In 2005, after a long career with CIGNA, Carlton retired.  He had long hoped that once he retired he would be able to devote considerably more time to photography.  This has indeed been the case.  What had been an occasional diversion and very part time hobby is now a primary activity or calling.  Recognition is coming, too.  Carlton's work has been accepted into a number of juried shows, winning numerous awards, and is now in many private collections.

Carlton began taking pictures seriously when as a college student he spent a long summer traveling throughout Europe.  In succeeding years, time was spent taking more pictures, and printing in the darkroom.  The "darkroom" in those early days meant a rearranged bathroom or laundry room!  With the moving to New Hartford in 1979, the arrival of two wonderful children, and the establishment of a Christmas tree farm, time for photography became more difficult to fit in.  But through all those intervening years, pictures were still taken, binders were filled with negatives, and the computer with images.

The focus of Carlton's camera over the years has been quite varied, dictated more by the opportunity to take pictures than by a specific theme or subject.  Vacations were usually taken with camera in hand, walks through the "back forty" provided many opportunities, and trips to Maine were a veritable feast.  Carlton occasionally traveled while working at CIGNA, most always with a small camera tucked into the corner of his briefcase.  Opportunities for quick shots came while walking around town after the day's meetings had finished, or even while touring a paper or cotton mill. Many years worth of pictures have been taken and filed, awaiting the day when they might become finished prints.

Not missing the olden days of working with chemicals and paper in the darkroom, Carlton has embraced the digital age.  The convenience of working on prints on the computer, and the ability to print them with today's advanced inkjet printers, is fantastic.  The possibilities are endless, although Carlton is not one to do much manipulation.  He is perhaps just doing more easily what master photographers had done for years as they fine tuned prints from their negatives.

The pictures have certainly piled up, and more are produced each week.  But there is now time for printing, and seeing what can be made of all the negatives and digital images.  A "new" print might be one that came from a negative taken twenty years ago.  To photograph is to capture a perhaps unique and fleeting image that is somehow special in the photographer's eye.  To print that image, share it, and have it appreciated by the viewer is the ultimate reward.  Echoing a comment about artists from the New Zealand Prayer Book: May you, through my work, "see creation afresh"!

     2009 - New Hartford Art League Open Juried Show

                     Honorable Mention - "Bread Delivery"

     2008 - New Britain Museum of American Art Juried Members Show 

     2008 - New Hartford Art League Open Juried Show

                     Honorable Mention - "Browsing"

     2008 - Connecticut Audubon Society Open Photography Show

                     Second Prize, Plants - "Mushrooms"

                     Honorable Mention - "Moonrise"

     2007 & 2008 - Gilded Edge Gallery Christmas Show

     2007 - Act II Gallery Open Juried Show

                     Third Prize - "Moonrise"    

     2007 - West Hartford Art League Open Juried Show

                     Honorable Mention - "Sidewalk Cafe"   

     2006 - New Britain Museum of American Art Juried Members Show

     2006 - Canton Artists Guild Open Juried Show

     2006 - Studio Open House

     2006 - Wintonbury Art League Open Juried Show

     2006 - New Hartford Art League Open Juried Show

Upcoming Shows:

     October 16 & 17, 2010 - Open House, New Hartford, CT

 Links:

To go directly to our image files, click here:  Image Albums .  If you would like to return to our home page, click this link:  Birches Pond Farm.

 

Carlton Taylor

Birches Pond Farm

232 Turnbull Road

New Hartford, CT  06057

(860) 379-3701