For 40 years, photographs have long been a way of keeping a journal of the milestones in my life. I have documented my friends and family with a camera, whether it’s a special occasion or just an everyday occurrence.
Looking back on those images, they are interesting not only to see how we have all changed but also how the environment around us has progressed as well.
I’ve worked at the Valley News for almost three decades. In the early days of working as photo editor, I found a 1975 photograph of a farmer bringing in corn along Route 12A in West Lebanon. The picture showed signs for three fast food restaurants, a gas station and grocery store in the background, but beyond that, there wasn’t much else. As time has passed and the commercial strip has been built up, we can see how much it has changed from those days of harvesting corn.
Those are the kinds of insights and reflections that I hope to bring to readers in our new monthly feature, “A Look Back,” which starts today and will appear here on the first Monday of every month. (Our “A Life” feature about late Upper Valley residents of note will continue to be published on all other Mondays.)
An outgrowth of our weekly Throwback Thursday feature on Instagram (find us @VNewsUV), “A Look Back” is part of an ongoing effort to show the area’s history and change through the lenses of Valley News photographers. We’ll pick a year, and I’ll look through photos from the corresponding month — for example, this time it’s May 1963 — to find photos from the typical stories the newspaper covers but also the unusual images that catch my eye as I’m leafing through a room full of negatives and a cabinet of microfiche.
I chose these photos because they gave me a sense of life in the area, whether it’s seeing longtime Hartford Town Manager Ralph Lehman in his early days on the job, a regional meet run on a dirt track or a hardware store open house in Lyme that doesn’t seem too different from today.
Over my years here, I have worked with many talented photographers, reporters and editors who strive to document the Upper Valley’s daily news. Instead of using a digital SLR camera, smartphone or computer, our predecessors used cumbersome film cameras, pad and pencil and typewriters to tell stories with the same amount of passion we dedicate to our work today. It all makes you wonder: When Upper Valley residents half a century in the future look back on our photos, what will they find interesting, striking or strange?
It’s a treat to bring this work to you, and I’m looking forward to doing more of the same in the months to come.
