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

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