‘I can go out any day and be visually amazed by what’s in front of me’
By Tess Hunter, Vermont Standard Managing Editor
Woodstock’s Loren Fisher has photographed presidents, popes, musicians, and Olympians, but despite his many adventures as a photojournalist and artistic photographer, he says he gets the most satisfaction from the quiet pursuit of capturing landscape in Vermont. His latest book, “Vermont Barns & Covered Bridges,” epitomizes that journey.
Fisher’s interest in the camera was first piqued in a high school photography class in his hometown in northern Indiana (population less than 300). In the ensuing 45 years, Fisher says that “the camera has allowed me to see things and go to places, and be in places that I had no business being.”
To that end, his origin story as a photojournalist was pure happenstance. “It was really pretty stupid,” he says. “When I went in for a college interview, they said, ‘What do you like?’ And I said, ‘Photography.’ And they said, ‘What kind?’ And I said, ‘You know — the one with the camera.’ They said, ‘There’s different aspects of photography.’ ‘Like what?’ They said, ‘Like architecture, or journalism, or product photography.’ I said, ‘journalism,’ not knowing squat about it. And then quickly really loved the storytelling and the ability to go places.”
Fisher started working in newspapers in 1978 as a staff photographer in Indiana, Ohio, and New Jersey, eventually graduating to USA Today as a photographer, photo editor, and graphics editor. He was also the Managing Editor for two N.J. Gannett newspapers, the Home News Tribune and Courier News.
During that time, he photographed the presidential inaugurations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, three Democratic National Conventions, two Republican National Conventions, the Olympics in Seoul, eagles in Alaska, a horse transport on a 747 in Germany, the Rockettes’ dressing room, and the backstage of a Bruce Springsteen concert. He later wrote two books, “Pope John Paul II: An American Celebration,” which documented the papal U.S. visit, and “Branson Backstage,” which looks at the phenomenon of 35 live music theaters in Branson, Mo.
Fisher says one of his fondest memories of his “major event” shoots was during the visit of Pope John Paul II. “I brought together ten photographers to cover the event,” he says. “The first couple of days, I was [scoping out] the best spots up close to the Pope. Then, on about the fourth day in New York in Central Park, I had the other photographers up close [to the Pope] and I worked the crowd. And there was this little lady who I saw with her hands folded and her eyes just frozen on the Pope. She had no idea there were 100,000 other people around — it was just her and him. I was right up in her face with the camera and she did not even see me. It just was really a moving moment, where she really brought the power of his presence [to me], because I’d been more worried about logistics than what was going on. Just seeing how people can connect like that was really special.”
Fisher says that his background in journalism played a major role in his eventual evolution into an artist capturing Vermont’s barns and bridges. “It taught me to tell a story with a picture. I look at things in that way and when I see something that is of interest to me, I work very hard to frame the scene in such a way that it tells the story and is clean, and goes beyond just a photograph, to move it into the world of art, as I like to say.”
When asked how one tells a story about a barn or bridge, he says, “I have to have a connection to it. Even though it’s an inanimate object, if I’m not feeling anything, I can’t put any feeling into the photo. So there are lots of times when I go out to take pictures, and I don’t feel anything and I don’t end up with anything worth showing anybody. But there are times when the scene is right, the weather’s right, my head is right. And it all comes together.”
Fisher describes himself and his wife as “COVID refugees.” They’d been part-timers with a house in Woodstock for 14 years when former President Donal Trump made his fateful declaration of a national emergency on March 13, 2020. Fisher was in Cuba teaching a photography workshop at the time. “I came back and said to my wife, let’s go to Vermont for a month — and we’re still here.”
Fisher’s wife, Robin Gaby Fisher, is a prestigious New York Times bestselling author, journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, but Loren Fisher says he and his wife encourage each other best by keeping to their separate lanes. “She kicks my ass,” he laughs. “The one thing she doesn’t want to do is be sitting in a car and watching me take pictures, which I totally understand. And I don’t want to be sitting there watching her pound on the computer screen. But I do enjoy reading her stuff as she’s writing… She is the absolute best interviewer you’ll ever talk to.”
Shortly after their arrival in Woodstock, the previous art gallery at 1 The Green in Woodstock closed, and Fisher saw an opportunity. “I kept eyeing the space and all summer it was open. So I talked to a couple of photographer friends and said, ‘Let’s open a gallery. So in August of 2020, we opened, which turned out to be perfect timing.” Those friends and co-conspirators were artists Bob Wagner of Bridgewater and Ron Lake of Westport, Conn. Together they opened “Focus: A Vermont Gallery,” which currently houses their work and Fisher’s latest book.
“The pictures that move people the most in Vermont are our barns and bridges, strangely enough,” Fisher jokes.
But it’s clear that those barns and bridges move him just as much as his customers. “I tend to have more passion about this,” he says, referring to his pastoral work in and around Vermont.
Winter, in particular, is his favorite season to photograph. “I just love the clean lines,” he says. “And during a nice heavy snowfall — the sound of nothing. I do a lot of workshops, and I bring people to Vermont and I just love having people from cities. I remember this guy from New York City, who was a dispatcher for the New York Police Department, and we’re standing out in the middle of a field, photographing the Milky Way. And it’s dead quiet. And I said to him, ‘You hear that?’ He says, ‘I don’t hear a thing.’ I said, ‘Exactly.’ He’s like, ‘Wow, that is really cool.’”
Fisher has made photography workshops a big part of his career and day-to-day life. He spoke to the Standard shortly after returning from Namibia, where he and his class photographed lions, giraffes and hippos. This January, he’ll be hosting a Vermont Winter Wonderland workshop and in April, he’ll be taking a group to Dallas, Texas to photograph the total solar eclipse. “[The eclipse] is going to be in Vermont, but I’m going to be in Texas because the odds of there being no clouds in Vermont in early April are pretty low. So I’m going to the desert of Texas. I think the most spectacular thing there is on earth is the sun, but a total solar eclipse just makes my skin tingle.”
Fisher loves playing with light in his workshops, especially taking students to one of his favorite Vermont Covered Bridges — the Middle Bridge in Woodstock. “One of the things we do is called ‘light painting’ the bridge. The end of Middle Bridge has very little light on it. So I use a flashlight and light up the bridge — to the dismay of the neighbors,” he laughs. “We frequently take groups over there and then stand in the street band and light up the bridge with a flashlight and it makes great shots.”
Fisher says he gets a lot of satisfaction from teaching. “I really enjoy sharing what I’ve learned over the years and, and helping mostly amateur photographers make some unique pictures and some fun pictures that they might not otherwise.” He particularly enjoys “seeing the amazement on their faces when they make an image that is special to them and taking them to places that they wouldn’t go otherwise to.”
Some of those far-flung places include locales right in our own backyard. “When I do Vermont [workshops], we go to the well-known places that we can, but I definitely have other farms that I take people to, going inside an old barn that they wouldn’t be able to just walk up and go into — places where we have permission and the owners know we’re going to be there,” he says, adding that he was careful not to include the names of any properties in his book. “I have found that an awful lot of people in Vermont really enjoy sharing their property and enjoy sharing the beauty that they have — once I have permission, which is key.”
Fisher says the beauty of Vermont continues to inspire him and when asked if there’s any place in the world like it, he simply says, “No. It’s unique.” He continues, “There were many times in my career where I’d look around and say, ‘This is the biggest thing going on in the globe right now… But for the most part, that stuff doesn’t happen [to most people]. It’s still the little things that every day I can appreciate where I am and what I’m doing. It doesn’t have to be the Olympics. It doesn’t have to be presidential inaugurations. It’s watching the sun come up over Jenne Farm. That is a spectacular thing. Which is why they closed the roads,” he jokes. “I’ve been all over the world and photographed some of the most beautiful things there are and there’s nothing more beautiful than a sunrise over Jenne Farm when the foliage is going crazy. It’s spectacular. And people from all over the world come there and to all of Vermont, not just Jenne Farm, but I can go out any day and be visually amazed by what’s in front of me if I look hard enough. And that’s just an awesome, awesome feeling.”
To purchase Fisher’s book online or find out more information about his upcoming workshops, visit lorenphotos.com or stop by the Focus Gallery in Woodstock.
“Covered in Snow” by Loren Fisher features one of his favorite Vermont Covered Bridges — the Middle Bridge in Woodstock. Fisher considers it one of the most scenic in the state and often leads photography workshops there.
Courtesy of Loren Fisher
“Foster Milk Way” is one of many spectacular rural scenes captured in Fisher’s new book “Vermont Barns & Covered Bridges.”
Courtesy of Loren Fisher
“Quaint” depicts two of Fisher’s favorite subjects — barns and winter.
Courtesy of Loren Fisher
For Fisher, the most important part of any photography subject is using his own emotional connection to it to tell a story, such as in this piece, “Windows.”
Courtesy of Loren Fisher
“Vermont Barns & Covered Bridges” is available for purchase at Fisher’s Focus Gallery in Woodstock or online at his website.
Courtesy of Loren Fisher