Sippican Cinema Series Co-host Anne Converse

My passion and love of photography started for as long as I remember. I loved the old photographs-the black and white snapshots of relatives I never knew-their stately portraits, the antics caught candidly, and their fondness for each other. I was hypnotized while viewing National Geographic, LIFE, and LOOK magazines, and the 1950s US Camera books my parents collected. They gave me a sense of the world’s vast cultures and lifestyles. Overjoyed with receiving my first camera on my 8th birthday, I have never been without a camera in my life.

My love of movies was shaped by many Sunday afternoons watching the black and white movies with my mother and siblings when we were young ; watching my parents’ home movies of their travels and our family outings all lined up in our PJs on a Saturday night in the living-room. With family or friends, visits to the big movie theaters in Boston or small local theaters were a treat along with junior mints and popcorn. In my teens I finagled my mother into buying a Super 8 movie camera for the family-mainly me. For my senior year in high school, I made a fifteen-minute film, editing and splicing different reels of movies together I had filmed, and added clips of different songs to go along with it.

In 1968 to 1970 I attended Endicott Junior College(now a four-year college and co-ed), I majored in Photography and cultivated my childhood love of the still photographic image. After a year of traveling in Europe I lived in Boston and went to the New England School of Photography(NESOP) for two years. One
of the teachers said in the first school meeting of 60 students that three of us would become photographers. I convinced myself I would be one of the three. In my second year, my Documentary Photography teacher supported me with my work, and helped me foster my intuitive vision. We learned the art of street photography to be spontaneous; finding the “decisive moment” of Henri Cartier- Bresson’s photographs, who was one of the many photographers I learned about and was influenced by.

After NESOP, I worked at Brooks Photo Lab in Boston that processed slide film, and I delivered film all afternoon in Boston and Digital Laboratory in Acton. I learned my “bad Boston driving habits” following cabs, which to this day often help me out. In the mornings I learned to color print at Harcourt Color Lab
on the second floor of the building; challenging at times but fun. I started my free-lance photography taking candid portraits of children and families, weddings and parties. I like to capture the uniqueness in each family and weddings, capturing the spontaneous expressions. While photographing weddings, I try to be inconspicuous and let the people be themselves. A five-month trip in 1987 around the world, was a unique opportunity to explore parts of the world and photograph people in their environment. I have continued travelling when I can, and love exploring Europe and its various cultures. I’ve always photographed sailboats, both modern and classic designs. In 2002,I published a book Wood Wind and Water, A Story of the Opera House Cup Race of Nantucket which continues to be a collectable for sailors and non-sailors. Since the early 1990s I’ve been documenting behind the scenes of the Thoroughbred horse racing scene and working on a book of the various places I’ve visited.
My photographs are “straight”-no filters or digital manipulation unless color and density need to be improved. I still love film but have gone digital within the past five years. I prefer to edit and crop when I am photographing, rarely cropping a finished photograph. I study the quality of the light in relation to the subject matter, finding a balance and tension in order to create an image. I still feel drawn to the still image, fascinated by its capabilities to capture life in a fleeting moment.