Hanover resident Gregory Baker happened to be at Smith Pond in Enfield just after the ice storm in December. "It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the light was incredible," said Baker. He didn't have a regular camera with him, so he shot some photographs on his iPhone camera. "I snapped off different shots, and this one was the best." Baker takes 50 or 60 photographs a day — of teeth and faces. He's an orthodontist in Hanover. "I'd like to tell you that I have a real hobby in photography, but I don't," he said. The Shaker community built Smith Pond, and Baker is involved in a project to restore the pond's dam and dikes, which had fallen into disrepair. "It's a loon nesting site, and it should be preserved. I'd like to keep it as pristine as possible."

During a magical semester that Ella Farnsworth of South Royalton spent in Christ Church, New Zealand, she frequented Sumner Beach, a popular location for surfers and families, and her favorite path to the ocean. This photograph of a young girl enjoying her own private surf inside a sea cave was taken with “a basic digital camera” during one of her trips there in the spring of 2006, she said.

Farnsworth, 23, graduated last year from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., where she majored in studio art with a focus on video production. She is now back in South Royalton and works with the Upper Valley public-access television channel CATV. She treasures her memories of New Zealand. “It was the prettiest place I had ever been,” she said.

Peter Vanderpot carries a camera with him most of the time. He saw some photographic possibilities on his way to visit his parents on Mascoma Lake in Enfield last fall. "It was a really still and foggy morning and I saw the boats over there and just pulled over to the side of the road," the 36-year-old Wilder resident said. He picked up his Canon Rebel, loaded with "probably just some all-purpose film, nothing special," and shot several frames. He preferred a vertical orientation, the better to show the height of the masts. The flatness of the image, a product of the still water and the surrounding fog, yielded a striking, almost abstract composition. "You could flip it over," said Vanderpot, who works as a contractor.