On Wednesday, Dec. 4, the University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute (UCHI) hosted its last fellow’s talk of 2024. Listeners gathered inside UCHI’s conference room on the fourth floor of the Homer Babbidge Library to hear Janet L. Pritchard discuss her current research project in landscape photography.
Her project, titled “Abiding River: Connecticut River Views & Stories” shares photographs of the Connecticut River and stories from the river’s history. Pritchard’s talk focused on the steps she has been taking to turn her project into a book and the differences this project has from her previous project on Yellowstone Park. A response by Joscha Jelitzki, a Ph.D. candidate in German and Judaic Studies at the UConn Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, followed.
Pritchard is a professor and graduate advisor in UConn’s Department of Art and Art History. She was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019, and since then, has used her fellowship to publish her book on Yellowstone titled “More than Scenery: Yellowstone, an American Love Story” in 2022, and her book on the Connecticut River. Pritchard grew up in the northeast and Rocky Mountains west of the United States. Before turning to photography, she was an outdoor education instructor.
Pritchard started her talk by giving an overview of the Connecticut River and what she was going to discuss in her presentation. The Connecticut River is the longest river in New England at just over 400 miles long. It passes through four states: New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and spans from just below the Canada-U.S. border to the Long Island Sound. It is also one of the most dammed rivers in the U.S.
Throughout her project, Pritchard has collected tens of thousands of pictures of the Connecticut River and is in the process of selecting which ones to show in her book. She speaks about the aspect ratios of cameras and how they play an important part in which pictures she chooses for her book. Throughout this section, she flips through slides of pictures she took of the river.
Pritchard continued with a picture of a headstone with the words “Celibate Christian Communists” on it, located in Shaker Cemetery—now a prison complex—in Enfield, Conn. She spoke about the additional notes and stories in her Yellowstone book and how most people do not read these passages. This ties into her title of this section of the presentation, “Breaking Conceptual Continuity.”
During this past fall, while she was working on her project, she had a realization and is currently changing the shape of her book. The slides she presented during this section were focused on potential formats for her book. Pritchard mentioned during the question session at the end of the talk that this book was different from her previous projects and required her to change the book’s format.
Pritchard went through various potential formats of her book in a section titled “Sketches of Possibilities.” A key change she detailed was changing the book from landscape to portrait. Some options had pictures spread across both pages, while others had pictures only on the top sections to leave ample space for descriptions and stories. She had different ideas for photographs to include as well. One example depicted the river in two different seasons, while others included pictures of wildlife, boat trips, water pipes or postcards.
Pritchard ends her talk with some examples that highlight the Connecticut River’s importance to innovation and the environment around it. One photo depicts the small businesses around the river, including Frank “the Welder,” who owns a bicycle fabrication shop in Bellows Falls, Vt., right next to the river. The final format of the book is a work in progress.
Following the presentation, Joscha Jelitzki spoke about his first impressions of Pritchard’s work and how his opinions changed as he gathered more information about her work. He spoke about his own research on the Connecticut River and mentioned how humans can control the pace of the water due to all the dams built along the river. Jelitzki followed with three questions for Pritchard.
The first question was about nature in the abstract and how she decided what belongs and what does not belong in pictures. The second question referred to the relationship between the medium of photography and the river, the ever-moving river and the never-moving river. Jelitzki noted that while the river in the pictures appears still, the actual river continues to flow.
Pritchard delved into her preference for still photography, like prints and books, over moving photography. She mentioned how the societal function of photography is preservation and memorial.
The third question focuses on the target audience of her book. Since most people do not interact with the river, is it for everyone? Pritchard explained that her book is working on more than one level. It has aspects that are interesting to a variety of different people. She compares it to adult jokes in kids’ movies that keep the adults interested.
Questions were opened to the audience following the response, including questions regarding her influences throughout her project, the use of symmetry in her photographs, how she knows when her project is done and who owns the Connecticut River.
Light refreshments were served after the talk’s end while conversations between the audience and speakers continued. The next UCHI fellow’s talk is on Jan. 29, 2025, with Peter Zarrow in the Homer Babbidge Library. He will be discussing his project “A History of the ‘Museumification’ of the Forbidden City, Beijing, from 1900 to Today.” For a full list of events, visit the Humanities Institute Events Calendar: https://humanities.uconn.edu/news-and-events/.