A teenage girl snowshoes across a frozen pond at sunset in Epping, New Hampshire.
With it taking two years to go from fundraising to premier for The Power of Place, there seemed to be a big rush of air flying out of here last week as a sense of accomplishment was followed by thoughts of, “Now what?” Thankfully, I had three days in the backcountry of the Maine Woods to think about that as my family and I had booked a trip to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Gorman Chairback Lodge in the 100 Mile Wilderness. After twenty-plus years of conservation photography, I’m still impressed by the power of nature to heal and clear the mind. 23 miles of skiing and snowshoeing seemed to do just that.
Of course, I’m not really done with The Power of Place – there’s lots happening on that front, which I’ll get to in a moment, but first, I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be speaking at PechaKucha Night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this Thursday night at 7:00. You can find all the details on their Facebook page. PechaKucha is a cool presentation format. Presenters are allowed to show 20 images for 20 seconds each, so presentations are limited to 400 seconds (6 2/3 minutes.) It’s a fun way to see a bunch of people talk about a variety of topics. I hope to see you there.
Next, if you’ve been following my Instagram account or Facebook page, you’ve seen photos from a conservation photo project I’m working on for The Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire in Epping, New Hampshire. Between now and July, I’ll be shooting several days on three properties they are working to protect with conservation easements. A couple of weeks ago, I made several visits to the Harvey property, an 1100-acre chunk of fields, forests, and productive wetlands. It was amazing to see this big a piece of undeveloped and unprotected land in southeastern New Hampshire, and I look forward to exploring it further once the snow melts. This is my first assigned work since getting back to work, and it’s got me pretty pumped.
As for The Power of Place, The premier in Concord was a great success as it sold out and most guests stayed through the entire panel discussion following the film. Several people who are featured in the film were able to attend and it was great to see them interacting with the crowd. You can see photos from the event on The Power of Place Facebook Page. Now we’re gearing up for our next screening, which is April 9th at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I’m very excited for this screening, since I live in Portsmouth, and I’m expecting a pretty friendly crowd full of familiar faces. Like the premier, we’ll be having a reception at 6:30, followed by the screening at 7:00, and a panel discussion at 8:00. Our panel this time will consist of Jack Savage of The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Susan Arnold of The Appalachian Mountain Club, and yours truly. I did extend invitations to several pro-Northern Pass folks to join the panel discussion, but they have all declined. I’ll admit I’m disappointed by that – it could have been a great debate. Still I expect those who attend will learn a lot of great information about Northern Pass in addition to being treated to an entertaining look at some beautiful parts of New Hampshire.
I’ve also lined up a screening for our North Country friends at the Colonial Theater in Bethlehem, New Hampshire the night of May 14th. Tickets are not on sale for that one yet, but I’ll fill you in when they are. I’m also setting up a special Earth Day screening at a New Hampshire university to be named soon. If you can’t make a screening, but would like to watch the film, you can either purchase the DVD from our website (only $10), or you can rent or buy a streaming version from Vimeo on Demand. If you have seen the film, I would be forever grateful if you could rate or review the film on the film’s IMDB page.
I also have a cool two-day photo project lined up for Northern Maine next month. I can’t share the details yet, but it involves remote travel to some sweet subjects.
Have a great week everyone!
-Jerry
