PHOTOGRAPHY | DOCUMENTING HISTORY

For a Decade, I Photographed City Events

I never made a dime and seldom had more fun

Firefighters battled a 10-alarm blaze, forcing 30 residents to find shelter and destroying numerous small businesses in November 2012. © Bruce Coulter Photography

It’s been a decade since I bought my first DSLR camera, a Canon T3 with two kit lenses; an 18–55mm lens and a 70–300mm lens. Shooting at night with a max ISO of 6400 was interesting. I did alright for someone who, at that time, had no idea what I was doing.

I quickly put the camera and lenses to good use, documenting community events in my hometown. Eventually, it paid off when the historical society hired me to photograph the city. It was a small contract, but I got paid.

I paid back their faith in me by donating digital files of every event I photographed over the next ten years. Thousands of those files are in the hands of the historical society now. Call it my contribution to a city that cares for its residents, who return that care by paying it forward to their neighbors.

Left, the opening of Fromagerie Madeline, an artisan creamery and cheese shop in Leominster, opened during the pandemic. Right, students from a dojo in Leominster show off their skills during Kids Day. © Bruce Coulter Photography

But now it comes down to this; how do I cull from thousands of photos to share in a story? It’s impossible. I’ve picked 20 photos — too many, I think, for Medium. So I’ll whittle that number down, trying to choose images of significant…