I began working as an art and scenic photographer over 30 years ago, sometime around my junior year in college, when my wife received a camera as a present. I was living in Burlington at the time. I borrowed her camera to try out some experimental shots like I had seen in some art magazines. A company that used to advertise in the newspaper gave away free film as long as you sent it back to them for processing. I got hooked on photography and spent every penny that didn't go to food or rent on slide film. I tried all of the tricks and tips and learned quite a bit of fundamentals mostly by making mistakes. I didn't keep the wife, but I did keep the camera, and up until last year it was still my primary camera body.
For over 15 years after that I lived in the Tampa/ St Petersburg, Fla., region where I exhibited and worked. Among other positions there I worked managing photo labs, teaching digital imaging, and as a portrait photographer. Portrait photography is a demanding business. It showed me the value in making good-looking images that people can relate to. Smart and arty pictures are all well and good, but they don't pay the bills. A picture can be intelligent, but it has to be good looking too. It has to be well-composed, well-lit, and well-crafted or it will have no appeal, and with no appeal it has no viewers. Scenic photography and landscape do not get the full credit and serious treatment that they deserve from the artistic community. To create an image that has an instant appeal is a sign that it is communicating well. It does not need an explanation or a bunch of words to justify it, because it speaks directly.
Upon my return to Vermont I still do some art and commercial work, but I have primarily dedicated my energies to local landscape, local scenics, and local portraits. Vermont has a strong history of showing support for scenic and landscape photography, and that tradition is still very much alive in the local arts and crafts communities. It's important for an artist to be a part of a community. If that community provides support and venues for artists, then those same artists should show a commitment in return. They have the ability to express and showcase the community... its land, its businesses, its people.
Although I have 30 years of work shot with traditional film, the current work that I am now showing represents only local images and are all done since my recent transition entirely over to digital photography. The transition to digital has allowed me to produce a number of images and reach a number of people that would not have been possible in the days of film. A day's worth of processing and editing with a digital camera that costs less than a dollar in electricity and file storage space would have cost thousands of dollars were I to try to reproduce that with film and labs. There is immediate access to the images right on the back of the camera. If something is going right you can explore that further. If something is going wrong you can see and correct the problem before a once-in-a-lifetime shot is lost forever. While there are many traditional cameras film emulsions that have gone out of production, and while I miss them greatly, the advantages of the digital age cannot be doubted. This truly is the golden age for photography and imaging.
You can find most of my work online at www.keithedmunds.com and follow me on Facebook at https://www. facebook.com/rutlandvtphoto.