Way back in October 2004, I started a blog called the Mindreader.  That name made plenty of sense when all the blog contained were words; however, a little enterprise called Burrill Strong Photography has since caused my time to be occupied by thousands of pictures, and the content of the blog has reflected that change.  Because I now post far more pictures than words, it occurred to me the Mindreader name might be approaching retirement age, and I started to ponder a more pertinent replacement.

If you’re like me and you can only vaguely remember the idyllic notion of 20/20 vision, you have an important notation on your drivers license: “Corrective Lens.”  It’s just a fancy way of saying your eyesight genes hate you and so you wear glasses or contacts in order to tell whether that object in the other lane is a car with a burned-out headlight or an anglerfish.  For some odd reason, that fancy phrase wandered into my mind as I was pondering a new name for this blog, and before long it morphed into the new name: the Connective Lens.

I settled on the Connective Lens because it expresses what my photography work has done for my interaction with the community of Chelsea.  My circulating through Chelsea and shooting such a wide variety of events — from sports to the arts to events like the Christmas tree lighting — has made me much more a part of this community than I was before I became Burrill Strong Photography; through my photography work, I get to see so many different pieces of Chelsea and interact with so many different people in Chelsea, and that has given me a greater appreciation of — and connection to — my hometown.

As well, the Connective Lens expresses what I hope my work accomplishes within the Chelsea community.  Many of the events I shoot end up with half- or full-page photo spreads in the Chelsea Standard, and it’s my hope that those spreads not only shed light on all the community’s varied elements, but also help serve as a connection among all those elements.  Sports, the arts and holiday celebrations can be disparate, but they’ve all traveled through my lens to the attention of the community by way of the newspaper and this blog; those who wouldn’t normally show up to a play, a hockey game or a Christmas tree lighting ceremony have gotten to see all those and more in the pages of the Chelsea Standard and in the posts of this blog.

So, whether or not this blog ever gains a significant and consistent Chelsea readership, many of the images posted herein represent not only my contribution to my community, but also my community’s contribution to me.  And that’s why it’s called the Connective Lens.

(Fun trivia: the very first Mindreader post was titled “The Downward Spiral of Conformity, or: Everyone Else Has One, So I’ll Have One Too!”)