Some prints from my Maine collection will be on display for sale at the Bagaduce Gallery on Main Street in Castine, Maine for the month of August. Castine artists Joshua and Susan Adam will be displaying their beautiful paintings depicting life and land on the Maine coast alongside my photographs. Our opening reception is scheduled for Sunday evening August 10 from 4-7 p.m., but we will be open all month long from 10-4 as well. If you are boating or driving through the Penobscot Bay area at all, do drop in!

Often when photographing forests in New England, I am pleasantly surprised to see stone walls snaking through the woods, reminding me that what may look like untrammeled forest primeval these days may well have been cleared farm or pastureland in the not-so-distant past. When New England was being settled in the 18th and 19th centuries, many communities required farmers and ranchers to erect walls to demarcate property borders and keep livestock from wandering. Back then, upwards of 70 percent of the land in New England–much of which is today forested–was cleared for agricultural purposes. Farming in New England was never easy, partly due to the short growing season but also because fields were so strewn with boulders that creating neat uniform lines of crops was nearly impossible. Constructing stone walls gave farmers a practical reason to take the time to rid their fields of these pesky and ubiquitous rocks.

But the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal sounded the death knell for farming in New England, as cheaper and more abundant produce could be grown in the more fertile, less rocky soils of the Midwest and transported by barge back east. As a result, the majority of farms in New England were abandoned and left to return to their natural wooded state. As these farms gave way to forests, stone walls remained as a sometimes hidden testament to days gone by.

Photographing these strong but decrepit walls is a joy as it allows me to imbue what would otherwise be plain old nature photos with a sense of cultural and historical significance not often present in my work.