CHARTER WEEKS, PHOTOGRAPHER ~

My  

I began studying photography with Harry Calahan at RISD in the 1960s. I was deeply influenced by the extraordinary images coming out of Viet Nam and the civil rights movement in the south. In 1965 I went to London and studied at the London School of Film Technique and then returned to New York where I worked as commercial photographer shooting for major agencies, magazines and the music industry. I also was a principal in a film company and for two years we were the primary film resource for the BBC shooting both news and documentary projects. A most memorable experience was shooting in Harlem the night after Martin Luther King was killed (utter chaos.) I also did a series of photographs in the south for The National Sharecroppers Fund to use in fund raising.

I returned to New Hampshire in 1971 and worked partly as an art director at a small agency and cutting film for an independent film company in Manchester NH. I built my own house in rural southern New Hampshire and started an Industrial Advertising Agency (Isinglass) since it was not possible to make a living as a full time photographer during that period.

I have been a photographer for 50 years, much of it documentary in nature. I have photographed in Europe, Asia and Africa, been exhibited in galleries around the US and published in a variety of magazines including The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, South Loop Review, Drunken Boat Corvette Fever and other journals.

My archives reside at Keene State College.

There is much important history that has been preserved by photography. Mathew Brady, Louis Hine, Bruce Davidson, and Walker Evans just to mention a few. My motto is “Photography keeps yesterday safe for tomorrow.”o

              Charter was a close friend with Longhouse. He passed away in Asheville, NC 9 July 2024 

element that gets them headed off in a particular w

ELAINE MAYES, PHOTOGRAPHER ~

 

E L A I N E    M A Y E S

MUCH LOVED ~

Much Loved

photographs by Mark Nixon

Abrams, 2013

you probably owned one, once upon a time . . . 

EARTH ~

--TRAVELER

We were in Newfoundland in 1975. Just went. Used bug and the two of us. Drove until the highway ended in North Sydney and someone said a ferry was heading out through the night to Newfoundland. We looked at one another, "let's go?" Let's go. I almost missed getting on by going over to talk to a truck driver who was standing outside his rig smoking a cigarette and watching everything load on. I was watching, too. We talked. Rain and splashed lighting all over the earth at that moment. Slam crash sounds. Big boat loading up. We took a shower on that crossing, six hours of little sleep in what felt like a swishing bowl. We swishing. When the boat landed, and all for little money, we drove off and drove for some days heading northward until the road just sort of ruined out.




photo © susan arnold

EARTH ~

Here's one of my photographs from the polaroid series going back some dozen years. I'll include a few more as time goes along. I use a Canon digital camera now — plus make one to two minute films with it. We can't seem to find the film for my old polaroid, clunky and beautiful in its time at making finished photos roll out. My father used his for years. He kept his film in the refrigerator. All this human province of moves and even errors of taking pictures, storing film, having the miracle of the developed photograph in your hands, after a little bit of precious waiting (which is like listening which is like talking which is like thinking) is becoming lost.

photo © bob arnold

NOW IN VERMONT

photo © susan arnold

SOMETHING




Isn't it something how the gentle breeze just doesn't stop

In the woods with us the sound of leaves

Out on the ocean an eye-field of waves

On the prairie the prairie

Nobody can stop it

Nobody

Bob Arnold was once told by a developer — ‘nobody’ lived out where he lived in the woods — developing was a piece of cake. So Bob & friends organized about 500 nobodys to attend a meeting of developers to say hello.

YESTERDAY IN VERMONT photo © susan arnold











EXTRA INNINGS




It thundered and roared five inches of rain last night

Right onto and off the big steel roof

Visitors about to leave took a look outdoors and back-tracked inside

We talked one or two more rounds

Said goodbye one more time

Had all that extra living

Because of the rain




Bob Arnold says this poem has less to do with baseball and everything to do with affection.