There’s beauty almost everywhere and my camera sometimes lets me take away part of it. If a feeling comes with what I’m seeing, I put the camera to my face and shoot. This has occupied me ever since I found a red, plastic box camera with my name on it under the Christmas tree when I was ten. In 1971, my lovely wife gave me a much better one we couldn’t really afford. With that I learned to capture more of the loveliness around me. My photos were for myself, my family, and friends until a local hospital wanted to buy some. Now they hang in health care facilities around Maine. My most treasured images are of people I love and not for sale. Others of Maine’s  lakes, mountains, and coastline occasionally kindle some of the feeling I had in others who see them. For decades, I taught history and still publish a weekly column in Maine and New Hampshire newspapers about whatever is on my mind. My wife and I split our time between Lovell and South Portland, Maine each week and travel when we can, especially to Ireland and the Mediterranean.

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11/23/2020 - "Last summer I applied as a photographer to Gallery 302, a cooperative art gallery in Bridgton, Maine and was accepted. Everyone exhibiting there is called an artist, but not all the three dozen or so “artists” agree with that designation for photographers. Everyone has to contribute in some way to the functioning of the gallery, so when the gallery president discovered I was a columnist, she asked me to write up something to answer the question that opens this column."

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http://tommclaughlin.blogspot.com/2020/11/art-and-photography.html