Christopher Lewis sees the extraordinary in the ordinary, from a house with a crooked shutter to an old barn behind a stonewall. He captures the scenes through the lens of his Nikon D750 camera.
“I love finding the beauty in things people drive by every day, finding the beauty in the ordinary,” Lewis, 29, said during an interview at a table outside Terra Cafe on Main Street in Monroe one recent afternoon. “I’m able to show what I feel through photos instead of words.”
Lewis, a Monroe, Conn., native and Masuk High School alumnus, favors landscapes, especially in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
“My passion is capturing the essence of life in New England,” he said. “It’s a very specific niche and I still daydream about moving to northern New England and opening a gallery. But the older I get, the more I realize Monroe is home and I wouldn’t want to move there full time.”
The Lewis family has deep roots in Monroe. Christopher’s grandfather, Robert Lewis, was the first selectman in the 1950s, as well as a road foreman and chief of the Stepney Volunteer Fire Department.
“When he was chief, he was the youngest in the nation from what I understand,” Lewis said. “My family is ingrained in the town.”
“I love northern New England. New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont are my favorite places. I don’t want to lose the magic,” Lewis said. “When I go, I feel like I’m 10 years old again and it literally puts life into me.”
Lewis has fond memories of family vacations at these locales.
“We wouldn’t go to tourist spots,” he said. “We’d go way off the beaten path. We’d go to fishing villages on the coast of Maine in the wintertime. Maine is such a rugged place to begin with. When you see it in the wintertime, it gives it personality. It makes you respect it.”
A career in photography
Since graduating from Masuk in 2014, Lewis has been working at his father’s business, Heath Water Systems, which specializes in wells, handling everything from well pumps to filtering water.
Lewis also works at Benedict’s Home & Garden in Monroe one day a week.
On Jan. 1 of this year, he started a photography business, Into the Wild New England, to see if it’s something he wants to pursue.
“It’s a hobby that I turned into a business venture,” Lewis said. “I do portraits, headshots, engagement photos and family photos. I like to incorporate my love of the outdoors in all my photos with pictures by a lake, in a field, in the woods … a snowstorm — and the sun does the work.”
Customers can see his work and inquire about quotes on Into the Wild New England’s website and see more of Lewis’ work by following him on Instagram.
Lewis has also been hired by landscaping companies to take photos of their work.
“I’ll take pictures of anything except weddings,” he said.
‘Feel the light’
Lewis’ earliest memory of taking photos was picking up a disposable Kodak camera at age 8.
“I loved it right away,” he said. “A lot of it was self-taught, going to beautiful places. But I have to give a shoutout to the Masuk photography program with Mr. C.”
What Lewis remembers most is a sign in Anthony Cianciolo Sr.’s classroom, written in film canisters: “Feel the light.”
“I open my camera bag and say, ‘feel the light,'” Lewis said. “He would drill that. I have a little note in my bag as a reminder. Sometimes when I’m not getting that shot, I have to go back to basics and say, ‘feel the light.”
Early in September, Lewis displayed his work in a booth at St. Peter’s Grace Episcopal Church’s annual Apple Festival.
“It was the first time I ever did a show of any kind,” he said, “and it was a great success.”
Over the two days, Lewis said he must have sold around 100 pictures.
“It’s so hard to put into words,” he said. “I love what I do so much. The fact that people are willing to spend their own money on my work is such an awesome feeling. It will never get old.”
But Lewis said the connections he made with people was what he enjoyed most of all.
“They would just talk about their own travels in New England,” he said. “My greatest compliment was when someone said, ‘you captured a feeling.’ It’s so much about being in the right place at the right time.”
Whenever someone asks him about a photo, Lewis said he is able to relive the moment he took it, which is a story in itself.
“For me, it’s capturing a moment,” he said. “It’s my passion in life to show the essence and nostalgia of New England and on top of that, going to wild places in New England. When it’s boundless wilderness, it gives me life.”
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