Weather or not Belfast photographer captures the emotion of Maine’s fickle climate

Photographer Neal Parent thrives on nasty weather.

Give him a raging blizzard whipping snow through the woods, a pitching deck on a stormy sea, a foggy morning on a craggy coast, or a summer gale with slanting rain and Parent’s at home in his element. As the song says, the sunshine bores the daylights out of him.

“I like the emotion of a storm. I like inclement weather because it’s more dramatic. It makes for unusual lighting, especially with black and white photography,” says the Belfast photographer. “That kind of weather evokes the emotion within the photographer and the end result comes out in the image. Blue skies are nice for mowing the lawn, but not for taking photographs.”

Parent has been taking award-winning photographs in all kinds of weather for nearly three decades. His images hang in fine arts galleries across the country and grace corporate boardrooms and estates. He has published three books of photographs during his distinguished career, the most recent “Focused on the Coast: The Photographic Work of Neal Parent” published last month by WoodenBoat Books.

“Focused on the Coast” presents Parent’s stark black and white pictures at their best. They cover the period of 1975-2001 and more than 90 percent have Maine subjects, all dealing with coastal themes.

Schooners sweeping across Penobscot Bay, a storm-tossed dragger, its deck thick with cod, a snow-wrapped home under the glow of the moon, a lighthouse in the fog, a mother and child. The 12-inch-by-12-inch format brings to mind the work of Ansel Adams, a Parent fan who commended him on his work years ago.

“I found your images to be a fine interpretation of the ‘Maine Scene,'” Adams wrote Parent. “I have photographed there many years ago, and know how very difficult it is to capture the very essence of Maine.”

It is that lure of the Maine scene and its coastline that tugs at Parent daily. From his Parent Gallery at the corner of High and Main streets in Belfast, Parent is ever watchful for an opportunity to shut the latch, grab his trusty 35-millimeter Canon and head into the wind.

A few weeks ago, when the season’s first nor’easter stuck the midcoast with pounding tides and icy spray, Parent could be found along the Belfast waterfront snapping photographs while the storm howled about him. Hardly dressed for the weather, he nonetheless remained locked in on his subjects, the wind lashing him with rain while the surf spilled over his boots.

“There’s nothing like the power and emotion of a storm,” he muses. “I really love to be out at sea on a day like this. I love it when you’re out on a boat when it’s blowing and you’re heeled over and we’re just screaming along. Believe me, it’s a lot more exciting than a nice, comfortable day.”

Parent began as an illustrator with the Orleans Oracle in his Cape Cod hometown. It was while on a camping trip to Mt. Katahdin with his wife, Linda, in 1975 that they stopped in Camden on the way home and he got his first look at the Maine coast. He also picked up the local paper and learned that the Camden Herald was looking for a darkroom technician. He decided to apply, got the job and dove headfirst into the world of a small town weekly. It wasn’t long before he was asked to go out and take some photos himself. One thing led to another and he soon was promoted to staff photographer. He went on to win scores of awards for his newspaper photos of Camden and the Maine coast.

Many of Parent’s images, which appeared during those years at the Camden Herald were included in his first book, “My Corner of Maine,” published in 1982 by Down East Books. A second Down East book, “Neal Parent’s Maine” was published in 1989. Parent said he recently came across a signed copy of “My Corner of Maine” on a Web site with a price tag of $350. It cost $10 new.

Parent’s talents in the darkroom are legendary. He continues to print his large 30-by-40-inch prints from 35-mm negatives, rather than upgrade to a larger format that would make reproduction in the darkroom much easier.

“I’m a firm believer that a camera is your canvas. Just like an artist, we sketch into it with the camera and do the finished ‘painting’ in the dark room,” he says.

Since leaving the Camden Herald in 1982, Parent has taught photography at the Belfast Center and each summer aboard the schooner Angelique. Until he opened his Belfast gallery a year ago, he had devoted as many as 40 weekends a year on the photography show circuit from Maine to Key West. His reputation has grown to the point that when L.L. Bean was booking photographers for a wildlife show this spring, it selected Parent to represent Maine in black and white. Patrons snapped up copies of “Focused on the Coast” as fast as Parent could sign them.

“Of course it floored me that they even knew I was alive,” the photographer marvels, recalling the call from L.L. Bean.

Today, Parent has his own gallery, a Web site, nealparent.com and no longer feels compelled to make those winter runs to the photo shows in Florida. Through it all, though, he remains committed to capturing the feel and texture of a blustery Maine day or bone-chilling night on Tri-X black and white film.

“Black and white has been very good to me,” he reflects. “It makes for unusual lighting. It puts emotion into the photograph that you can’t get with color. The end result of that emotion comes through in the image. It sets a mood that suits me.”