Charles River

2025-2026

Hope is the thing with rivers. ~Robert McFarlane

The din of a nearby highway echoed through the woods as I sauntered along a path when I came face to face with a small white fox. We stood about ten feet apart from each other and simply stared. I think he may have been less surprised to see me than I was to see him. These woods, after all, are not particularly remote as evidenced by the noise and the footprints in the well worn dirt. I cannot be the first human it had seen.

My encounter with the fox was among the trails below Norumbega Road that lead to a river’s edge in Weston, Massachusetts. The Charles River Watershed is 308 square miles and includes 35 cities and towns through the eastern region of the state. As part of a collaborative photographic project, each of forty-eight photographers chose a section of the watershed to photograph over the course of a year starting on the spring equinox in 2025. I opted to photograph through the thickly settled suburbs of Weston, Newton and Waltham where the river flows about ten to twelve miles west of Boston.

Industry, suburbia and nature collide around this part of the river, which can be easily overlooked. Converted mill buildings, parking structures and a large cemetery conceal its presence from those driving past on nearby roadways. By damming and altering its flow, the river served as a source of power during the Industrial Revolution and it became polluted. The latter half of the 20th century brought greater regulation and more mindful stewardship resulting in a cleaner waterway. Though it remains vulnerable as it wends its way under bridges and past highways, I discovered that nature flourishes along the Charles. Its waters support a robust urban ecosystem that connects plants, animals and humanity. 

This is the second series of multiple panel photographs I have made exploring aspects of the New England landscape.

When my youngest child prepared to leave home, I found myself drawn to the wooded landscapes near our house in suburban Boston. The natural world offered a broader perspective on my family’s imminent transition and I began to make pictures during walks with the dog. Since 2018, I have been experimenting with polyptychs in my work. I find that multiple-panel presentations create dialogs between space and form, imply passages of time and create arresting visual stutters. I have discovered surprising patterns and details in overlapping frames that echo with history, literary myth and personal memory. 

As I have wandered in the footsteps of the transcendental writers in and around nearby Concord, Massachusetts, I have witnessed nature unfolding through the seasons. I have formed a physical and psychological bond with this place that is steeped in rich history. The Pennacook Indians named the area around the confluence of the Assabet and the Sudbury Rivers to form the Concord River “Musketaquid,” the Algonquin word for a grassy plain. Archeological evidence and oral accounts reveal the importance of the rivers to the nomadic indigenous population, who found the permanent square structures and villages of newly arrived 17th century Europeans impractical. The weight of the American Revolution can be felt by the markers of those who died along the Battle Road in 1775. And a glacial kettle hole known as Walden Pond inspired one of the most notable works of 19th century literary prose by Henry David Thoreau. In fact, his journals and observations have proven invaluable to contemporary scientists studying the effects of a changing climate. 

As a portrait photographer, focusing my camera on the this landscape has been an unexpected and fruitful turn. I find myself looking for figurative gestures in the trees or streams and in the man-made imprints left upon the land. I wish to impart a tenor of solitude that conveys a reverence for the fragile and enduring ecosystems that surround us, and to draw parallels between the cycles of nature and the arc of human history. 

My two sons have been muses to me since their childhood. In recent years, however, they seem to have retreated into their rooms becoming physically and emotionally less available. Turning my camera toward the prosaic and recognizable along with quick glimpses of their bodies and gestures, I search for meaning in the spaces we share, in the objects we have all touched and in their growing bodies. These pictures have eased the tension between the trepidation and elation I feel as my sons grow away and ultimately depart.