Winter’s Comin’

Our newest exhibit, “Through a Different Lens: Three Connecticut Women Photographers”, will be open October 11, 2013 – March 29, 2014. That’s next week! You’ve got 5 months to check it out, but please tell me why you would wait. You might think you have time to roll in some lazy Saturday afternoon in the hazy near-future, but have you already forgotten the snow-mountain blizzard of February 2013? The tree-attack ice storm of October 2011? This is New England, people. It’s October. Get out while you can. (And I don’t mean move to Arizona. Or maybe I do.)

Hurricane of 1893, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Photograph by Harriet V.S. Thorne. Okay, not a blizzard, but it’s a hurricane for pete’s sake, and it could have been winter.

Blizzard of 1898, Norfolk, Connecticut. Photograph by Marie Kendall.

Winter storm of 1977, Mystic, Connecticut. Photograph by Rosalie Thorne McKenna.

These three Connecticut women knew photography and they knew storms. Marie Kendall and Harriet Thorne hauled heavy tripods and viewfinders before you had a cell phone. Rosalie McKenna developed film before you could annoy your friends with social media. They came from different times and different places, but like all of us hardy (resigned) New England folk, when the snow started flyin’ they strapped on their boots and started snappin’.

Blizzard of February 2013, Bristol, Connecticut. Photograph by a five-year old female photographer from the top of a snow mountain created by an ineffective, rusty old snow blower that almost ran over her dad.

Ben Gammell is the Coordinator of Interpretive Projects at the Connecticut Historical Society