Behold Vermont, From Above, New York Times
On July 13, 2020, (online) and July 15, 2020 (Print) The New York Times published Behold Vermont, From Above, a photo essay with text and 17 photos about my drone photography in Vermont.
The response has been incredible, with a flood of comments, emails, print requests, Instagram followers and messages on Facebook and Linked-In. I am very grateful for this overwhelmingly positive response.
Many photographers and photo editors recommend developing a body of work – a group of photographs focusing on a theme or subject – in order to establish yourself as a photographer. For the past three years, I have been making drone photos around Vermont. Looking back in Adobe Lightroom, where I keep my photos, I have created a lot of drone photos – more than seven thousand – with maybe a few dozen decent photos that really stand out. When I first started using a drone for making photos, my tendency was to fly as high as possible and make sweeping vistas of Vermont landscapes. But as I developed my shooting style, I tended to fly lower and point the camera straight down to achieve a bird’s-eye view of the Vermont landscape. Slowly I started creating photos that were more about abstraction, patterns and color.
After the coronavirus pandemic started and The New York Times suspended their Travel Section, they started a series called The World Through a Lens, which featured one photographer and their work each week. As many of us were locked down in our homes and communities, this series provided a visual and virtual way of traveling. In June I sent Phaedra Brown, the Travel Picture Editor, a collection of sixty photos with a proposal to do a Vermont drone photo essay. Fortunately, she said yes. After that she made an edit of 17 of the photos, all with the straight down bird’s-eye perspective. I wrote an essay and Times Editor and Photographer Stephen Hiltner did an amazing job editing and improving the piece.
I am very grateful for all the positive feedback! Here are a few of the comments:
“Your photographs in the NYT touched my very heart and mind. I had a visceral, powerful connection immediately: Peace, safety, comfort.”
“Your pictures in today’s NYT are beautiful, wondrous!”
“Beautiful, inspiring photographs of Vermont in today’s New York Times. Thank you for sharing such beauty and joy.”
Here is the online version: