Throughout January, Rutherford Library in South Bristol shows a selection of black-and-white photographs of local residents taken in the mid-1970s. The photos are the work of Ann Hillis, whose family had a home in Christmas Cove in the 1940s. The photos are on loan from the South Bristol Historical Society.

Hillis studied under Craig Stevens at Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, according to a 2006 Lincoln County News article. She exhibited in the Farnsworth Museum, Bowdoin College, Westbrook College and in New York with photographers from Rockport’s Maine Photographic Workshops. This group of South Bristol photographs was the result of an overnight assignment by Stevens for students to take pictures of people in their hometown and print them for class. With his encouragement, Hillis continued taking pictures of the people of South Bristol at work and at leisure, throughout 1976 and 1978. Hillis’ prints were also shown at Round Top Center for the Arts in 1998 and she was quoted in the program: “I am most grateful to the people of South Bristol for letting me intrude upon their lives at all hours. This study is a record of how things were back then. It is in the nature of things to change. These pictures are of a moment in our illusion of time, a bit of modern history. I hope the townspeople enjoy seeing some old friends and remembering how things were not so long ago.”