Vermont 24/7

Rating:
Summary: From the Barre Montpelier Times Argus
Review: 24/7
New book visualizes one week in Vermont
November 7, 2004
By REBECCA HAMM Correspondent

The assignment: Capture Vermont in pictures - all of it, not just the scenic red barns and green pastures dotted with cows, but also the customs, the communities and the many spirited individualists who distinguish the Green Mountain State.

And do it in one week.

A team of 20 professional photographers and plenty of amateur shutterbugs set out on that task 18 months ago as part of America's largest photo project.

The coordinated effort by more than 25,000 photographers captured at least a million digital snapshots of the nation during the week of May 12-18, 2003.

The result is the New York Times best-selling tome "America 2-4/7," from which individual books have been culled for each state. All the state books were released simultaneously this fall by DK Publishing of New York.

Professional photographer Karen Pike of Hinesburg coordinated the Vermont version of the book by locating the key team members.

"I was the photo editor of the Burlington Free Press. I knew every shooter in the state, so it was pretty easy to get 20 of the most well-rounded, team-playing photographers."

Her list included Vyto Starinskas and Jon Olender of the Rutland Herald and Jeb Wallace-Brodeur and Stefan Hard of The Times Argus.

With 20 years of news photography experience, Pike had a good idea of what the crew should capture. After she assigned some "iconic" subjects - the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory, a lesbian couple with their adopted baby boy, the round barn at Shelburne Farms - Pike had the photographers each choose at least three solid feature shots.

Most of them captured their own communities, friends and family. The effect is that most Vermonters will know at least someone in the book.

"We had photographers that did what they do best. We had Paul Boisvert shoot these beautiful vistas. ... Craig Line shot some great stuff, like the Men of Maple Corner holding up their calendars. And there's Peter Miller and his picture of the moose in the general store. You can tell his work a mile away," she said.

The Vermont photos joined a tidal wave of pictures submitted via the Internet to the books' creators in San Francisco, Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen, the team behind the best-selling "A Day in the Life of America." From the material, a team of editors, designers, researchers and writers created the books, plus gallery exhibits and TV documentaries.

Line's image of East Montpelier's Old Meeting House is on the cover of "Vermont 2-4/7." The photographer, who lives in Calais, said he liked the mixture of scenic and newsy feature shots the editors chose for the book.

This was the first time Line, a former photographer for The Associated Press, had shot with a digital camera - which each of the pros received as part of their compensation for the book project.

"Now 90 percent of what I shoot is with a digital camera," he said.

Line said he set up some of his assignments in advance. He followed a veterinarian around for a day and was there when he had to euthanize a horse in Berlin. The photo has a universal quality; it's a scene recognizable to any pet owner.

Line took a different approach when he shot a group of children at his daughter's school flying high on the swings. He said he just jumped into his car and drove around looking for feature shots.

Images of the ticket seller at the Fairlee Drive-in, or Sen. Vince Illuzzi gritting a pencil between his teeth at the State House, or Buster the dog and WDEV radio station owner Ken Squier broadcasting their show "Music to Go to the Dump By" illustrate a Vermont that Vermonters recognize.

"Keeping my camera beside me at all times was the best thing that I could do," said Pike, who caught her neighbors - a father and his children - sharing a bedtime story.

The book is full of intimate portraits.

"It's sort of a Vermont family album," Pike said.

Rating:
Summary: The Library Journal, October 2004
Review: Book Briefs section: The series abounds with unique imagery and some surprising choices. The bottom line is that [the state books] will likely be as popular [as America 24/7], if not more so. Large public libraries should order the entire set.