An Understanding Eye

The thrill Amanda Lumry '99 felt when she inspected her first roll of pictures in second grade has never changed: "I still marvel...

The thrill Amanda Lumry '99 felt when she inspected her first roll of pictures in second grade has never changed: "I still marvel," she says, "at how much power a camera wields in conveying perspectives, opinions, and emotions."

Amanda Lumry is a lifelong photographer.
Courtesy of Amanda Lumry

Although she began Harvard intending to focus on economics and business, she soon realized that art and photography remained her passions. An independent study in her junior year produced Nantucket Borders, a self-published, visual and textual exploration of the island. A year later, with the help of her faculty advisers, Christopher D. Killip and Barbara Norfleet, she published her second book, Mala Mala: Pathway to an African Eden, as part of her senior honors thesis.

To publish Nantucket Borders, Lumry combined business and art and began Vista Press, her own publishing firm. Vista has since become Eaglemont Press, and Lumry has married a fellow photographer, Loren Wengerd. Together they have shaped Eaglemont to specialize in educational photography books about travel and conservation, with some of the proceeds benefiting cultural and conservation-oriented foundations in the areas described by the books.

Lumry's most recent endeavor, Holmespun, offers an intimate look at Amish and Mennonite communities of northern Ohio. She and Wengard shot candids and portraits of the people and landscapes of Holmes County, where he grew up, in collaboration with writer Laura Hurwitz. Holmespun aims to present what Wengerd calls a unique perspective: explaining "who the Amish are today, beyond the idyllic quaintness often found in other books" and including the "challenge to maintain their heritage and culture" facing the communities it documents with local history, images, and interviews.

To Lumry, Wengerd's standing as a Holmes County native and her own "outsider's perspective" brought "a fresh sense of wonderment to what Loren would otherwise consider normal and mundane. Together we were able to create a well-rounded perspective." Promoting such awareness and understanding "can only have a positive impact on the uncertain future that is racing toward us all."

~Ellenor J. Honig

         

Most popular

What Trump Means for John Roberts’s Legacy

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

This Harvard Scientist Is Changing the Future of Genetic Diseases

David Liu has pioneered breakthroughs in gene editing, creating new therapies that may lead to cures.

Three Harvardians Win Macarthur Fellowships

A mathematician, a political scientist, and an astrophysicist are honored with “genius” grants for their work.

Explore More From Current Issue

Catherine Zipf smiling, wearing striped shirt and dark sweater outdoors.

Preserving the History of Jim Crow Era Safe Havens

Architectural historian Catherine Zipf is building a database of Green Book sites.  

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio smiling beside the pink cover of her novel "Catalina" featuring a jeweled star and eye.

Being Undocumented In America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

Book cover of "Black Moses" by Caleb Gayle with subtitle about ambition and the fight for a Black state.

Civil Rights In the American West

A new book chronicles one man’s quest for a Black state.