I returned with a Forestry degree after college and spent a summer working in the North Maine woods. I remember my boss, at the time, giving directions, “Drive to the top of New Hampshire, head North through Canada for two hours and then take a right into Maine” Needless to say, I saw many more bears than people that summer. In the years since, I have been fortunate to film and photograph for Yankee Magazine from Kennebunkport to Lubec. One winter I explored Caribou by snow machine, followed by a summer voyage on Moosehead Lake with Captain Rocky aboard the steamboat Katahdin.

I fell in love with photography all over again last week. Each spring there is a community picnic, and everyone contributes in some way... food, music, set-up and planning. It feels like a throw back and I enjoy getting to catch up with neighbors. When we first moved into the area, I offered to make portraits of everyone as a means of introduction. That was seven or eight years ago, and this year I decided to do it all again.

Observational documentary about shearing sheep at Rolling Bale Farm in Vermont. Special thanks to Hilary, Ben and Gwen.

Work in Progress - This short excerpt follows Richard during the planting season in Maine. A gardener, mechanic, fabricator, tinkerer, and retired high school teacher, he is one of the original farmers in the Maine Grain Alliance’s Heritage Seed Restoration Project. He continues to research and grow out varieties of cereal grains that are adapted to Maine’s climate.

Every spring the field down the road from me slowly fills up with tractors and heavy equipment. Items are lined up for the Addison County Commission Sales annual machinery auction. Akin to seeing sap buckets, or tubing these days, it marks the changing of the season from winter to spring. This observational documentary explores the sights and sounds of this event.

I want to observe and create long term projects, extracting slivers of time that can speak to a certain familiarity and sense of place. Stephen Gill summarized this perfectly in the British Journal of Photography, “I realised that it’s all here. It’s all outside my house, and it’s also the biggest challenge,” he says. “To go somewhere unfamiliar, it’s exotic, and easy to make images. That was a language I never really tapped into. If you can latch onto your home environment, it’s unbelievable, you just have to look and absorb.” This sentiment inspired me, though it can also pose challenges because inevitably one's home environment can feel banal.