As featured in Behan Communications What Caught Our Eye, February 1, 2020
A YEAR IN THE PARK: John Bulmer has been a professional photographer since 1999, but he and photography go back much further than that. His dad is a photographer, too, and John grew up with a darkroom in the basement and “endless hours’’ in a hunting blind with a camera waiting for a deer to come along or in a rowboat waiting for a beaver to surface. He remembers being bored to tears then. Now, he says, “I realize it taught me the patience that’s required to get past the obvious images and angles and capture something unique and memorable.’’ As a child, John discovered Grafton Lakes State Park, all 2,500 acres on the plateau between the Taconic and Hudson Valleys and came to know it well. “I have a long history with the park in every season and all sorts of weather conditions. All these years later, the park still shows me new things with each visit. I firmly believe our state parks and public lands are treasures that need to be protected and secured for future generations (and) compelling photography helps further that cause by highlighting the beauty and fragility of places like Grafton.’’ On average, John shoots in various locations like Grafton 40 to 50 times per year. He makes a special point to shoot in less-than-ideal weather conditions that present the opportunity to capture Grafton’s many moods. “Shooting a subject in all varieties of conditions and times of the day is an enduring lesson I learned in art school: It’s really the only way to tell the story of anything properly.” With pride, we present John Bulmer’s A Year in the Park.
