Vermont Archives | Numéro Cinq

Herewith stunning and mysteriously timeless photos of the Vermont College of Fine Arts green, College Hall, and Alumni Hall, caught with a smartphone camera by John Solaperto who renders the familiar strange and other-worldly, out of time. He doesn’t just snap a photograph; he completely alters our perception not only by the common techniques of framing and point of view but also by his canny and original use of black-and-white and a photo app that makes new things look old. As John aptly points out, the photos look like they date from the 1920s, but they were taken last winter. I don’t know — this stuff knocks me out; I love how art twists the neurons in my brain, and these photos do that. And, frankly, I just warm to a real, down to earth photographer who doesn’t make a fetish out of gear and renders the world beautiful with whatever comes to hand.

John is an old friend from many a VCFA residency. Some of you know him as an amiable, intense, helpful presence at lectures and public occasions. It’s a pleasure to discover his art.

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There’s an adage among photographers that “your best camera is the one you have with you.” My experience with the camera on my smart phone over the past two or three years has really driven that home for me. I’ve limited myself to only two camera apps, but there are dozens available.

I’m particularly taken with one called Hipstamatic, which lets me choose a lens and film combination that produces a black and white image with enough pixels that I can make a decent inkjet print at approximately 6”x6”.

The configuration with which I’m shooting produces an image in a square format. The camera is set up so I can’t see the entire scene in my viewfinder. Such a configuration adds an element of chance that I like. It’s an image capture process reminiscent of the plastic cameras popular in the 1980s and 90s that used 2”x2” black and white film. One must make a lot of images to get something usable in terms of content, tone, and sharpness. This particular series of images has a rather specific target audience, namely those associated and familiar with the Vermont College of Fine Arts community. I’d like to think, however, that they also have the potential to engage a wider audience of viewers in visual narratives more specific to the context of their personal life experiences.

The two images of skaters at ground level were shot late in the day on a rather cold Sunday afternoon in late winter. They were chosen from nearly 200 exposures, made as I walked around the rink on the college green. Besides the action of the figures, the photo has a certain quality of light that I find engaging. College Hall, functioning as a backdrop, adds to the nostalgic, period quality of these images. They look as though they could have just as easily been captured in 1912.

The aerial images of skaters were shot a few days later from a second floor window of College Hall. I was aware of the figures but thought of them as secondary to the composition of the other elements of the scene, i.e. the flag, sky, tree, and light post. As it turned out, the interaction of the figures with each other provides an even stronger visual interest than the interaction of the figure with the other compositional elements. As a photographer, I feel that the image of the child with outstretched arms was an especially wonderful gift.

The aerial shot devoid of figures is included here as related to, but not really part of, the “skater series.” It was shot from the highest window I could reach in College Hall. While speaking with a colleague, I noticed the long, thin cloud or patch of fog moving rather quickly from south to north, just below the horizon. My colleague very graciously allowed me to open her office window to shoot. Of the 30 or so exposures I made to get this image, most had some part of College Hall’s architecture intruding into the composition. The one included here does not.

The night image of College Hall is an experiment in pushing the limits of available light. I think that the overall quality of light in the image, the footprints in the snow, and the diagonal motion created between the Christmas lights on the portion of the lamp post along the left edge of the image and the face in the clock tower, as well as the light in the doorway below the tower and the lamp post that lines up with the window in the center of the image, all work together to form a strong composition. The overall effect is eerie but pleasing.

All of these images represent the study of alternating patterns of light and dark tonalities. They’ve been edited with software, but not in a manner that is inconsistent with traditional dark room practice, i.e. I have made just basic tonal adjustments in all photos, and in some cases, I’ve done a lot of dodging & burning.

—John Solaperto

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John Solaperto is a digital photographer and vocalist from Worcester, MA. He currently lives and works in Worcester, MA with his daughter and two grandsons. He is the Learning Resource Manager for the Applied Arts Program at Quinsigamond Community College and teaches Digital Photography in an adjunct capacity, evenings and online. He also spends approximately 12 weeks a year in Montpelier, VT serving as a media coordinator for Vermont College of Fine Arts’ two MFA in Writing programs and its Visual Arts program. He has an undergraduate degree from Clark University’s Studio Art Program (1993) and an MFA from VCFA’s MFA-V program (1995).

A good photographer makes the world look different; good photography is not just a matter of reflecting what’s there — it’s a matter of perspective, taste, emotion, framing and rendering the world so that the viewer sees it fresh. In the best of his pictures, Roger Crowley makes myth of Montpelier, Vermont, makes it grand and spectacular, makes it look like no other place on earth. We all know Roger, without knowing him, because he’s there at every Vermont College of Fine Arts residency taking the graduating class photo. Now we get to know him a little better.

Alley between the Coffee Corner Diner and Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont.

Snowy barn doors in Montpelier Vermont.

First Night Fireworks Downtown Montpelier Vermont.

A decaying poster on a brick wall reflects shadows of a band in Montpelier Vermont on July 3rd 2012.

American flag in Montpelier Vermont – July 3rd Parade 2012.

College Hall at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier Vermont.

College Hall from Cliff Street in Montpelier Vermont.

Bob Sassaman takes a noontime slide down a hill in Hubbard Park, Montpelier, Vermont during his lunch break.

— Roger Crowley

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Roger Crowley is a freelance photographer living in East Montpelier, Vermont. He specializes in images of New England and Eastern Canada, sports, nature, landscape and portraits. His pictures have appeared in major magazines and newspapers as well as online publications. See more images at www.CrowleyPhotos.com.

At the Confluence

Hurricane Irene did surprising and catastrophic things to Vermont, surprising because, well, Vermont is inland, far from the storm-whipped coasts, far from, say, New Orleans. You don’t get a storm surge in Vermont. But when a storm like Irene hits, all the topographic beauties of the place turn to its detriment. The rain washes straight down the mountainsides into the narrow, deep valleys. Creeks and rivers that were nothing but shallow meanders through deep cobble beds, mostly dry at that time of year, fill up with alarming suddenness. The rivers rage down the valleys, demolishing roads, buildings, towns. Hilary Mullins is an old friend from her days as a student at Vermont College of Fine Arts when she used to hang out in Francois Camoin’s room on the third floor of Noble Hall just down the corridor from dg who also tended to hang out in Francois’ room a lot (it was a hospitable place, a cross between a Paris salon and a homeless shelter). Hilary lives in Bethel, Vermont, where she reads, writes, teaches, sermonizes and runs a window-cleaning business. She was, yes, at home when Hurricane Irene hit, and this is her story—a What It’s Like Living Here essay with a twist. (The photos are a group effort; credits to Janet Hayward Burnham, Dan Thorington, Bill Gibson.)

Hurricane Irene—What It Was Like

From Hilary Mullins in Bethel, Vermont

Everyone in Bethel knew the hurricane was coming–we knew all about it. We knew the forecasters were saying it could be significant, and we knew why: August had been rainy, and we already had plenty of water in the ground. So we knew we didn’t need any more, particularly not in the quantity that a hurricane might bring. We also knew there was supposed to be high wind. So we stacked our yard chairs, tossed more rounds of wood on the tarps covering our woodpiles, and brought our animals in.

But at first when Irene arrived–not as a hurricane but as a tropical storm–she didn’t seem so significant after all. The rain started Saturday night, and yes, it came steady, but around here, we’ve all seen rain like that before. And we know rain. There’d be some wash-outs, we knew that: roads where the gravel would be eaten and maybe some pavement too. And maybe some people’s houses would be threatened. Because that does happen more often now: a thunder storm hits, leaving a flash flood in one area.

But even though we knew all this, even though we knew the land here is all ridges and river valley, brooks and streams pouring down from everywhere to merge, uniting in the White River that runs through our village, we didn’t know. We didn’t know the power of what was running at the level of our feet–or what could happen if all those little waters—not just some here or there–began to rise. Which on the 28^th of August they did.
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I first met Tammy Greenwood seven years ago. She was teaching a creative writing class at UCSD Extensions in San Diego and I was living in the Mojave Desert. This meant I drove 3 hours each way to attend her class. I can think of few better testimonials to her as a teacher.

Tammy is the author of six novels and has a seventh novel in the works with Kensington. (I’ve had the distinct pleasure of reading drafts of the new book, and it’s going to be a good one!) She has won numerous awards and grants for her writing and has taught in various universities and workshops. I could go into specifics, but suffice to say, she’s living the dream!

Tammy combines a keen eye for details with a capacious heart, and yet somehow manages to push her stories into the gloomiest of places. Her novels examine the tragedies of contemporary American life, with memorable characters who suffer from the curse of loving too much and being wounded by the flaws of desire and destiny. Kids die in her novels; trains crash, families grieve over lost love and commit adultery; there are hoarders and cancer survivors and shoplifters. Tammy’s characters hold a mirror up to the darkest corners of their being, and they never flinch from going deeper.

I’ve been fortunate to work closely with Tammy and another fine San Diego writer, Jim Ruland, in an intimate writing group we affectionately call “The Dub Club” (Dub standing for the letter ‘W’ and not the former president.) It’s my pleasure to interview Tammy here on Numéro Cinq.

The Confluence of Rivers: An Interview with Tammy Greenwood

by Richard Farrell

RJF: Place seems to matter a lot to you. You’ve invented towns in Vermont in your novels. Places you’ve lived seem to appear frequently in your work. Could you talk about how you think about place, about landscapes, as you outline your writing?

Tammy Greenwood: I have described my work in the past as “auto-geographical.” What I mean by that, is that setting (for me) comes from a true place. I feel like that in order to create authentic characters, they must first inhabit an authentic world. Setting is one of the first decisions I make, sometimes even before character.

I grew up in rural Vermont, and (especially as a teenager), I was always trying to escape it. I think it’s funny, because now it is with tremendous longing that I return to Vermont again and again in my fiction.

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