HOULTON, Maine — The Houlton Rotary Club met for its luncheon meeting Monday, Sept. 17, with Christopher Mills serving as the guest speaker.
The guest of Rotarian Carlie Woodworth, Mills shared his journey in learning photography. He grew up in the automotive industry, working for his father Dwight Mills at Northland Motors. Mills also competed in snow sled races around the state. He now is married and has a 7-year-old daughter.
When Mills began taking her baby pictures he decided at some point that he needed to understand his camera better so he set out to learn about the settings. He is basically self taught using Youtube and Google instructions. When he began to share some of his work on Facebook he was pleasantly surprised how many people knew where he had taken a photo, even when he did not necessarily identify the location. Many stories have been shared as his photographs have reached people across the country and folks have responded with personal stories about a specific location that meant something in their lives. Consequently his photos have been sold to many of these folks.
He often photographs places in Aroostook County, Lubec and Acadia. Mills discovered that taking photos at night gives him many artistic opportunities. Planets, the Milky Way, the Big Dipper and the Northern Lights play into many of his photographs. Mills shared three issues of the Our Maine Streets, Aroostook magazine that have his photographs on the cover and he has also published a calendar that was printed by Aroostook Print Shop in Houlton. The local hospital uses some of his work to attract doctors and nurses to the area. Mills entered a photograph in the Outdoor Photo Magazine contest and won. He wrote a 500 word essay about his Acadia photo that has been published in the Acadia National Park Magazine.
His Facebook page has reached 30,000 followers in 28 days. Mills uses a technique called stacking to capture the different lighting in a scene. He takes multiple shots of a scene and then works on his computer to manipulate the photos to find the most effective lighting. Mills said that his most important tool is his eyes. A saying goes that sight is a sense and seeing is an art. Mills vision creates wonderful works of art in photography that reach many people. His website is www.christopheramillsphotography.com.
Clarissa Sabattis, tribal chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, was recently inducted as a new member of the Houlton Rotary Club. With Sabattis is Rotarian Leigh Cummings. (Contributed)
