Jack Rowell was just a little shaver when he plopped down $5 for a Kodak Instamatic in a New York City pawn shop. “I think I was 7 or 8,” the Tunbridge native, now 70, recounted in a phone interview. A few years later a neighbor loaned him a 35mm Petri, and, figuring it out on his own, he began shooting school activities and local figures — including his father, a logger. By age 13, Rowell had an inkling that photography would be his life; when an eighth-grade science teacher built a darkroom at school, the deal was sealed. Margaret Egerton Credit: Courtesy None of those earliest shots appears in his new book, Jack Rowell: Photographs, published by Randolph’s Korongo Books. But the collection does include images from the Tunbridge World’s Fair, which Rowell began photographing in the 1970s. The annual event was notoriously freewheeling, replete with girlie shows, beer halls and drunken revelers. Many of Rowell’s images from that rowdier time were published in his 1980 book, Tunbridge Fair. For the current volume, he restored some damaged old negatives in Photoshop — which, like all aspects of the transition to digital technology, he taught himself. Jack Rowell: Photographs is a 12-by-14-inch hardcover featuring 121 black-and-white and color images of Vermonters Rowell has encountered over the past half-century. Along with fairgoers and exhibitors, there are hunters, dancers, musicians, authors, trash haulers, carpenters, children with animals or creemees or fiddles. Some individuals could be described as “local color.” “Man on the Midway” Credit: Courtesy Most of these pictures were shot on location around the Upper Valley and central Vermont, at cafés, lakes, woods, farms, concert stages. But some 50 exquisite studio portraits reveal both Rowell’s mastery of lighting and talent for putting his subjects at ease — including those posing in their birthday suits. “I’m just an average guy,” Rowell said. “I think they can relate to that.” The front of the book presents an introduction by Korongo publisher Sara Tucker and essays by Rowell’s longtime friend Chris Jackson and Sue Higby, executive director of Barre’s Studio Place Arts. An index and credits appear at the back. In between, the book is text-free. Rowell claims he can’t write due to lifelong dyslexia. Yet his pictures themselves say plenty. “I like interesting people,” he said. “Everyone in the book has a good story.” Rowell’s focus on a particular place and time recalls the work of Waterbury photographer Peter Miller, who died in 2023 at age 89. The latter’s Vermont People and other published collections showcase rural elders and a passing way of life in the state. Asked about their similar ethos, Rowell commented, “Peter and I got along really well. He was a hell of a good photographer, but his [images] are more cute farmers.” The two actually had one cute farmer in common: Fred Tuttle. The Tunbridge dairyman starred in Man With a Plan, a 1996 satirical documentary by sheep farmer-filmmaker (and now state legislator) John O’Brien. Rowell shot stills for the movie and served as associate producer; several of his pictures of Tuttle appear in the new book, including one of him dressed as Santa Claus and looking suitably elfin. Though the age range of Rowell’s subjects spans geezers to grandbabies, his photos of senior citizens are particularly evocative. Margaret Egerton was a participant in a 2010 memoir-writing project in Randolph called the Hale Street Gang, led by Tucker and photographed by Rowell. Egerton, then in her late nineties, was “a character,” he recalled. “Everyone loved her.” She was also a ham. Rowell includes in the book one large and four smaller portraits in which the bespectacled, white-haired Egerton mugs for the camera, clearly having a good time. These and other photos of the “Gang” were ultimately exhibited at five venues around Vermont and New Hampshire. “Surge Milker” (Lawrence Harridan) Credit: Courtesy Like the best art, Rowell’s portraits pique the imagination and leave the viewer wanting to know more. Case in point: his choice for the book cover, a black-and-white photo from 1973 titled “Man on the Midway.” The weathered-looking gent, caught mid-stride, looks directly at the camera. His light eyes, presumably blue, are somehow both kindly and steely. A cigarette is stuck firmly between his lips. The Blue Seal Feeds cap and slightly soiled clothing suggest a farmer taking in the fair. The captivating portrait recalls Walker Evans’ images of everyday life decades earlier. While plaid-clad dudes with hanging bucks or a farming family reveal location and livelihood, Rowell’s studio portraits convey less information but more intimacy. Though he has no use for the notion of celebrity, some of his photos have a flair for the dramatic, such as a time-lapse capture of singer-songwriter Myra Flynn flinging her hair in an upward arc. Rowell’s friend Lorin Collins, with blond curls and blue eyes, gazes heavenward and fairly glows in honey-hued light. Sculptor Heather Milne Ritchie stares bewitchingly as she clutches a carved stone stele like a scepter across her nude body. Tucker has known Rowell since their school days and followed his career from the start. “When critics and fellow artists talk about his work, they use words like unforgettable and genuine,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Girl With a Book” (Lydia Ellen Brooke) Credit: Courtesy Indeed, authenticity runs like a current throughout Jack Rowell: Photographs. It’s clear the photographer did not helicopter in to document members of an unknown tribe; the fifth-generation Vermonter is, and always has been, one of them. And as Tucker pointed out in an email, Rowell has lived through transformative shifts in the state: “Through portraiture, Jack has captured an era of social change that began with the cultural revolution of the seventies,” she noted. “Young and old, past and present exist together, in harmony. I think that’s an important aspect of the work — its inclusiveness.” Rowell acknowledges the historical significance of his work — particularly the rural images. “This book covers a part of Vermont history that has been ignored,” he said. “It’s an important document.” But from his perspective, it’s also an artistic one. He really likes taking pictures and has justifiable pride in being good at it.Asked why he’s drawn to portraiture, rather than landscape or architecture or anything else in the visual world, Rowell didn’t hesitate. “I’m used to landscapes. They’re boring; they’re almost too easy,” he said. “Gaining the trust of people, especially if they’re not used to being photographed — that’s a whole other thing.”  Jack Rowell: Photographs, Korongo Books, 144 pages. $125. Available in select bookstores and at korongobooks.com. The original print version of this article was headlined “Face to Face | Jack Rowell’s new book of Vermont portraits captures half a century of change” The post Face to Face: Jack Rowell’s New Book of Vermont Portraits appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less