For Paul Rogers, stick season isn’t really about sticks. Nor is it about Noah Kahan, whose viral hit of the same name propelled the Vermont-born singer-songwriter to international acclaim and a recent Grammy nomination. No, for the Stowe-based photographer, it’s about a photo project by that name that he began 16 years ago and continues to this day.
“Stick season,” of course, is Vermont’s fifth calendar subdivision (mud being the sixth) and refers to the period between the end of foliage and the first lasting snow — basically, November. For Rogers’ purposes, it might start a little sooner and end a little later, depending on the weather, he said in a phone call. During that time, he goes out at least two days a week and shoots 2,000 to 4,000 pictures of, well, just about everything.
Back in 2008, Rogers said, contemplating what kind of work he wanted to do in the fall, he decided not to compete with the hordes of photographers infatuated with showy foliage. “I thought, November — it’s an interesting time for me, a time of transition.”
November is “a time when we’re not looking our best for visitors,” Rogers continued. “The landscape is unadorned. It’s like a model who’s beautiful but without all that makeup. That’s part of what I’m looking for.”
Though he initially sought out muted landscapes, the project “quickly became more than that,” said Rogers, 63. “It became about the Vermont look, Vermont life. There’s an edge of realism to it.”
With his 35mm DSLR Nikon, in color or in black and white, he has captured images of rural Vermonters preparing for winter, indoor activities such as community dinners, human and animal portraits, urban art and architecture, and artists at work. Collectively, Rogers’ “Stick Season” images tell a story about Vermont at a distinctive time of the year.
So why do some of them — the cornice of a building, a wall of graffiti, a close-up of a face — not reveal the season at all?
“The way I think about this is, if you were to travel to this beautiful place called New England in, say, June, would you limit your photos to landscapes?” Rogers suggested. “Would you not also photograph people, architecture, etc.? This allows the photographer — me — to go a bit further.”
The breadth of Rogers’ vision is evident on his website, where he packages more than 400 photos — updated regularly — in a Stick Season Gallery. To be sure, nature is well represented and not without color, despite November’s reputation for gray. In a composition shot in Glover, a scrum of ocher-tinged trees curves around a gently rising, still-green field; purplish clouds hover in a pale-blue sky. The golden light of late afternoon burnishes the scene, while a long shadow encroaches from below.
The image eloquently conveys a bittersweet transition. November is not simply leafless; it’s a liminal phase in which all of nature — including humans — must apprehend the passage of time.
Rogers also has an eye for the graphically arresting. In his aerial image of a thickly forested hillside in Rochester, the last rays of daylight irradiate bare white trees, turning them into specters against deepening shadows. Spruce trees toward the top of the frame maintain the promise of green.
A recent non-landscape photo could be a master class in the dramatic potential of black, white and grays. From his standing height, Rogers aims his lens down on two pugs in spider costumes and the legs of their respective humans. Strong lines crisscross the image: sidewalk cracks, leashes, a splintered shadow angling from top to bottom of the picture. The stout little dogs face away, seemingly indifferent to their arachnid disguises.
On Rogers’ website, the Stick Season Gallery is one of many, reflecting his decades of freelance photography for commercial, editorial and documentary ends. After graduating from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology, he returned to Stowe to work for a camera shop and lab. During a stint living in Elmore, Rogers rented from actor-writer-musician Rusty DeWees and ultimately became his official photographer. Dozens of DeWees’ formal and informal portraits populate their own gallery on the website.
Rogers has traveled abroad, including to China and Southeast Asia, to shoot for clients such as Country Walkers and Mission Without Borders. Back in Vermont, he continues to locate the contours of home. And sometimes he locates himself, allowing his own shadow into the picture. “It’s about my journey, too,” he said.
