One of the many iconic photographs taken on the Gettysburg battlefield by Alexander Gardner’s photographic team was the heartbreaking image of the bloated corpse of a horse. The unfortunate animal was one of the wheel pair, and it died still harnessed to a shattered limber, the deadly contents of the limber chest scattered about. Freshly covered graves are nearby, possibly those of the drivers and artillerymen who manned the light 12-pounder Napoleon cannon.  

Through the haze, a line of army wagons and artillery vehicles are parked behind the wreckage, trees showing just above the white canvas covers. While the appalling destruction of battle remains untouched where it fell, the war goes on as soldiers wait in the background for orders to continue the pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia to the Potomac River.  

Gardner’s photographers took the image on or about July 6, 1863. When Gardner published his Photographic Sketchbook of the War later in 1863, he titled the image “Unfit for Service.” The scene conveys the traumatic image of death and destruction of man and animal alike, and is a stoic reminder of the cost of war.  

Aside from its poignancy, the image leaves some questions unanswered. To what battery did this limber and horse belong? What happened at this location that caused such destruction? How did this wreckage remain untouched for so many days after the battle ended?  

Where Was It?

Though the image was published in the Sketchbook and as a stereoview after the war, this photograph did not receive widespread attention until years later when an overly enhanced version captioned “Shattered Caisson—Gettysburg ‘Peach Orchard’” first appeared in The War Memorial Book (1894). Miller’s Photographic History of the Civil War (1911) published a much clearer view of the scene that revealed the line of vehicles beyond the wreckage, what appears to be part of an orchard, and, upon closer examination, the roof line and chimney of a house.  

But whose house could this be, so close to the fighting? In 2010, several of the Licensed Battlefield Guides at Gettysburg speculated it was the Peter Rogers house that stood along the Emmitsburg Road, but did the remainder of the landscape match the fields and trees? Of the candidate houses that stood along the same road, one alone stands out: the Joseph Sherfy house adjacent to the famous Peach Orchard.  

Sixty-three-year-old Joseph Sherfy and his wife, Mary, had lived on this farm since 1844, where he managed a flourishing fruit business. The enterprising farmer experimented with the best type of peaches and apples to grow in Adams County’s somewhat shallow soil, his large mature peach orchard producing enough fruit to accommodate a canning business in a building behind his brick home. Sherfy had planted new trees north of the established orchard, its trees just ready to produce when war came to their doorstep on July 2, 1863.  

The Sherfys fled their home that day only to return four days later to discover their house damaged by shell fire, personal belongings scattered in the yard, the barn burned to the ground, crops trampled, fences torn down, and most of his peach trees in his recently planted “young orchard” damaged beyond salvage, as he recalled in his 1872 damage claim.  

Graves of the fallen were everywhere, and the bloated remains of more than a dozen dead horses lay where they fell in the wheat and meadow opposite their home. Army wagons and artillery vehicles continually passed through the Sherfy fields, stopping briefly to allow congestion to clear the roads ahead. Details from Union regiments had picked up and stacked discarded small arms and equipment, leaving behind material that could not be reused. In the field opposite their home was a disabled limber chest, shells still lying nearby, as Mrs. Sherfy told a visitor in 1886. Worried of the danger, Mr. Sherfy and a farmhand buried the ordnance in the field, taking care to mark the location.   That disabled limber was most likely the same photographed by Gardner’s team that warm summer morning in 1863. The sad wreckage was left lying in the center of Sherfy’s field on the eastern slope of the ridge from the Emmitsburg Road to Plum Run.  

With the location of this historic photograph identified, a more important question needs to be answered: to whose battery did this limber belong?  

The “Great Artillery Duel”

During the desperate July 2 fighting on this farm, numerous Union artillery batteries were overrun, guns captured, and limbers lost to Confederate hands. Only the arrival of fresh Union troops and ensuing counterattack saved those precious guns, which were drawn off the field after nightfall by exhausted teams of artillerymen and uninjured horses. Only one gun, a 3-inch ordnance rifle and limber belonging to Consolidated Battery C&F, 1stPennsylvania Light Artillery, was left behind and would be captured by Confederates the following day.  

Yet this limber and ammunition in the historic photograph was for a 12-pounder “Napoleon”—the fearful bronze gun favored by many artillerymen for its dependability and stopping power. Obviously, there were unknown circumstances that left this shattered limber on the field. If it was not from a Union battery, which Confederate battery stood at this site?  

Beginning in 1895, the U.S. War Department Commission, composed of veterans of the battle, initiated the masterful and difficult task of marking every unit position in the park with a tablet bearing a brief narrative of their participation at Gettysburg. Commissioner William Robbins, a veteran of the 4th Alabama Infantry who faced the fierce combat before Little Round Top on July 2-3, 1863, struggled to document the activities of Confederate units, especially batteries in Major Mathias W. Henry’s Artillery Battalion of Hood’s Division, Longstreet’s Corps. Reports from many of the battery commanders and Major Henry himself did not survive the conflict and could not be found in U.S. War Department records in Washington, D.C.  

As Robbins later confessed, he constructed battle narratives for some units based on the activities of their fellow units and without those precious reports, narratives on several tablets were woefully incomplete. One of these cases stands out—the July 3, 1863, activities of several batteries in Henry’s Battalion, notably Captain Hugh R. Garden’s South Carolina Battery, the “Palmetto Light Artillery.”  

Born in Sumter, S.C., in 1840, the dashing Hugh Richardson Garden had just completed his studies at South Carolina College when war erupted. He volunteered for service as a private in Company D, 2nd South Carolina Infantry, during which time he was recognized as a model soldier and promotions followed. Through the influence of family and military officials, he received an appointment by the state in 1862 to raise and command a newly formed battery of artillery destined to join the Army of Northern Virginia.  

Garden successfully recruited and organized a full battery and within months was in Virginia, where he was assigned to Major Henry’s Artillery Battalion. Having seen only minimal action prior to the Gettysburg Campaign, the Palmetto Light Artillery of four guns (two 10-pounder Parrott Rifles and two 12-pounder Napoleons)arrived on the battlefield on July 2 but remained in reserve as the fighting raged against the Union left flank centered on the now famous Sherfy Peach Orchard.  

At mid-morning the following day, Garden received orders to march his battery with other sections of artillery from Henry’s Battalion to an impressive line of Southern guns with other artillery battalions of Longstreet’s Corps. The fieldpieces stretched from the Peach Orchard northwesterly to Spangler Woods and Seminary Ridge opposite the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. Tasked with opposing Union artillery strategically placed on Little Round Top, Garden unlimbered his Parrott rifles in the Peach Orchard on the right flank of Major B.F. Eshleman’s Artillery Battalion, the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, and with the report of two signal guns at 1 p.m., Garden’s cannons began their participation in the great barrage that preceded Pickett’s Charge.  

July 3, 1863, would haunt Garden for years to come. “On the day of Pickett’s Charge,” he wrote to Lloyd Collis in 1901, “I was sent about a mile to the left of my first position near the turnpike, immediately on the right of the Washington Artillery, and engaged Big Round Top during the first part of the great artillery duel. While thus engaged the chief of Gen. Longstreet’s staff, who was on the pike observing the effect of the artillery fire, ordered me to cease firing… and to move by section to the left of the peach orchard and advance in echelon across the plain. I obeyed the order, but only one section of my battery, under Lieutenant [Alexander] McQueen, made the advance, for when it moved obliquely to the left and went into position at a point down a gentle descent (as I can never forget) about 200 yards to the left of the peach orchard, and about 300 yards at least in front of our line of artillery, the attention of the opposing artillery was drawn to our fire, and within ten minutes every horse and man was killed—or wounded.”  

After passing through the orchard and down the slope, Lieutenant McQueen’s artillerymen unlimbered the two 12-pounder guns in an open field, loaded, and opened fire on Union infantry of Brig. Gen. George Stannard’s Vermont Brigade sweeping around Pickett’s masses crowding toward the Angle. Though their fire and those of a handful of other pieces from Eshleman’s Battalion that also advanced was at first effective, it also unleashed a torrent of counterbattery fire from Union guns aligned on the well-established line on the lower portion of Cemetery Ridge.  

At his post behind one of McQueen’s guns, artilleryman J. Merrick Reid recalled: “No sooner had flame and smoke gushed after the hurtling shell that Round Top Hill became a veritable seething volcano of destruction, emitting dense volumes of smoke, lurid tongues of flame hurtling metal missile that hissed or shrieked through space and burst with deafening peals. The ground was ploughed and torn and great clouds of dirt and debris thrown up everywhere. Man after man went down with his death hurt…not a horse was left to move a wheel.” Reid was horrified when a single Union shell mortally wounded two comrades in front him, spattering his uniform with blood and gore.   Within minutes, the Union batteries had driven off the Confederate cannoneers from the guns that had been pushed forward from Eshleman’s Battalion and then turned their attention on Garden’s solitary section of Napoleons. From their post on Cemetery Ridge, Captain Patrick Hart’s 15th New York Battery of four Napoleons sent explosive shell after shell at the outnumbered South Carolinians.  

Near Hart’s guns stood Captain Edwin Dow’s 6th Maine Battery, which also focused its four 12-pounder guns on the exposed Southerners. “A light 12-pounder battery of four guns ran some 400 or 500 yards in front of the enemy’s line,” Dow reported soon after the battle, “so as to enfilade the batteries on our right.” After driving off the artillerymen from these guns that belonged to Eshleman’s Battalion, Dow focused his attention on McQueen’s two guns, alone but defiantly firing from their exposed position. “We opened with solid shot and shell…and succeeded in dismounting one gun, disabling the second, and compelled the battery to leave the field minus one caisson and several horses.”  

The sweeping concentration of Union artillery from the summit of Little Round Top to the center of Cemetery Ridge would prove too great for the outnumbered Confederate artillery. “No man flinched his duty,” Merrick Reid recalled many years after. “Exhausted, bleeding, ammunition spent, comrades prone, six horse dead or dying, further effort futile, our gallant officer, the calmly brave McQueen, himself faint and bleeding, ordered the pitiful fragment to seek protection from the infernal death sluice.”  

Aghast at the destruction, Captain Garden raced to the site to confront the seriously wounded Lieutenant McQueen, who could barely manage the orders for his men to seek shelter. Those still able turned and ran to the comparative safety of the Emmitsburg Road, leaving behind guns, limbers, wounded comrades, and horribly wounded horses thrashing about in their harnesses. “I took volunteers and fresh horses in to remove my men and gun(s),” Garden continued. “After two attempts we succeeded, under the same concentrated terrific fire, made more terrible by the explosion of caissons and the fire overhead of our friends in the rear.”  

The Confederate infantry assault failed, and there was little more that could be accomplished. Lee sent orders through Longstreet to withdraw his troops from their advanced position to form a line of defense on Seminary Ridge. Captain Garden’s desperate mission was still underway when those orders arrived.  

As the Southern batteries hurriedly limbered and hobbled to the rear, Garden realized that with Union guns commanding the field and Union skirmishers seen advancing toward the abandoned artillery line, further efforts to bring off additional equipment was fruitless. A shattered limber and chest, horse harnesses and other equipment, all too dangerous to retrieve, remained to mark the location where his guns had fought so deadly a duel.  

The following day, details of Union troops gathered small arms from the field while others buried the dead where they had fallen. Southern ordnance, still dangerous despite the soaking rains that covered the area, remained untouched for others to recover.  

Thus, the scene remained to be captured by the photographer’s camera on or about July 6, 1863, where Hugh Garden’s section of 12-pounder guns from his Palmetto Light Artillery, only a few days before, had made the suicidal stand at Gettysburg. Placed in context with Garden’s description, compassionately penned in a letter years after the war, this place on the battlefield was indeed where “all hell broke loose.”

More important, this photograph provides historians with a more complete evaluation of the somewhat curious story of Major M.W. Henry’s Battalion in the massive bombardment before Pickett’s Charge, its disturbing aftermath, and the shocking cost of war. And while we all strive to further describe and understand the image labeled “Unfit for Service,” perhaps the most suitable sentiment was paid by Garden himself, an attempt to honor the sacrifice paid by his battery day: “I have always thought that as Pickett’s charge marked the high-tide of the Confederacy, the advance of that solitary section in obedience to what I understood to be Gen. Longstreet’s order to advance the artillery marked the high-tide in the greatest artillery duel in history.”  

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

 

John S. Heiser began his career with the National Park Service in 1976 at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. He transferred to Gettysburg National Military Park in 1980, where he held numerous positions until 1997 when he was appointed as historian to manage the park’s library, website, and other duties, a position he held until his retirement in 2020. He still resides in Gettysburg. The author wishes to gratefully thank Scott Fink and Scott Brown for their research assistance with this article.

Based at St Paul’s Learning Centre, The Real Photography Company are a community interest company with a passion both for traditional and experimental photographic techniques.

Led by co-directors Justin Quinnell and Ruth Jacobs, they offer affordable darkroom facilities to members, and run a range of workshops, events and exhibitions to local photography enthusiasts.

There are a wide range of resources made freely available on their website, including print-making techniques: on photographic paper using coffee or plant-based developers (chemigrams); and on photographic film using soda crystal and vitamin C developer in water (phytograms).

They have also worked widely with local schools, running chemistry workshops looking at states of matter, the light spectrum, camera obscuras and image-processing.

With support from the charity Places for People, over the course of several weeks in February The Company will be running a series of three, free Winter Warmer photography workshops, aimed particularly at people in need of a warm space and a meal.

Taking place at the community darkrooms, they will be followed by a free hot meal at Glen’s Kitchen, which is also within St Paul’s Learning Centre.

Greenhouse – photo: Justin Quinnell

Groups to be approached for their interest include refugees, van dwellers, homelessness organisations and individuals recovering from addiction.

“As well as creating photographs with pinhole cameras, exploring cyanotypes and other adventures into experimental photography, the darkrooms provide a friendly space for social interaction,” says Quinnell.

No prior experience is necessary, and all materials will be provided.

Poster: The Real Photography Company

The Winter Warmer Photography Workshop series will be taking place at The St Paul’s Learning Centre in February 2024; email The Real Photography Company for further information.

All photos: The Real Photography Company

Read more: Exhibition of photographs from the 1984/85 Miner’s Strike to open at Martin Parr Foundation

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Understandably, time is out of joint in these artworks. Each one creates the sense of a perpetual moment, one in which the architectural setting stretches backwards in time—not just to 20th century Soviet Russia, but far beyond, to the Ancient Greek and Roman motifs of neoclassical Stalinist architecture—while the accelerated greenery points forward. They may have the appearance of ancient ruins, Koopmans says, “but, in fact, they’re only 35 or 40 years old.”

“I think it’s fascinating, because it has a timeless quality and it’s something that’s bigger than us,” says Koopmans. “You have these grandiose ideologically-based societies or empires, and as powerful as they may be, time erases it all, essentially. Nature is the one constant force that prevails.”

Koopmans and Wexell are repeatedly reminded that these forgotten places they love to capture are only forgotten for so long. Nature isn’t the only rampant force around: The rapid construction of megacities and their associated infrastructure is spreading a wave of speculation, demolition and construction across the planet. In Georgia—a country undergoing a seismic construction boom—Koopmans tells me they scouted an abandoned school in Tbilisi to shoot, but when they returned, just a week later, it was gone. Not just reduced to rubble, but utterly disappeared—enough to make them question their maps—only a dark stretch of dirt remaining where it had once been.

“Sometimes it’s just a case of going on Google Maps and losing my mind,” says Steve Birnbaum. “Just searching and searching until I see something recognisable.”

Birnbaum, a film director based in New York, is talking about his hobby: painstakingly tracking down locations of music photoshoots so he can find the exact location to re-photograph himself. Inspired by a project he saw that blended war photography with modern-day locations, in 2010 he started doing the same with family photos, then film and TV locations, before honing in on his musical niche around 2017.

While it’s not an entirely original concept – photographer Alex Bartsch did the same for British reggae album covers – The Band Was Here now has a quarter of a million followers on Instagram. Here, you’ll find Birnbaum revisiting the exact table in a bar that Woody Guthrie sat at back in 1943 or the precise street location in the Bronx where a 14-year-old Tupac was photographed on a moped back in 1985. “When I’m there, and I line it up, and it feels right … it’s a total buzz,” says Birnbaum.

He’s found locations from plenty of big albums. There’s the wall (now a garage) that Michael Jackson stood in front of on Off the Wall; the fire escape behind Prince on the cover of Purple Rain; the stoop Bob Dylan sat on for Highway 61 Revisited. He even got inside the apartment where all the photographs for Taylor Swift’s 1989 album were shot after getting a tip-off that it was for sale and arranging a viewing.

But it’s not just re-photographing iconic imagery, it’s also celebrating lesser known shots that involve finding random buildings, car parks, tattoo parlours or pavements. And Birnbaum is not afraid to get nerdy. He has located the bathtub in the photo printed on the CD of Nirvana’s In Utero from 30 years ago. And not only did he find the hotel that looked out onto the same view that features on Radiohead’s OK Computer cover but he gained access to the room Thom Yorke stayed in to take the same photo.

It’s become a massive undertaking. “I will spend hours on one image where I just can’t find anything,” he says. “So I’ll fall into this hole of trying to track it down.” He’s still fervently searching for album cover locations by Smashing Pumpkins and Violent Femmes, while he eagerly awaits a response from the building owner he tracked down where Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was shot.

His research methods are meticulous: books, magazines, old interviews with photographers – although he never approaches them for help; “I like the hunt,” he says – and finding contact sheets from original photoshoots. “A lot of clues are within contact sheets,” he says. “Because there will be photographs that were taken from sessions earlier in the day, so it tells me the path that people walked that day.”

However, sometimes he can put in all that work, find the location but when he gets there it a giant construction site. “New York has become high rises and glass,” he says. “It’s sad knowing the history, and the people that once stood there, when it’s just completely gone.” Although it has given him a heightened appreciation of his surroundings. “It’s crazy how much you walk the streets and go past things,” he says. “Music history is all around us.”

It’s also proven to be a project loaded with unexpected emotion. “It definitely has a different feel when the artists are no longer with us,” he says, citing a photo of John Lennon that he traced as being located just a block from where the Beatle was murdered. He felt similarly upset when he found Kurt Cobain’s abandoned Hollywood home in order to photograph the spot that Cobain and his then baby daughter Frances Bean Cobain sat back in 1992. “That was the most eerie spot I’ve ever been in,” he says. “I went back and forth as to whether to post those because it becomes more personal when it’s family photos. They’re in the public domain but you have to respect that these are people. It’s not the movies.”

But aside from the occasional pang when connecting with the tragic history of his favourite bands, it’s been an stimulating project that has brought to physical life some cherished memories. “Growing up I was living with these images,” he says. “I was opening up magazinesand seeing them all the time. Music photography was a huge inspiration for me and now that I can go and stand in that very location, it’s, like, wow!”

By Emily Gibson

Section Editor

In less than six months, 22-year-old James Wes Sharpe has toured over 27 states and has caught the attention of over 5.5 million people through his photography and videography work for Chase Wright, a country music artist.

Monday through Thursday, Sharpe, a senior communication studies major, is a normal student at Trevecca where he studies, shoots photos for athletics and manages the TNT athletics social media accounts, but since June, his weekends have looked a little different.

Come Friday, Sharpe is on a plane alongside Wright, Bennett Wilson, Wright’s guitarist, and Ty Thompson, Wright’s drummer, as they travel to their next destination on Wright’s “Hurt No More” tour.

Thompson, Sharpe’s best friend and roommate, joined the tour in late March as Wright’s drummer, and when the opportunity arose for a photographer to join the team, Thompson said he knew the right person for the job.

“He saw the pictures I was doing for sports, and he was like ‘you could do this for concerts,’” said Sharpe.

In April, Sharpe received a message from Wright who invited him to take photos at his rehearsal session. 

“Chase brought him out and just loved his personality,” said Thompson. “Wes was killing it and learning super-fast.”

After two months, Sharpe was offered the full-time photography position and began the journey of his dreams.  

While Sharpe has taken athletics photos for the Trojans since his sophomore year, he joined the “Hurt No More” tour in June with little experience in the field of concert photography, and his work has since accumulated over 5.5 million views on Wright’s socials. By the conclusion of the tour on Nov. 11, Sharpe will have photographed in 29 states.

If somebody asked Sharpe a year ago if he thought he would get the opportunity to travel the world with three of his best friends, he would have considered the idea unrealistic and himself unqualified.

While in high school, Sharpe’s goal was to play college lacrosse, but during his senior year, he suffered three tears in his ACL which not only put him out of the season but out of the sport altogether.

“The first time I thought I would get better, the second time I thought it was just bad luck, but then after the third time, I thought maybe this isn’t what I’m meant to do,” said Sharpe.

Sharpe began nearly 20 months of recovery, and because he could no longer contribute to his team by playing, he decided he would contribute in another way by designing their graphics.

Sharpe was 15 when he learned Photoshop, which he used at the time to design graphics for his middle school football team. The skill translated well into his senior year of high school for not only the task of making graphics but also for finalizing his college and career decision.

In fall of 2020, Sharpe came to Trevecca as a graphic design major ,which he later changed to communications studies. Since his sophomore year, he has been the full-time athletics photographer on campus.

“I feel like it took tearing my knees three times for God to get my attention, and because of it, I learned things like photography and Photoshop, which has opened up doors for me now,” said Sharpe. “I give God all of the praise and thanks for allowing all of the opportunities to come into my life.”

While Sharpe is grateful for his many opportunities leading up to the tour and thereafter, he said he has had to overcome several challenges along the way.

“When he told me what he wanted to do, I didn’t know how it was going to work because that was a huge task for anyone to balance,” said Gregory Ruff, director of sports information. “I think it’s worn him out some, but he’s managed it really well, and his photography and graphics have gotten even better.”

While Sharpe admits his sleep schedule is not the best, he has managed to uphold his responsibilities as an undergraduate, student worker, full-time photographer and a pursuer of excellence as he makes additional efforts to hone his craft. 

“I want to perfect my craft, so every single time I go out to shoot, I try a different technique or just something new so that I’m learning and getting better each time,” said Sharpe. 

According to both Thompson and Ruff, Sharpe’s hard work does not go unnoticed. 

“He has a desire to learn and get better, so he’s constantly pushing himself to the next level,” said Thompson. “He started shooting six months ago, and now he is doing the same job as photographers who have been doing this for years.”

While Ruff is the one who taught Sharpe the basics of photography, Ruff feels Sharpe’s experience has added additional value to his team. 

“In the last three months, he’s shown me things I didn’t know how to do, and it has changed how I edit, and it has raised the level of our work,” added Ruff. 

As for what lies ahead, Sharpe, who has already received multiple offers from artists seeking his photography work since the start of the tour, said he hopes to work in the creative industry, specifically in the music side of things full-time upon graduation in May.

“I think there’s just something special about being in a room full of people that love someone and care about the artist while I get to create art every single night for them,” said Sharpe.

Ruff said he never looks forward to losing someone so valuable, but he is proud of Sharpe and excited to see what his future holds.

“I have no doubt he’ll be successful at whatever he chooses to put his heart into,” concluded Ruff. 

For local artist Caleb Kenna, making a career of photography is a great way to interact with the world. While Middlebury might know Kenna’s photographs of the town of Middlebury and the Middlebury campus through their frequent features on the college’s social media accounts, his photos have a much larger reach beyond the 05753 zip code. 

Kenna, 53, began photographing decades ago after a high school photography class spurred his interest in the art form. In the class, students were given an assignment to photograph strangers. 

“You would just walk up to somebody with a camera and say, ‘Can I take your picture?’,” Kenna told The Campus 

Kenna began his career in photojournalism, working at Vermont newspapers like the Addison Independent and the Rutland Herald. In 2000, he started freelancing for The New York Times, The Boston Globe and other similarly-sized newspapers. Kenna has also spent a number of years photographing for the non-profit environmental organization Vermont Land Trust, where he photographed conserved lands as well as candid portraits of people working.  

While focusing in recent years on his own portfolio, Kenna has continued to work on assignments for weekly newspaper Seven Days VT and for specific clients. 

Fresh accomplishments for Kenna include publishing two photo essays in The New York Times. Kenna published the first, titled “Behold Vermont, From Above,” amidst the Covid-19 lockdowns in the summer of 2020, as a part of the newspaper’s “The World Through a Lens” series. The spread included 17 stunning drone photos of Vermont landscapes. 

“Taking drone photos, for me, was just a really great form of social distancing,” Kenna said.” It’s a very meditative process, just going out and seeing the landscape.” 

His second photo essay in The New York Times was titled “Vermont, Dressed in Snow,” also as a part of the “The World Through a Lens” series. Published in 2022, the spread similarly featured drone shots of snowy Middlebury and other Vermont towns. 

Kenna first took up drone photography back in 2017. 

“It basically just provides this incredible perspective on the landscape that is hard to get with a regular camera,” he said. 

Before acquiring his own drone, Kenna hired an airplane once or twice a year to get similar shots of landscapes. 

“But that’s expensive and you never know what the weather is and you’re a couple thousand feet up,” Kenna noted. 

A drone allows for a quicker set-up time and easy exploring, he added. 

While Kenna often uses a drone for capturing abstract images in landscapes, a drone is not always the best tool for certain projects. In cases of photographing individual or small group portraits, it is easier for Kenna to shoot with a regular camera. 

Growing up in Middlebury and Brandon, Vt. with his mother — a German professor at Middlebury for thirty years — the Kenna family name is well-known in the Middlebury community. Kenna now raises a family of his own in the town of Middlebury, which he explained is a large reason why Middlebury and surrounding towns feature so prominently in his photography. 

“I do like that but I would also certainly like to expand my range,” Kenna said. “I think the most successful pictures are the ones that are more abstract landscapes… It’s kind of like a puzzle,” he added, referring to the complex patterns he likes to find in landscapes using his drone.

A challenge in Kenna’s work has been in continuing to produce interesting, innovative work while living in the same area for years. 

“But on the other hand, it really forces you to look and see and wait for weather and stuff like that,” he added. 

Despite currently spending most of his time in Vermont, Kenna has previously spent time abroad in countries like India capturing on-the-ground photographs. 

After publishing his first photo essay in the New York Times in 2020, Kenna gained national exposure that allowed him to work with non-fiction publishing company Schiffer on releasing a book. He released “Art From Above: Vermont” in October 2022. Along with a collection of Kenna’s drone photographs, the book features a foreword by Schumann Distinguished Scholar of Environmental Studies Bill McKibben and an introduction by Kenna.

“The process of making that book was a lot of fun,” Kenna said. He worked with Oregon-based freelance photo editor Mary Vignoles to sequence the book using a color palette of brown, green and blue to correspond with the changing seasons throughout the photographs. 

Vignoles, who has been working with Kenna for years and collaborated with him on building his website, sequenced the photos in the book so that they blend from one color to the next. 

“[It’s] kind of like a song, you just want somebody to go along with it,” she told The Campus.

In addition to keeping an eye on color, Vignoles’ editing process involved hours of looking critically at the photos to make sure the best selection of photos were included in the limit that Kenna had given her of about 100 photos to feature in the book. 

“Art From Above: Vermont” is currently sold at The Vermont Book Shop in downtown Middlebury. Becky Dayton, owner of Vermont Book Shop, said that the book has sold over 600 copies in the bookstore since it was released nearly two years ago. 

“I knew right away that it would be a huge seller,” Dayton said, aware that Kenna’s profile as a photographer had risen significantly following his features in The New York Times. While sales of “Art From Above: Vermont” have slowed down a little bit since it was published on Oct. 18, 2022, Dayton continues to restock the books in the shop. 

“People love to give them to friends and family who are far away to remind them of how beautiful Vermont is,” Dayton said. 

While Kenna would like to eventually create another book of photographs with a new idea, he is currently working on adding to his portfolio as he sells his photographs directly to clients through his website. His work has previously been featured at the Frog Hollow Craft Center in Burlington, Vt.; Edgewater Gallery in Middlebury, and the Kent Museum in Calais, Vt. In the coming months, his work will be shown by Burlington City Arts at a couple venues around Chittenden County. 

“That’s been really fun to have that kind of exposure,” Kenna said. He added that he also finds social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook helpful in publicizing his new work. 

Kenna creates prints of his photography for clients through Donald Ross, a Brandon-based photographer and printer who has known Kenna for over ten years. By using inkjet printing, large printers and fine art archival materials to help Kenna with the printing process, Ross allows Kenna himself to focus on photographing and managing his photography business. 

“There is a long tradition in the photographic world of photographers collaborating with fine art printers. And I’ve been fortunate to enjoy that kind of relationship with Caleb,” Ross said. 

Kenna’s photographs have received not only significant attention but widespread praise, and Kenna said he appreciates the positive comments he receives through social media. 

“There is something very gratifying about that when you can, with a couple of clicks, distribute your own photos and get a lot of nice responses,” he said, adding that seeing his photographs on walls or in galleries is similarly satisfying.

“He’s very talented,” Dayton said of Kenna “He’s just an artist to keep an eye on”. 

Kenna’s work can be found on his website or on Instagram @calebkenna. 

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Emily Hogan

Emily Hogan ’24 (she/her) is a Local Editor.   

She is studying Environmental Policy with a minor in Math. In addition to writing and editing for the Campus, she also dances with the On Tap dance troupe and serves on the Environmental Council. She has previously worked with the Sustainability Solutions Lab at Middlebury.