I took these photos over the course of 2022 and 2023, after nearly losing my eyesight. But that’s a whole other story.
What matters is what came next. I committed to daily photography during my morning walks with my two golden retrievers. Most of these walks stayed within a few miles of home. A handful ventured maybe seven miles out. Some were taken right in our yard, which looks out at the Green Mountains.
I posted hundreds of images on SmugMug, hoping someone might buy a print. Nobody bought so much as a 4x6 in an entire year. Kind of reminds me of the three years I’ve spent writing my memoir, Surfing the Interstates — not selling, not attracting subscribers.
But none of that is the point. The daily discipline, the slow noticing — that’s the reward. Voyaging through your own reality and paying attention to it is a far greater treasure than anything you can sell.
My mother understood this. She gave me life and the keys to my creativity. She got me my first typewriter and let me pick the wallpaper for my room at Ledge Acres — I chose a parchment style with sepia prints of sailing ships. She took me to Fox & Sutherland’s in Mt. Kisco, where Emile helped us pick out my first camera. I went on to become a lifelong photographer.
Her father and I share her initials: Alexander Joseph, Agnes Joan, Andre Joseph — we’re all AJs.
During the last three years working on my memoir, I often thought if her last words to me: “Everything is going to be alright.”
The greatest gifts are bequeathed by love.
