Manchester Village Historic District

Author's Comments

The marble is what stays with me. Not the houses, though the houses are genuine and the Equinox is everything a grand resort should be. It is the sidewalks. They were laid in the nineteenth century from quarries just up the road, and they have weathered into something soft and luminous that no concrete can imitate. In late afternoon, when the sun is dropping behind Mount Equinox and the light comes in low and sideways, those slabs go almost pearlescent. They hold the light in a way that ordinary stone does not. I tend to work the village in October, when the maples along Route 7A are fully turned and the white clapboard of the Federal homes reads cleanly against the color. The mountain behind everything gives the streetscape a depth that flat villages lack. You frame a doorway and there is a peak in the background, and the photograph becomes about scale rather than detail. The trick here is to slow down. Most visitors walk the length of the historic district in fifteen minutes and miss what the place is actually offering. The marble shows its grain when you crouch to it. The columns of the Equinox catch shadow differently as the afternoon moves. A wide shot of the village with Equinox rising behind is the obvious image and worth making, but the photograph I keep returning for is tighter - a section of marble walkway, a wrought iron railing, a slice of mountain visible between two rooflines. The village layers if you let it. If it has rained, watch your footing. The marble turns to ice underfoot, and that same quality that makes it photograph beautifully will put you on the ground.

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