awards & reviews

  

Awards (scroll down for reviews and feature articles):

Television Appearances:

  • New Hampshire Chronicle on WMUR Channel 9 in Manchester, New Hampshire.
    From the promo: How many have dreamed of turning a hobby into a job? Well Paul Wainwright of Atkinson has a PhD in physics from Yale and at age 51 took a leap of faith after the troubled economy left him without a job. Wainwright turned his love for black and white photography into a new career. Jennifer Crompton met with him recently and takes us inside the pages of his new book "A Space for Faith - The Colonial Meetinghouses of New England"
    Watch the Show (about 7 minutes)

  • 207 on WCSH Channel 6 in Portland, Maine.
    Watch on their web site

Reviews (scroll down for feature articles):

  • The Daughters of the American Revolution's American Spirit Magazine ran a nice review of my book in their July/August 2011 issue.

    "Paul Wainwright's haunting black-and-white images evoke a sense of how central these simple buildings were to the inhabitants of scattered [New England] villages and even larger towns and cities. They were physical manifistations of the spiritual, communal, and political heart of each community."
    - Bill Hudgins, DAR's American Spirit Magazine

    The entire review may be seen Here (1 Mb PDF file).

  • The Congregationalist, December, 2010 The Congregationalist, December, 2010
    "If Wainwright's concern with form and structure stands out plainly in the photographs, it is not to obscure, but rather to bring out, the emotional resonance of the subject matter.... [The photographs] provide a sense, not only of the people who used them through the long ages of worship and civic life, but also to the variety of ornaments and styles available within a common pattern of construction."
    - Larry Sommers, Editor, The Congregationalist
    View Article

  • Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, December 5, 2010 Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, December 5, 2010
    "With his photographs of 18th century meetinghouse interiors, Wainwright avoids artificial lighting and relies entirely upon the natural light that would have been the congregation's main source of illumination.... His hands-on approach to working with older photographic media rather fittingly echoes the hands-on craftsmanship of the buildings discussed in Peter Benes' accompanying historical essay on Meetinghouse architecture in New England. One can only really describe these images in words inadequately."
    - Lisa Fluet, Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
    View Article
    View Text Only

  • Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 8, 2010 Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 8, 2010
    "Paul Wainwright's image of a narrow, unadorned wooden pew in a 1785 Massachusetts meetinghouse is a contemplative marvel... The composition is really nothing more than a precise arrangement of light and dark angles and planes that visually advance and recede in space, but its spare clarity seems to embody the essence of the lives that once prayed there."
    - Mary Abbe, Minneapolis Star Tribune
    View Entire Article

  • Lenswork Magazine LensWork Magazine, September/October, 2010
    "Using the quiet and still approach that is so necessary with large-format photography and view cameras, it's a perfect match for the quiet stillness of these wonderful historic and religious spaces that served the earliest Americans so well as their space for faith."
    - Brooks Jenson, editor of LensWork
    Preview: LensWork Extended, the DVD edition of LensWork Magazine

  • View Camera Magazine Article ViewCamera Magazine, July/August, 2010
    "Paul Wainwright's photographic journey through time has helped create a lasting and important body of work. The Colonial meetinghouses will surely continue to stand of years more, and Paul's elegant images will help convey the importance they have had in American history, and will help tell their story for generations that follow."
    - Eric Biggerstaff, Contributing Editor, ViewCamera Magazine
    View as PDF

  • Reader's Digest Table of Contents Reader's Digest, September 2010
    "The space, the solitude, the natural light, the worn wood that people walked on or touched - a few of the reasons Paul Wainwright photographed the 30 Early American gathering places that remain essentially unchanged today."
    - Tom Prince, Executive Editor, Reader's Digest, September 2010
    View as PDF

  • "These 77 black & white images will not reach out and grab your attention by the throat; this is not MTV. You have to settle in with the book for a few moments, and stop to study its contents. Read the scattered quotes from hymns written by William Billings. Ponder. You will be rewarded."
    - Lisa Parsons, Hippo Press, July 15, 2010
    Read as PDF

  • NHPR Studio Summer Books 2010
    New Hampshire Public Radio: The Exchange, June 24, 2010. Host Laura Knoy interviews independent bookstore owners Dan Chartrand (Water Street Bookstore, Exeter NH), Michael Herrmann (Gibson's Bookstore, Concord NH), and Jeff Smull (Toadstool Bookshop, Keene NH).
    Click to listen (22 sec): Sound Bite

  • "As a new arrival in Boston, a Midwesterner with a history of confronting the cultural history of “out (or “back”) East,” and a long-time admirer of Paul Strand’s Time in New England, I can feel a synchronous meshing with Wainwright’s project and with the society these gathering places served."
    - George Slade, Program Manager/Curator, Photographic Resource Center at Boston University
    Read More

  • And there's more: View what readers are saying.

Feature Articles:

  • Click to view article A nice selection of my never-before-published color meetinghouse photographs was featured an article entitled We Gather Together in the October 2011 issue of Early American Life. The photos and article may be downloaded Here (5.2Mb PDF file).




  • Click to view article Excerpts from the book were published in the Summer 2011 edition of Faith & Form, the interfaith journal on religion, art, and architecture.
    View article as PDF








  • Click to view article "New England’s meetinghouses embody a fascinating chapter of American history, and the surviving ones represent a unique architectural form that is distinctly New England. But most of all, they serve as reminders of a very different time, when the boundaries among government, religion, and community were nearly invisible."
    - View on-line: Architecture Boston Magazine, May, 2011
    View article as PDF

  • Click to view larger "Rather than an 'encyclopedia' of meetinghouses, Wainwright said he tried to create a composite portrait of the New England meetinghouse as it would have appeared in the 1700s, eliminating from the photos any semblance from the 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries."
    - Aimee Caruso, Valley News, Sunday, November 14, 2010
    View article

  • "...they functioned as catch-all community centers with both municipal and religious uses... With his large-format camera, Wainwright chose to photograph the 30 meetinghouses that have not become houses of worship."
    - National Trust for Historic Preservation on-line magazine, July 16, 2010
    Read as PDF

  • Click to view larger "In the book, Wainwright combines history with fine art by capturing images of Colonial meetinghouses from across the Granite State and New England. Using natural light and today what may be considered 'old fashion' photographic techniques, Wainwright captures both the expansive exteriors and the finer details of the meetinghouses, giving readers an opportunity to explore the buildings intimately."
    - Nancy Bean Foster, New Hampshire Sunday News, July 18, 2010
    View article

  • Click to view larger "His goal was not to create glossy, ready-for-postcard portraits of the proud old buildings where townspeople once gathered to both vote on community business and to share their faith. He set out to photograph the history, the souls of those buildings and the souls of those who gathered in them."
    - Victoria Shouldis, Concord Monitor, July 15, 2010
    View article
    View article, continued
    Read as PDF (text only)


    • Scroll down for more



  • A nice interview about my photography work can be seen in this Blog: Making the Art Seen.

  • "His large-format photography (no digital, no color, all natural lighting) perfectly matches the colonial meetinghouses in his newest book. In this interview, Wainwright talks about how and why he prefers to go slow in a fast world."
    - SeacoastNH.com Art Book of the Week Read More

  • "Wainwright's latest creation was the culmination of five years of photographing more than 30 of New England's storied Colonial meetinghouses. His recently released first book, A Space for Faith, features those photographs."
    - Bryan Deyermond, Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, June 4, 2010
    Read More
    Download/read as a PDF

  • "Wainwright's photographs are caretakers of memory and history."
    - Justin Shatwell, Yankee Magazine, November/December 2009
    Read More

Other Press Coverage:

This page was last modified on: 01 Apr 2014