In my nearly five years of working as a photographer for the Valley News, I’ve driven across the Quechee Gorge bridge hundreds of times, glancing at the ubiquitous sight seers crowding the sidewalks with their cameras in hand.
Unlike the Upper Valley, my hometown in western Pennsylvania was not a popular tourist destination, and I’m reminded with each journey over the bridge that this is a new, exciting landscape for the thousands of visitors who peer over the edge to look at the Ottauquechee River at the bottom of the steep gorge.
This novelty of living in a tourist area propelled me to produce a photo essay on the busloads of fall tourists who bombard Woodstock and Quechee each year, and the bridge along Route 4 was my first stop. As I was composing a frame with an older tourist taking the perfect shot of the gorge, a car stopped dead in the center of the bridge, and out jumped an over-enthusiastic tourist, who leaned over the fence, and into my frame.
Impatient motorists honked, the older tourist scowled, and I grinned, knowing that the themes I hoped to explore in my essay — tourism and humor — had coalesced into a concise image.
It’s the humor of the moment, the luck of being in the right place, and the age gap that presents itself in this situation that makes this photograph my clear favorite of the year.
The Valley News’ three staff photographers and two interns are sharing the stories behind their favorite photographs of the year. More of their favorites can be seen in the Photo Galleries section of this website.