The teenager photographer Soren goldsmith has spent his childhood exploring Belmont’s woods and wetlands. In high school he began to photograph them. He visited the same woods every afternoon in spring to listen to a pair Great Horned Owls hoot just before the sun set.
Three years earlier, he waited on the roadside, in the freezing cold, for animals to emerge, including foxes and rabbits. He saw coyotes passing by in a blur that night before one returned and the two crossed paths again. They met in the darkness before the coyote continued on his journey.
Goldsmith’s childhood home, where he discovered his love for wildlife photography is under threat. The Belmont Hill School owns this land and plans to clearcut it to make room for a mechanical facility and parking lot. This is despite the fact that more than 2,800 petitioners signed a petition to stop development.
Goldsmith’s efforts have taken on new urgency since the plans were announced. He has been able, using camera traps to capture images, of wild animals in the natural habitat, without changing their behavior. Many of us live with these animals, but we rarely see them.
Goldsmith’s work as a conservationist photographer was recognized as one of this year’s winners of the National Geographic Slingshot Challenge. This project invited young people (aged thirteen to eighteen years old) to come up with innovative solutions for urgent environmental issues. His photos will help protect his local woods, wetlands and other similar areas.
The photographer told me that the forests of Belmont were the inspiration for who he is today. When I was a child, the woods seemed so vast and big. But as I grew older, I realized how insecure and small they are.
The teen photographer was preparing for his first year at college when we caught up with him.