Turning 50 this past year led me to pause, take stock, and reflect back on the years that have passed by relatively quickly. As I look forward to the second half of my life, I realize why I became a documentary photographer. It has led me to the far reaches of the earth while enabling me to slow down and really look at life up close. It is the series of amazing journeys I have been on and the stories that have accompanied them that I look back on with great joy.
I have been fortunate enough to have spent a good deal of my free time in Windsor, New Hampshire–the second smallest town in the state. A family cabin situated on White Pond has always been my refuge for escaping this fast-paced world. I have always referred to it as a lake but the locals remind me it really is a pond.
With a population of fewer than 250, Windsor is the kind of town where everyone waves as you drive by and the latest news is received at Williams Store. Ponds, rolling hills, old stone walls, huge granite boulders, and heavily forested woods filled with birch, pine, oak, maple, and spruce cover most of the land. My family ran two sleep-away camps for children from the 1950s to the ’80s called Holiday Trail and Holiday Highlands. Having spent every summer of my life in this 250 acre forested sanctuary, a spiritual bond with the land was formed at a young age.