George J. Bancroft

     Having retired from a 35-year career at The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, PA, George J. Bancroft has turned his 50-year photography avocation into a new career.  He is self-taught in his journey of photographic expression, a journey that has taken him from Maine to Canada, to Florida, California, Hawaii and many points in between, always carrying a camera.

     He has had photographs published in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Morning Call and various other newspapers during 35 years as a prize-winning reporter and columnist, associate national editor, enterprise editor, edition editor, desk editor and systems editor at The Morning Call, involved in implementing new technologies at the newspaper.

     A number of his photographs have been distributed widely by both The Associated Press and the former Los Angeles Times-Washington Post Syndicate.  He has contributed pictures to CBS3.com in Philadelphia.

     He was founding editor of the web site www.mcall.com, responsible for its content, design and operations in the mid-1990s.

     He has worked extensively with picture selection, editing and design, both on paper and electronically.

     He recently concluded a yearlong online exhibit at the Westport, Connecticut Arts Center (www.westportartscenter.org) and has a commitment for an exhibit at a gallery being built in rural Herkimer County in New York.  His most recent gallery exhibit was in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.  He has photographic art on display in private collections in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California.

     Another contributor to this site is his son, George J. Bancroft, Jr., who often contributes images from his wanderings outdoors and around the country.

     A recent project, the partial results of which currently are posted here, is a collection of portraits of the historic covered bridges of Bucks, Lehigh, Northampton and Montgomery counties in southeastern Pennsylvania.

     So keep visiting -- the photographs never stop.

An artist's statement if you will....

"Photography should be fun and wondrous for the photographer, the casual viewer and the buyer.  This is my approach to all of my work, even the most serious.

I am a big fan of photographic technology.  It helps us find the photograph within the picture.  Today's computer and printing processes extend our visual reach, revealing things we've never seen, and things we never will see in daily life. 

A photograph succeeds if it jars even one person's perceptions; if it unveils just one previously hidden detail of its subject.  That's what makes photography art.

The tools are just a means to an end.  A painter can use canvas or wood, brushes or sponges, oils or acrylics.  A photographer also has an array of tools -- the camera and lens, the computer and software, electronic brushes, varieties of media to print upon, different inks, printers and something in common with the more traditional artist -- vision.

I've never met a mushroom I didn't like when lying on a forest floor for an hour focusing closely with different settings to get myself into that mushroom's world.  I walk away from that with a cornucopia of thoughts and images.  Then with the luxury of time and a wide array of artists' tools I set about perfecting my vision upon my electronic canvas, ready for reproduction to decorate an empty wall."