Photographing The Ohio and Erie Canal

While driving around near a small ski area in Ohio (yes, they have ski areas in Ohio) my wife and I saw this structure that looked like it was built of a combination of concrete and stone. We pulled over to take a look at it and found out that it was a canal lock. The first thought that went through my head was what is a canal lock doing near a ski area. I had lived in Ohio for only about a year at that time and I didn't have a clue that a major canal system had once run through the state. That brief thought eventually led to this photo essay, which is an ongoing project. I was studying photojournalism at the time at nearby Kent State University, but I have also always been interested in history. A project on the Ohio & Erie Canal seemed like a good marriage of the two. When I got the chance I would go out and find some part of the canal that I hadn't been to before and try to find out more about it. Eventually I moved back to New England, causing work to stall on this project. I started it up again in 2000 and have been trying to get out to Ohio at least once a year to do a little more work on it each time. The canal was 308 miles long, so there are lots of new things to find on it every time that I go there.

Doing a project like this does require some research. Finding out where some of the interesting locks, towpaths and canal related tourist areas are is relatively easy, especially now. Much of the section between Akron and Cleveland has been cleared and redeveloped over the past ten years, making a trek along this section of canal much easier. Other parts are not so easy to find. This means you have to do a little bit of homework. I bought what few books I could find on subject and was able to find out a few things that probably aren't common knowledge. This helped a lot, but a big breakthrough was finding plat maps of the canal that the State of Ohio makes available on the internet. These maps are extremely detailed and because of that there are about 200 maps in total. The maps were made around the start of the 20th century so they have an old look to them.

The equipment that I used to shoot the essay has changed quite a bit from the start. The Nikon FA bodies that I used are now all broken and gathering dust. One lens got stolen during a presidential campaign in New Hampshire and another one gathers dust with the camera bodies. The FA was a great camera, way ahead of its time, and I used them well after I should have moved on to an F-4 or N-90. The great thing about this kind of project is that it doesn't really require any exotic equipment. The best pieces of equipment for something like this are your interest and imagination.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/water/canals/oeplats.htm