If you’re a photographer, Vermont offers endless opportunities for dramatic picture taking. For the most dramatic photographs, I find dawn and dusk to be the best – The Golden Hours. Since I retired I have used the camera to motivate me to explore Vermont and find places that are often overlooked and as a result I have traveled the back roads through the middle of Vermont pretty thoroughly. Usually, I have a destination in mind, but I like the bit of adventure that comes with “I wonder where that road goes…” and finding out.
Last Spring, I was exploring Groton State Forest and decided to make a side trip which brought me to Bogie Mountain. The farm buildings were beautiful, classic Vermont red and there was a road that went up just behind it. The morning I was there the sun was working its way across the valley and providing a soft back light for the trees that were just starting to ‘leaf out’. I was surprised to notice how many different colors of green there were at this time of day. In the Fall we get all the reds and golds, but in the Spring the mountains are covered with shades of green.
After admiring the view and selecting a proper vantage point I started taking pictures, a lot of pictures. Taking pictures of vistas is hard because you need something to anchor it. My anchor was the farm and the light and the mist in the valleys added to the drama.
The picture on display in the gallery is comprised of six images that were combined in the computer to get the panorama shape. People ask me if I’ve ‘touched-up’ the image and I tell them I have. I say that if I was a painter I would only choose to paint what I liked about the scene and I would choose the colors that suited me. As a photographer I remove what I don’t like such as telephone wires, or rocks or branches and I adjust the exposure to create the scene I saw.
– Bob Wagner
