Lunenburg County

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

As I am from Lunenburg County, I approached this photo album with
considerable anticipation—and was immediately delighted. Wonderful
photos, and lots of them. Great shots of the river I lived beside, of
the beach I vacationed at, of sunsets that went on forever. Then
disappointment set in. Here’s a collection of more than one hundred
intense, full-color photos taken in my “back yard” that leaves me
feeling like a tourist.

The sunsets glow, the surf crashes, the spring flowers stir on the
forest floor, the gnarled old hands patiently work at their craft. . . .
Yes, Lunenburg County on Nova Scotia’s South Shore is beautiful. It
does have lovely, white church steeples, picturesque bays with tranquil
sails shining in the moonlight, and still waters perfect for reflecting
painted hulls. Yet the real Lunenburg County—its essence—is missing
from this book. True, there’s a photo of the Bluenose II, several of
the famous oxen, and even a shot of a house with a “Lunenburg
bump”—evidence that the photographer was there in body, if not in
spirit.

James’s photos are impressive. They’re unquestionably professional
in every mechanical detail: composition, lighting, saturation, cropping.
As a technician, he cannot be faulted. He’s a master at portraying and
illustrating. He recognizes pretty/quaint/dramatic
scenes/reflections/sunsets like the pro he is. Occasionally he even
conveys a mood. But he stops short of achieving photographic art, and he
hasn’t “found” his subject. Lunenburg County has sunsets. It is
not a sunset. It has mossy glens, lobster traps stacked in the sun,
weathered outbuildings, old-time fiddlers. But it is not a series of
tourist-bureau postcards.

Every tourist should have a copy.