Spectacle Box proudly presents A Changing Nature: Landscapes by Four Maine Photographers, at it’s pop-up gallery in Wilton, Maine.

The exhibit wends through notions of photographic landscape as exemplified by the work of photographers Andrew D. McClees, Kat Miller, Donald Peterson, and Sean Thomas. It is curated by Michael N. Meyer. McClees, Miller, Peterson, and Thomas each walks a different path through the length and breadth of the physical and photographic scenes before them. A Changing Nature limns the aesthetic and conceptual traces linking their varied approaches to one another and to broader traditions of landscape photography.

In Flower Gaiden, Andrew C. McClees focuses on small moments that form a meditation on both this environment and the feelings and understanding the artist found within himself. He presents the viewer with small glimpses of beauty pulled from the highly urbanized environment of Tokyo, In this work McClees explores personal resilience and interiority. While his meditations are idiosyncratic to himself, through his images others may find the beauty in these flora, these spaces, and these buildings, and be inspired to find their own small meditative moments. The title “Flower Gaiden” both addresses his primary subject (Flowers), and also the circumstances underwhich the work was made. A gaiden is a side story, a supplement to a longer or more major body of work; its insights can be just as informative as the longer epics that they exist between.

Kat Miller’s images of the land act as portals into the quiet, enduring connection we all share with what came before us. Creating these photographs allows her to slow down and immerse herself in her fascination with the countless worlds that have existed before hers and that still hum beneath the surface of the present. Through her gaze, Miller collaborates with small moments of discovery, finding echoes of our inherent connection and spiritual relation to the earth. Each of her images is a gesture toward the sublime, honoring those who first cared for this land with deep attention and reverence.

Bethel, Maine is a place that Sean Thomas has been visiting since he was a child. During a recent creative slouch, Bethel served as a bleak backdrop that rejuvenated his photographic engagement with the medium,. In this work, Thomas returned to the root question of photography, seeking out the qualities and moments that bind us to the places and spaces in which we live.

Donald Peterson seeks out the interplay of color, light, and shadow. In an orchard not far from his home in Falmouth he has found a rich vein of photographic inquiry. Working with his camera’s internal double exposure feature, Peterson creates layered compositions that float in a pearlescent ground. The orchard’s trees intertwine with themselves, created new compositional thickets.

As one moves among these photographs, one can trace pathways of connection between their compositions: the placement of curves, the push and pull between background and foreground, the quiet insistence of color, and the textures of surfaces. One might further trace their lineages among their photographic predecessors and contemporaries: the expansive negative space of Henry Callahan, the searing light of Robert Adams, the quirky anomalies of Ed Panar, or the dense fields of Osamu Kanemura.

Andrew D. McClees

Andrew D. McClees is a photographer and writer hailing from Lewiston, Maine. His core lines of artistic inquiry are reflection, alienation,and liminality borne of his desire to portray his personal world. He recieved a BFA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from the Hartford Art School. He ran the DIY Photo Portal wastelandbooks until 2024, and is currently working on his debut monograph, AVALANCHE, due out in 2026/27 with Deadbeat Club.

In these small glimpses of beauty in the highly urbanized environment of Tokyo, McClees explores personal resilience and interiority. Flower Gaiden focuses on small moments that form a meditation on both this environment and the feelings and understanding the artist found with- in himself. While his meditations are idiosyncratic to himself, through his himages others may find the beauty in these flora, these spaces, and these buildings, and be inspired to find their own small meditative moments. The title “Flower Gaiden” both addresses my primary subject (Flowers), and also the circumstances underwhich the work was made. A gaiden is a side story, a supplement to a longer or more major body of work; its insights can be just as informative as the longer epics that they exist between. Flower Gaidan was shortlisted the the Urbanautica Institute Award in 2024.

Kat Miller

Kat Miller (b. 1997) is a photographer based in Portland, Maine, working primarily with a 4x5 view camera to explore themes of spirituality, connection, and mystical realism. Her images are shaped by a personal investigation of faith and energy, creating intimate visual narratives. She earned her BFA from the Maine College of Art and Design in 2019. Her work has been exhibited locally at Creative Portland and The Photo Bakery, as well as internationally in Girls Uninterrupted at Creative Debuts in London. In 2023, Miller became a co-founder and co-director of 82Parris: Gallery, a space dedicated to supporting and showcasing emerging to mid-career artists.

Miller’s images of the land act as portals into the quiet, enduring connection we all share with what came before us. Creating these photo- graphs allows her to slow down and immerse herself in her fascination with the countless worlds that have existed before hers and that still hum beneath the surface of the present.

Through her gaze, she collaborates with small moments of discovery, finding echoes of our inherent connection and spiritual relation to the earth. Each image of her images is a gesture toward the sublime, honoring those who first cared for this land with deep attention and reverence.

Donald Peterson

Don Peterson is a photographer and mixed-media artist. His father, an accomplished watercolorist and commercial artist, first taught him how to look and see through the lens, introducing him to composition and the interplay of color, light and shadow.

He is active with the SEVEN Artists Collective and the Bakery Photo Collective, and lives on the coast of Maine, a place of amazing beauty and stark contradiction: always changing yet ever steady and inspirational.

Sean Thomas

Sean Thomas is constantly asking himself what medium tells the story? Is it capturing the perfect moment in a photograph? Hearing the story from those who live it? Finding an intersection of the two?

Bethel Maine is a place that Thomas has been visiting since he was a child. During a recent creative slouch, Bethel served as a bleak backdrop that got his gears moving to again find what has always interested him about the places and spaces that we live in.