Mountain and Breakneck Ridge were featured in exquisite paintings by Thomas Cole, Samuel Colman, Thomas Benjamin Pope, Regis Frances Gignoux, Homer Dodge Martin and Jasper Cropsey, to name only a few.
I’d like to leave you with a piece that portrays barely a foot of the forest floor from edge to edge, but which manages to say just as much about autumn as the vast panorama from Breakneck Ridge or the wide vistas of the Housatonic.
Produced barely ten minutes from my home in Wolcott, Connecticut, my piece Sugar Maple Castaway is a simple, but potent, expression of the beauty of autumn. Da Vinci once wrote that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”, and when we draw our attention to just a single lonely leaf beaming with color upon the forest floor… well, there’s no doubt that the old master was on to something.
“I saw, as for the first time, what a severe yet master artist Winter is. Ah, a severe artist! How stern the woods look, dark and cold and as rigid against the horizon as iron!”
-John Burroughs
“The Snow-Walkers” (1866)
What better way to kick off the New Year than celebrating the quietly beautiful snowscapes that are a hallmark of wintertime in New England? My new piece, Mad River Lullaby, was produced only a few weeks ago and portrays a broad bend on the Mad River as it snakes through snowy woodlands just down the road from my home in Wolcott, Connecticut.
The Mad River is impounded downstream of this vista to create the 120-acre Scovill Reservoir, so the serpentine meander featured in Mad River Lullaby is typically inundated. In this rare instance, however, the reservoir had been drawn down several feet, allowing the Mad River to briefly reclaim its more natural footprint. Freshly-fallen snow, courtesy of a December storm, delicately frosted the bare trees and “tidied up” the muddy cobble left behind as the reservoir receded.
Throughout 2013, I managed to travel all over Connecticut and Western Massachusetts and even enjoyed a couple jaunts into Vermont and Eastern New York. Nature was not so shy during many of these travels, presenting several opportunities to capture rare and intimate glimpses of her beauty wherever I set off into the landscape. But, as nature photographer Moose Peterson once said,” The real prize is what you bring home in your heart, not on your memory card.” Indeed, when I browse through my work from this past year, I recall countless fulfilling days of being out in the wilds. Those experiences… those memories… are the reason that I love this art form so deeply.
To all of my viewers, I wish you and yours a bountiful and memorable new year in 2014!
“Be like the sun and meadow, which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter.”
-George Bernard Shaw
Wildflowers are something of a staple subject for landscape photographers, not only for their vibrant color, but also for their exquisite structure. For while we can certainly find exceptional colors in a sunset sky or an autumn forest, neither can offer quite the same delicate complexity as wildflowers. However, incorporating wildflowers into an effective landscape photograph can be challenging. Timing is everything. Not only must a landscape photographer seek out conditions that are universally important for aesthetics, but he must also be especially attentive to the season in which certain species bloom. The trick is to seize those rare moments when weather, lighting, location and seasonal blooms intersect; that sweet spot is elusive, but it can potentially yield idyllic scenery.
Similar elements come together in a much different composition in Pomperaug Summer (at right), in which clusters of bergamot extend deeply into a meadow, mirroring in small scale the crown of the solitary, whimsical pasture tree that stands silhouetted against the distant, fog-laden forest.
Encompassing roughly a square mile of territory beside the Pomperaug River in Southbury and criss-crossed with some 15 miles of trails, Bent of the River Audubon Sanctuary is actually larger than many of Connecticut’s state parks! Quiet, forested hills cover most of the expansive property, while the area nearby the visitor center consists of the broad, open meadowlands portrayed here in my work. But if the scenic qualities of this place are readily evident, what is not so obvious is the story behind it’s perplexing name.
For nearly six decades prior to its ownership by the Audubon Society, much of the land was the private estate of Howard and Althea Clark. At some point, while perusing the old land records associated with property, they discovered an early 1702 deed that referred to a sharp turn of the Pomperaug River beside their driveway as “ye bent of ye river”. Passionate as the two were about living out in the countryside, surrounded by hundreds of acres of serene seclusion, it may well be that the Clarks found something romantic and nostalgic in this old-fashioned language, suggestive as it is of colonial-era New England. The novel reference made enough of an impression upon the couple that, when Althea passed away in 1992 and left the full extent of the property to the Audubon Society, one of her posthumous demands was that it should be called “Bent of the River”.
Although the Clarks were indeed wealthy, they seem to have accumulated this wealth early in life and were subsequently able to indulge in various artistic and literary pursuits. Howard managed to become a novelist and published at least a few books. For her own part, Althea enthusiastically took to photography, an art at which she is said to have excelled. Try as I may, I was unable to find any example of her work online. But given the bucolic surroundings in which she and Howard chose to live, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine that landscapes factored into her subject matter quite frequently. Indeed, I wonder if one day I might finally happen upon some of her old black-and-white prints and maybe… just maybe… I might find among them some vista of a broad, open meadow, sprinkled ever so delicately with sprays of wild bergamot.
As someone who loves experiencing and photographing fresh, new landscapes, I spend plenty of time traveling all over Connecticut, even crossing the state line and heading elsewhere in the northeast whenever I get the chance. And yet, from the beginning, I’ve also placed a good deal of importance on seeing familiar landscapes with fresh eyes. I challenge myself to approach every landscape as if I’ve traveled a thousand miles to see it for the first time, even if I drive by it routinely or have conducted several photo shoots there in the past. In fact, my latest collection of fine art prints features Scovill Reservoir, a small lake near my home that really is part of my day-to-day life! I’m excited to introduce to you these new prints, for they are a celebration of just how beautiful, varied and surprising the familiar landscapes around home can be, just so long as we’re willing to see these things with fresh eyes.
Scovill Reservoir is a 120-acre lake nestled amongst the forest that lies right down the street from my house in Wolcott, Connecticut. How close by is it exactly? Well, suffice to say, I can walk to the nearest stretch of shoreline in just a few minutes or, alternatively, drive there in a matter of seconds. Anytime I leave home headed east, its shallow coves or densely-wooded shorelines are some of the first sights I pass after a few stop signs and a half-dozen neighborhood houses. Ever since my wife and I moved to Wolcott late last year, this small lake has been an ever-present part of our everyday lives.
But the ordinary can sometimes prove surprisingly extraordinary; that was precisely the case when I headed to the northeastern shore of the lake on a misty Spring morning in May. I scrambled down the banks into a small pocket of wetlands and planted my tripod amongst the sedges, totally in awe of the dazzling light show materializing over the water. The scene possessed an almost incendiary beauty as the Sun rose over the horizon, piercing the evergreen canopy with heavenly beams of light that seared through the fog and cast a warm glow on the gently swaying reeds before me. My piece, “Woodtick Majesty” (photo above), was born of that remarkable morning and remains one of my most dramatic and luminous pieces from Scovill Reservoir.
“Sundown Over Wolcott” (photo at top) draws upon yet another moment in time during which nature conspired to produce a fleeting masterpiece. Having just slipped beneath the forested horizon, the sun boldy bid farewell with a radiant crescendo as it cast massive columns of light into the shadowy clouds above.
Although the lake is technically known as Woodtick Reservoir, it is almost universally referred to as Scovill or Scovill’s Reservoir. This nickname derived from the fact that the waters of the reservoir were, starting shortly before 1920, used in the production of brass by the highly influential Scovill Manufacturing Company. The Scovill name has remained attached to the lake ever since, even long after the company moved elsewhere. Eventually the unused reservoir, which had been slowly reclaimed by nature over the years, was sold to the Town of Wolcott in the 1980s.
The cool colors of “Snowy Dusk” really impart a visual sense of the winter chill that was in the air on that frigid evening, even if the bluish tones actually resulted from the fact that the scene was only faintly illuminated by the blue sky of twilight. As we peer into this piece, we find a shadowy, snow-laden forest where evergreen pines and hemlocks are unmistakeable amidst the leafless branches of dormant oaks, maples and birches. Wispy clouds skate across the dimming sky, which is still just bright enough to cast reflections from the cold waters of the lake. In the distance, the broad, forested slopes of Tame Buck’s Hill rise gradually from the surrounding landscape south of the lake.
Tame Buck’s Hill was so named for an injured fawn which, probably at some point during the 19th-century, is said to have limped out of the woods beside the hill and strayed into the farmland of the Upson family. One can only imagine that the Upson children were thrilled about this and they took to nurturing the young animal like a pet until it was healed and capable of setting back off into the countryside. For years afterward, though, the deer reportedly made regular visits to the farm, having become somewhat domesticated as a result of its unusual upbringing. For the rest of its days, this “tame buck” must have been quite a beloved creature around town, for it remains immortalized in the name of the hill where it stumbled from the forest well over a century ago.
We’ve seen a couple different views of Scovill Reservoir already, from the warm, dazzling displays of dawn and sunset to the relaxed tones of dusk on a winter evening. “Woodtick Quietude” (above), however, draws us into an altogether different atmosphere of contemplation and tranquility. A light veil of mist has settled upon the still waters of the lake in the early hours before dawn, imparting an ethereal softness to the successive layers of dimly-lit woodlands. Peering into this meditative waterscape, our minds almost instinctively fill the visual space with a soothing silence.
It’s sort of ironic that I’m presenting my piece, “Mad River’s Dominion” (above), as the final work in this new series, because the story of Scovill Reservoir didn’t even begin until the Mad River was dammed in central Wolcott shortly before 1920. Only then did Scovill Reservoir emerge as the Mad River flooded 120 acres of farmland and pastures that were purchased from Wolcott residents.
“Mad River’s Dominion” brings us about two miles north of the reservoir to the banks of the Mad River in Wolcott’s Peterson Park. Lively and energetic, the stream can be seen tumbling over submerged stones and dodging mossy boulders as it meanders through dense woodlands. There was a time when the full ten-mile course of the Mad River would’ve looked much like this, but these days only about two miles retain a truly wild and scenic character. After flowing south through Wolcott and into the neighboring city of Waterbury, the river becomes almost unrecognizable. It is funneled unceremoniously through densely populated areas for nearly five miles until being squeezed out into the Naugatuck River amidst the brick and asphalt surfaces of an industrial park. This hardly seems like a fitting end for such a handsome and vigorous woodland stream, but at least the Mad River can still lay claim to a proud dominion in the forests of northern Wolcott.
Interested in the Works You’ve Seen Here?
To buy fine art prints or see larger versions of the works above, visit the Scovill Reservoir and Peterson Park collections at my online galleries.
While traveling throughout Connecticut and Greater New England to photograph our diverse landscapes, I am constantly striving to produce visions of nature that convey a distinct sense of place. Wildlands never fail to inspire in me a range of emotional responses -from awe and joy, to nostalgia and melancholy- and I seek to distill those reactions into potent visual expressions. Indeed, the interpretive approach to landscape photography forms its very foundation as an art form. “Falls Brook Awakening”, my latest piece, exemplifies the sort of engaging and emotive perspectives that are possible when we’re receptive to the subtle character of the land.
In “Falls Brook Awakening”, we find ourselves deep in the forests of Hartland, Connecticut, peering downstream as Falls Brook wanders excitedly through a mossy gorge of boulders and bedrock. We are at first greeted by a lively waterfall coursing over a weathered ledge, and as we follow Falls Brook into the distance, we discover that its waters glow with vibrant reflections of the woodland canopy above. In the distance, crowded spring foliage is illumined by the luxurious light of early morning. The entire landscape is waking up from its nighttime slumber and we get the front row seat.
Falls Brook is really just a small taste of the natural treasures contained in Connecticut’s vast Tunxis State Forest. Encompassing more than 9,000 acres and spread across three towns, the Forest’s expansive wooded landscapes possess a truly wild character that permeates the body and soul alike.
