by George Cassidy Payne
When I was commissioned by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to write about Hemlock Lake for next summer’s edition of The Conservationist, I knew I would need photographs.
I knew who I wanted.
John Washnis was once my student at Finger Lakes Community College. Today, he is a photographer (among other things) whose work I have followed with admiration. His eye for both landscape and detail made him an obvious choice for this assignment.
John’s drone photography is what first came to mind.
I’ve seen him photograph landscapes from above in ways that completely change their character. A road, a shoreline, a stand of trees or a body of water can look entirely different from the air. His photographs have a sense of scale without losing the details that make a particular place recognizable.
Hemlock Lake gives him plenty to work with.
The lake is one of the more familiar landscapes in the region, but its history is considerably less visible.
The forests surrounding Hemlock Lake once supported a substantial timber industry. Trees were cut and transported by water and over the ice during winter. Near the lake’s outlet, a settlement became known as Slab City, a reference to the rough wooden structures made from leftover pieces of lumber.
The lake eventually entered another chapter.
Hotels, cottages and steamboats brought visitors to its shores. Hemlock became a summer destination, part of the recreational life that developed around so many Finger Lakes communities.
Then its role changed again.
Hemlock Lake became part of Rochester’s drinking-water system.
Today, standing beside the lake, it can be difficult to see all of those earlier chapters. There is the water, the shoreline, the woods and the roads leading toward it. Much of the history is no longer immediately visible.
That is part of what I want the article to explore. And it is part of why I wanted John behind the camera. The story isn’t just about a body of water. It is about the people who worked around it, traveled across it, vacationed beside it and eventually depended on it for something as basic as drinking water. John’s photographs can help show some of those layers. There is also a personal pleasure in working with him.
I first knew John in a classroom. Years later, I encountered his photography and began to see a different side of someone I had known as a student.
That transition is one of the unexpected rewards of teaching. You occasionally get to watch people you once taught develop lives and careers of their own.
John has certainly done that.
