"Town Meeting: Democracy By The People" is the result of visits to seven different town meetings across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and about a dozen interviews with people involved in all aspects of the town meeting. Also playing a part in the production of this story are observations that I had made of countless town meetings I covered while working as a newspaper photographer.

Originally I had planned to do this story in the form of a photo essay, a series of photos with expanded captions, on town meetings that are still held in old town hall buildings. By the time that I started the photographic phase of the project, I had changed my mind and decided to do a written story on town meetings as well. In order to let the readers know how a town meeting works and why it is different than other forms of government, I needed to go well beyond what the expanded photo caption could offer. I’m glad that I decided to do this because in the course of doing the story I got to talk with some very knowledgeable people who have very strong feelings for the town meeting form of government.

Giving some background on the history and origins of the town meeting is an aspect of this story that definitely needed to be told in words. Prof. Frank M. Bryan of the University of Vermont, and Prof. Joseph F. Zimmerman of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the State University of New York at Albany both provided invaluable and hard to find information on this aspect of the story. They also told me a great deal about what makes a town meeting tick and why they are such an important, yet little studied form of government. Both of them have written books on the subject, which can be found in the source section of this story. Prof. Zimmerman’s book is currently available and Prof. Bryan’s will be out at the end of the year.

The persons interviewed for this story provided unique insight into town meetings that would have left gaps in the story had they not to taken the time to talk with me. All of those mentioned in the story, excepting Prof. Zimmerman and Prof. Bryan, were at town meetings that I attended. Some of them I photographed or met while at their town meeting, others I looked up and contacted once the interview process started. I tried to talk with one or two people involved in the most obvious aspects of a town meeting i.e. participants, moderators and selectman. Professor Zimmerman and Bryan provided the information and expertise that rounded this out.

In order to add some extra flavor to the story, I took written notes during the meetings and made taped notes aftewards of observations I made while at the meetings. These observations included some of the various things that happen during these meetings and individual characteristics of each town meeting and the town hall buildings and their surroundings. I can’t place enough emphasis on the importance of a tape recorder for doing stories like this. Trying to remember observations that come to mind while driving is next to impossible, and writing down notes in a car is difficult and dangerous; so I keep a tape recorder in the car at all times for this purpose. After a few days of note taking I switch tapes in the recorder, then type out all of the notes that I’ve taken and file them away for reference once I start writing the story.

As I’ve already mentioned, I originally planned to do this story as a photo essay about town meetings held in old town meeting halls and houses. I found the town halls that I covered in this story through a variety of means. I first saw the Calais Town Hall while driving through the area, working on a story about hunters that will be appearing in Photojournalistas.com soon, and recorded where it was so that could return there when town meeting season came around. I found the Unity Town Hall in New Hampshire while working on the same story. I was very impressed with the exterior of this building, so I decided to put this on this list of town meetings to visit. I had been to the Groton Town House twice to cover town meetings during my newspaper days, and decided to make a quick visit there as well. Coverage of Granville, Vermont, Danbury, New Hampshire and Ellsworth, New Hampshire town meetings was all the result of looking up time meeting schedules in local papers, then finding out which towns still used their town hall building.

The Ellsworth Town Hall was the most unique town hall I visited. After finding out where it was located, I drove out to it before the town meeting to see what it looked like. The small size of the building and old wooden school desks inside convinced me that they must hold the meeting somewhere else, but fortunately I was wrong. Besides the school desks, this place has a wood burning stove, blackboards and a lot of old prints on the walls. It was also a pleasant surprise because Ellsworth is not that far from where I live, yet I had never heard about their town hall.

Inside the buildings, I found that the two primary lenses that I use, a 17-35 and 80-200, were quite sufficient. I used either 400 or 800 speed film for all of the photos because, with the exception of the Unity Town Hall, these buildings were not brightly lit. I used shutter speeds that are a little slower than I usually use, 1/30 of sec or slower, and tried not to use any flash if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. For instance, most of what I shot in Calais Town Hall was either 1/60 or 1/30 sec @ f/2.8, and I never even considered using flash. In the Danbury Town Hall, however, the light fell just a little below the comfort level. With 800 speed film, the shutter need was still about 1/15 sec at f/2.8 in the best spots, and darker in others. I needed to use an 80-200 for many of the shots that I wanted, and although I can shoot hand held with this lens at 1/15 sec, I chose to use flash because interior lights were very harsh in spots. I bounced the flash off from opposite or side walls to soften it and minimize the shadow created by it. I was pretty happy with the results.

The Westport Town Hall fell right between the levels in the Calais and Danbury Town Halls. I considered using 800 speed film, but ultimately decided to use 400 speed with shutter speeds of 1/15 sec in most instances. I knew that would probably lose a few of the shots that I made with the 80-200 lens, but felt that the tradeoff would be worth it. The light was very soft and pleasing in this town hall, and since I already had several good shots from other town halls, I was willing to take the chance of losing a few good shots. I did use flash a couple of times to fill in shadows, but I tried to use it as little as possible because I feel that this draws people’s attention toward me.

One problem with doing a story on town meetings is that many of them are on the same day, especially in Vermont, where there are very few that are not on the first Tuesday in March. This prevented me from getting to many of the town meetings that I would like to have covered. Photographically, I will most likely continue to work on this project. Every one of these halls has its own character and characters, and capturing that in photos is something I thoroughly enjoy.