On New Year’s Day, Christina and Ray were married at the beautiful United Methodist Church in North Haverhill, N.H., with a small group of friends and family in attendance, followed by a reception at The Lyme Inn down the road. I enjoyed being part of their special day! Follow this link to see more on my Facebook page.
Last weekend, I photographed the Mr. TA Pageant for a Valley News photo page. The Thetford Academy event is a silly spoof of beauty pageants but is also a fundraiser to help Rwandan students receive a high school education. The fifth annual pageant rasied a record $6,400, enough to help 10 Rwandan students! Follow this link to see more work in the Photo Galleries section of the newspaper’s web site.
From top: Thetford Academy junior Colombe Kayihura rehearses a traditional Rwandan dance with classmates during a rehearsal. The pageant is an annual fundraiser for Rwandan children’s education — an anonymous donor paid for Kayihura’s flight to the United States and she is spending the school year on campus; From left, seniors Reshma Rampersaud and Maggie Harlow, Kayihura and sophomores Owen Deffner and Aiden Cudhea (dressed as the Panther masot) laugh at one of the dance numbers during a rehearsal; Senior Noah Perry demonstrates his favorite dance move during the Meet the Contestants portion of the pageant. Perry’s escort, senior Hannah Harkins, is at right; Dressed as Melania Trump, Owen Deffner tells the same jokes his brother and fellow contestant Eamon Deffner told a few minutes before; Shirtless following the talent portion of the show, senior Mitchell Higgins, second from right, his dancers, from left, juniors Dylan Thorburn and Nick Moses and sophomore Aiden Cudhea and escort senior Reshma Rampersaud plead for cash votes. Audience members voted for contestants with donations to the Raise Rwanda charity, with $6,400 raised in donations and ticket sales; Junior Eli Kaliski reacts as classmate Gabrielle Curtis is named the winner of the Mr. TA Pageant. Started in 2011 as a spoof of beauty pageants to raise money for Rwandan children’s education, Curtis entered this year to spoof the spoof; Curtis is congratulated by friends on the stage after winning the pageant.
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The other day, I received in the mail my signed copy of Heyday: 35 Years of Music in Minneapolis which features Daniel Corrigan’s excellent photography. While I love music and photographing musicians and performances, Dan’s vast archive puts mine to shame. He has photographed countless bands who either started in the city or were traveling through. I knew Dan when I was a student at the University of Minnesota, and wanted to do his portrait with other photographers for an art class in 1988. Dan invited me to a magazine shoot he was doing with the band Soul Asylum in a South Minneapolis apartment. He was kind and patient as I fumbled my way through the shoot — I was pleasantly surprised to see the photo included in his book!
While reading up on Dan’s book, I also found this interesting video Pitchfork did a year ago about him and his life.
Santa and Mrs. Claus returned to the Tunbridge Public Library for their annual visit with the children, who were also read stories about Christmas. A tradition dating back to 1979, Euclid and Priscilla Farnham’s visits to the library and school are not to be missed!
Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Keri asked me to come by their Hanover, N.H., home to do photos of her family visiting from California. The light rain didn’t keep us inside!
In the mid-1990s, my wife and I discovered the best remedy for Vermont’s mud season — a 10-day trip to Arizona, doing a lap of the state. The Grand Canyon is awesome for its size (277 miles long and 18 miles across at its widest point!) and for people watching. Two boys created their own version of the Wild West!
Last weekend we were planning to do senior and family portraits of Tenzing and his parents outdoors but we missed the beautiful weather by a day. Instead we made the best of it inside at Dartmouth College’s beautiful Black Family Visual Arts Center!
For the fifth year in a row, I photographed the Raqs Salaam Dance Theater’s 12th annual Middle Eastern and American Belly Dance Showcase at the Lebanon Opera House last weekend. The performances by Gina Capossela, her students and guest performers Flamenco Boston were impressive!
This fall I spent a few weekends covering sports championships for the Valley News. Some Upper Valley teams won, others lost. They all competed with heart and good sportsmanship — I was honored to be on the sidelines with my cameras! Here’s a few of my favorites:
From top: After shaking hands with their opponents, Hartford’s Austin Shepard gives a joyful yell following the team’s 24-14 state championship win in Rutland, Vt.; As Proctor goalie Isabel Valerio smothers the ball, Sharon Academy’s Eleanor Frost reacts to a missed opportunity when it was briefly loose in the second half of the championship held in Bethel, Vt. Proctor won, 1-0; Sunapee teammates and sisters Katie, left, and Ellie Frederick hug after their 6-0 win over Colebrook to capture the state championship in Laconia, N.H.; Stevens’ football team, including Zach O’Brien, right, hold their championship trophy aloft after defeating InterLakes-Moultonborough 46-20 in Durham, N.H.; Woodstock’s Sarah Yates reacts to the team’s 1-0 loss to Springfield in the championship game in Burlington, Vt.
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May not be reprinted without permission
On Friday night my wife and I had great seats to see our daughter and her Sharon Academy classmates’ opening night performance of The Pirates of Penzance. I brought my camera along and made photos of their impressive performance, a play they learned in only a few weeks! Follow this link to see more of my favorites in the Galleries section of my web site (print sales profits will benefit the school’s Annual Fund).
