N.B. MacNamara

“Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs...famous among the barns...and singing as the farm was home...Time held me green and dying...”

I first heard the poem “Fern Hill” as a teenager; and growing up on the Honey Locust Fruit Farm, these words by Dylan Thomas have always resonated with me. Our farming community provided a profound sense of place and a connection to the land.

I am a cultivator of art work and earth work. Through the photographic lens I focus on the sociological meaning of contemporary life. Through my partnership with the natural world as a farmer, I aim to nourish the planet; and strive to remind others to cultivate that idea as well.

In the series of photographs presented here the work is straightforward, limited by the use of one square format camera, one lens. My question was and still is : How are we maintaining connection to our land? It is my hope that the context in which this project was conceived and photographed has made it easy for viewers to contemplate my point of view.

My family has lived in the Hudson Valley for over 100 years. I have been intimately connected to its people and its landscape. Here I bear witness to the changes I have seen.