This series of sepia-toned landscape photos evolved by accident, not by intention. It started with the pandemic, when I was shocked (as we all were) by the world being turned upside-down. Up to early 2020, I had been working on a series of close-up portraits of people in our community, taken with my 8x10 Deardorff and a very sharp German lens. Suddenly, in early 2020, faces were no longer a possibility, closeness was out of the question, and detail felt oppressive. I wanted to run away from all that information. I wanted to escape from the present.

I took out this old (1911) Verito lens, which I never had much use for, and thought I might learn to use it. It was well suited to my 4x5 camera, which was light enough to carry on my back. I started taking long walks in the woods and on the seashore.

The image this old lens projected on my ground glass helped me to see many familiar places in a completely new way — and a way that was anything but new, too. It became clear what the Pictorialists meant when they talked about suppressing detail in favor of masses of light, and their frequent references to the Japanese idea of Notan. The Tonalists, too, emphasized a limited tonal range and the distillation of a scene to its essential shapes, letting the viewer's mind fill in the smoothed-over details. The 4x5 film format was useful not for sharpness but for the nuanced, sometimes glowing tonalities it offered.

For my whole adult life I have lived on a small island that is a popular resort destination during the summer. There are countless postcards, calendars, and photography books that capture Martha’s Vineyard in crisp, professional color. To me this carefree perfection feels shallow, a way to see only the surface of a community that has a deep connection with the sea and the land, and a history of real human pain and struggle.

Without fully understanding what I was embarking on, I started putting this feeling of struggle into my photographs. I didn’t want the images to be perfect, but I also didn’t want to add flaws in a controlled way in the darkroom or in Photoshop. This is where the Verito lens came to my rescue. Wollensak called it “The lens that improves upon acquaintance.” I found that the Verito was not just a tool, but a collaborative partner with its own strong opinions. I realize that’s a strange thing to say about a piece of glass.

The photos I post on Flickr are very much a work in progress. I am not 100% satisfied with many of these images, but I share them as a kind of sketchbook diary. I go out with my camera almost every day. I am teaching myself platinum/palladium and also the gum bichromate process, hoping to eventually understand which of my images are worth printing in this way.