Concord Massachusetts (Boston Concord)

Writing in 1907, Henry James called Concord "the biggest little place in America," and that hasn’t really changed in ninety-five years. Concord is still revered as the birthplace of both the American Revolution and great American authors (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau). But through the lens of photographer John Kennard, who has made it his home since 1987, Concord is, first and foremost, a community—one of the best little places in New England, to paraphrase James. Kennard photographs the icons—the parades, the reenactments, the birthplaces, the gravesites, the stately eighteenth-century architecture, the scenic splendor of Walden Pond. But he also shows us children marching in the parades, families splashing in Walden, and joggers running over the "rude bridge that arched the flood." Town meeting isn’t just a symbol of New England government in Concord; it’s an integral element of town life. And in Concord a picnic is still just a picnic.