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| #85 1949: Mary and I found this scene on Deale Island on our first exploratory trip to the Eastern Shore. We were just discovering Maryland; the Bay Bridge hadn’t been built yet, so the Shore seemed very different and isolated. I had begun taking a few pictures for the Department of Information, but they certainly wouldn’t have wanted a scene like this. I took it for myself — how could you resist taking a picture like this? |
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| #86 1952: Peripheral vision is a great advantage for a photographer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this scene just after shooting the finish of a horse-race at Timonium. I’ve always loved this picture because the faces reveal so clearly the dejected feelings of the obvious losers contrasted with those hoping for better luck in the next race. It’s a real study of human nature. |
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| #89 circa 1955: This photograph was taken at the end of a typical day out with the family, touring the state and taking pictures. We’d been to Havre de Grace and Union Mills, and wound up here at Sagamore Farms in Baltimore County. This was the only really good photograph I took all day. The lighting, mood, and placement of the horses were all just right. I could go back twenty times and it would never be the same. |
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| #92 1968: I rarely get more than two or three good pictures in a day, and sometimes only one. I was driving in Calvert County, on my way to photograph a cypress swamp, when I saw this tobacco barn. The lighting was perfect, and I quickly set up the camera. I debated about removing the Nehi bottle, but decided that it added the human element. I almost shot it both ways — with the bottle and without it — but I said, no sir, you don’t chicken out, you shoot it the way you see it. |
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| #93 1968: This scene was taken at the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp long before they built the boardwalk that’s there now. I’ll never forget taking this picture, nor the price I paid for it. After I decided that this was the view I wanted, I had to clean it up a bit to bring out the texture of the tree. Even though it’s a natural photograph, sometimes you have to doctor things up to highlight the points of interest. In this case, there was a huge vine hanging from the big tree, so I got out my machete and pulled it down. Needless to say, I got poison ivy all the way up to my elbows. |
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| #96 1988: I was very excited when I found this new angle to shoot the Paca House in Annapolis. I’d been working for several years making illustrations for a new book called Great House of Maryland, but I hadn’t come up with something I thought was right for the cover and I was running out of time. I wanted a picture that would be representative of all the great houses without being instantly identifiable. After I took this, I knew I had what I wanted, but I sent it to the publisher without comment. He called up right away and said he wanted to use it on the cover. |
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