Featured in F-Stop Magazine’s Black and White Issue

Delighted to be in excellent company. View the full exhibition.

John Nordell blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

Tweet

Finding Something I Wasn't Looking For

Brunswick, Maine - I approached a welcoming group of hard-hatted workers building a bridge over the Androscoggin River and explained that for a project I needed an image to portray trade unions. “Do you have anything that represents unions on your hard hats?” They explained that they were not union members. Oops.

Shifting gears, I thought of The Vermont Center for Photography’s call for entries and asked if I could just photograph them at work. (Deadline is 12/31/25 if you want to submit.)  

We’re looking for images that grapple with the present: portraits about work, identity, and power; scenes at borders and in neighborhoods; landscapes marked by climate, extraction, or recovery; the built systems—water, housing, transit—that shape daily life; moments of protest and civic care; and conceptual work that questions evidence, authorship, or memory.

They all grabbed tools and pantomimed working.

Their boss, Tafarri Edwards, finished a phone call, joined the fun, and agreed to an impromptu portrait session.

I then headed upstream and walked across a pedestrian suspension bridge formerly used as a safe and convenient way for Topsham residents to get to work at the river-hugging Brunswick mills.

Love the way the swirling industrious ducks echo the motion of the tool-wielding workers.

I created this multiple exposure of shattered ice at the river’s frozen edge. When the image emerged on my camera’s screen, delight filled me as the creation evoked the multilayered abstractions of painter Kevin Xiques.  

Now I need to find a union shop.

John Nordell blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

Tweet

Intentionally Delaying Gratification - Shooting Flm Defies Digital Immediacy

Imagine taking pictures and not seeing them for two months. Really. Think about that.

I started this roll of film towards the end of August, shot the last frames in early October, and received the processed film and scans towards the end of October.

Pre-Sunrise

Compounding the anticipation was shooting with a cheap Holga film camera. The plastic lens and minimal setting controls make for uncertainty as to whether the images will even come out!

While the intentional sideways camera movement with a slow shutter created the pleasing scene above, unwanted blur with other frames rendered them unusable

Sunrise

I love the way the distortion and flare of the plastic lens creates an iris-like effect.

When snapping the shutter last August, I had no idea that my lo-fi gear would capture this magnificence.

Definitely worth the wait.

Tweet

Dusting Off my Photojournalistic Skills by Documenting U.S. Senate Candidate Graham Platner's Town Hall in Brunswick, Maine

 Freed from the rigors of full-time teaching, I had time to cover an event as a photojournalist.

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Graham Platner waves to supporters as he arrives for a Town Hall on The Town Mall, in Brunswick, Maine, 10/2/25. Gesturing at far left is ASL interpreter Maegan Walden

Photojournalism formed the taproot of my photography career. However, the years since in academia led to experimentation which resulted in abstraction.

U.S. Senate Candidate Graham Platner speaks to his supporters.

I was delighted that my documentary muscle memory returned while covering the town hall as I endeavored to paint a complete picture of the goings-on.

Platner campaign volunteer Zelda Anesko hands out volunteer sign-up forms.

How do you make photographic sense out of a sprawling event like this? 

For one thing, I noticed the setting sun glancing off volunteer Zelda Anesko's face and followed her progress through the crowd to capture this moment.

Waiting for the candidate to arrive.

Serendipity became beauty as randomly snapping the shutter to test a lens created this image, one of my favorites from the event.

Handing out lawn signs and buttons, along with collecting volunteer information.

I worked the angles and light capturing the story of activity, inspired by veteran journalist Pete Hamill's book, News is a Verb.

U.S. Senate Candidate Graham Platner reads his stump speech.

It was fun clambering around the stage like old times. My camera a passport to vantage points.

ASL interpreter Maegan Walden at Graham Platner's Town Hall. A freelancer hired by the campaign, she honors Platner for specifically requesting disability access for the event.

Working the light.

Platner kisses his wife Amy Gertner after completing his speech.

In regular life, I normally fear the judgment of others. Does the person tailgating my car actually dislike me for not going fast enough?

However, I felt totally comfortable sitting on the floor of the stage, waiting for a special moment.

Platner listens to a question from a supporter.

Platner reacts to a question from a supporter.

The event occurred early in Platner's quest to unseat Republican Susan Collins and thus the national media swarm was absent. Therefore, I could pick my perches without competition.

John Nordell blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

Tweet

"Steam and Birds", My Experimental Film Image, Selected for the Somerville Toy Camera Festival

On view from September 6 - 27, 2025 at The Washington Street Gallery, 321-D Washington Street, Somerville, MA 02143 Parking details here.

Regular hours: Saturdays 12-4 pm

Opening reception: Saturday, September 6th from 7-9 pm

Steam and Birds

If you are curious about how I created this image, you can find the full story here.

John Nordell blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

Tweet

Words on Art on Words

Participating in a weekly evolving call and response art exhibition at The Lava Center in Greenfield, MA spurred me to new creative heights.  

From the exhibit's call for art and writing.

As artists, we are creatively stirred by the world around us. We create in response to what we experience, both our lived realities and the works of other artists. In the Words on Art on Words installation, we will observe this responsiveness in real time. Each week, at least 4 new visual or written pieces will be added to the installation wall. The only rule is that visual artists must create in response to an already-displayed piece of writing, and writers must create in response to an already-displayed piece of visual art.

Click to join the fun!

Delivering my piece Elements, created in response to Amie Hyson's poem Choose Not to be Moved

Elements

Choose Not to be Moved by Amie Hyson

Explaining to fellow exhibiting artist Collin Ricketts how the background image is a double exposure of clouds and sun overlaid with a masked image of plants and stone.

Showtime

John Nordell blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

Tweet

On Finding Raw Material: Feeding My Multiple Exposure Practice

After a delightful dinner watching the world go by on a lovely spring evening from my front row seat on Newbury Street, I strolled around the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston.

The mysterious funk of this alley prompted me to retrieve my car-bound Nikon mirrorless camera. The view, devoid of nearby shiny modern buildings, felt pregnant with with old-time story and possibility.

Graphically complex scenes like this lure me to capture them with multiple exposures. I snap a frame to check exposure and start the mental calibration of how many exposures might look good.

Like a painter making a sketch before the squeezing paint, I capture a single image of the visual raw material to ready myself for multiple exposure show time.

Around the corner and down Boylston Street, the facade of Dick's House of Sport sported bands of color. I layered exposures of the strips, striving for a Piet Mondrian look and feel.

Satisfied with the above work, I after the fact captured the raw material.

Blaring sirens clued an approaching fire engine. I instinctively crouched down (safely between two parked cars), spun the dial for a slow shutter speed of 1.6 seconds and captured the blur of the passing light festooned vehicle. Hope all were safe.

These outdoor seating restaurant lights proved to be grist for my blending mill.

However, forgetting I had programmed in a slow shutter speed, when I turned my camera upside down for exposures four, five and six, I unintentionally and delightedly created dynamic blurs of light.

Earlier in my explorations, this epigraph that adorns The Boston Public Library's McKim building stopped me in my tracks.

THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD OF ORDER AND LIBERTY 

Pondering cuts to education and the federally mandated narrowed scope of allowable classroom topics, I struggled to make the profound words legible in a single image.

I am not completely satisfied with this layering of library images as it feels repetitive and derivative of  prior work. However, perhaps it clearly represents struggle and dissatisfaction. Order and Liberty indeed.

John Nordell is a photographer, educator and curator. He blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

Tweet