Lillies, c. 20th/21st Century

For over four decades Thomas Blagden’s photography has always been more about generating a sense of place than about specific subjects. Blagden strives to show the essence of a place in all its varied habitats and diverse nature. He concentrates his work on locations that he loves and that are part of his life. Growing up in a family of artists in Connecticut’s Northwest Corner instilled in Blagden a deep love for the land.

Blagden’s hope and goal is that by investing his photographic efforts over a long period, the collective body of work will serve to assign a higher conservation value to these places and be of tangible use to the non-profits dedicated to preserving them. Blagden pursues book projects as the ultimate expression of these endeavors.

“If ecology is all about the diversity of living things and their interrelationships, then nature photography is about the diversity of aesthetics that define our emotional response to Mother Earth. This very response connects us to the pulse of life. It is why our fundamental understanding of nature is bound as much by sensual qualities as by science. Images of nature remind us of who we are and, more importantly, that the wellbeing of our spiritual landscape is inherently bound to the integrity of our natural landscape. When I’m enveloped in Acadia, when the sun is just rising over tide pools and not another soul is around, yes, I own that moment. That’s what I live for and what generates the good images. Yet, it’s the accumulation of those experiences that matters more, because that sense of ownership transcends to a sense of belonging and to the discovery that we as individuals are inseparable from place and fully bound to it. The enlightenment of person by place is the baptism of Acadia. I photograph to evoke a landscape that is temporal, forever dynamic, vulnerable, mysterious, unbounded and, above all, humbling.” Tom Blagden (Bio sourced from The Gallery at Somes Sound)