Lanes, Trains and Automobiles: The photography of G. Roger Clements

Profile by Nancy LaMar Rogers / Phots by G. Roger Clements

Outside the window of an outbound locomotive from Grand Central to Connecticut is an entire world, filled with the sights, sounds, textures and the human beings who move their way up and down platforms to the other side of the day’s journey. How often do we look and see the life that passes by our windows, whether via train, or across the plains outside our driver’s side window? For G. Roger Clements, this idea of peering into life outside a train’s window has manifested into his new photographic journey, now published as Passing By, Life Seen Through Train Windows. With this pictorial, Clements captures all the wistfulness and the melancholy subtle moments of the human experience.

On this day, Clements welcomes me into his home on Pequot Avenue in New London. A Victorian structure that is part of the original Pequot Colony and registered with the Historical Society. Once inside I am taken with Clements’ environment and the nostalgic atmosphere of a bygone era. In many ways the rooms are part historical museum meets modern memorial. As we gather around the table in what serves as a sitting room and photographic journey, I notice the enormous camera behind me. The kind that reminds you of something perhaps Charlie Chaplin might have used. He explains, “That is actually a combination of three different cameras that I just put together.” The camera is quite a testimony to Clements mechanical skills as well as his innate ability to combine and create something new from various found parts.

Currently Clements is exploring and combining his love of architecture and photography. His venture into large format cameras and dark room techniques have produced astonishing photos that capture the lines and structure of historical buildings as well as the shadows and light that passes across these structures giving them that ethereal feel and texture.

But his story doesn’t start with photography, and as a matter of fact, photography was probably the last thing Clements thought he would be exploring as an artform, as one of his first jobs using a camera was for Clements, an epic fail. “I was hired to take some photos of school kids for this company and the camera that they gave me to use had two lens openings, well…” He trails off with another amusing memory. That job Clements adds, “lasted a day and a half.” Clements believed that his Fine Arts degree may have been the reason that the company hired him, but at the time he wasn’t as familiar with cameras as he is now.

Clements story really begins with the purchase of a railroad car and as well as the serendipitous experiences he had along the way. Having received his Fine Arts degree from Knox College in 1971 he found himself not necessarily working under the auspices of some great artist, but rather under the hood of a car.

“I came out of college with this degree and the economy was absolutely terrible. I ended up working for a dealership because I had always known a little bit of something about mechanics,” Clements explains.

His foray into the world of cars was unconventional in that Clements was working on some of the higher end racing wheels including Jaguar, MG and some other fun cars. “There were some wild and fun times then because I would supply parts for some of these racing cars and end up going to the races with them.” Roger chuckles as he leans back into the memory.

After a few years of trying to get back into the art world, Clements found himself back in the automobile industry with what he says, “a paycheck every week.” While it may have paid his bills, his inner artist was restless and soon enough Clements was exploring his options. His diverse background in the arts including his theater work, his architectural studies as well as his ability to create and build, landed him at the place that he would make his home for the next ten years, Green Farms Academy in Westport, Ct.

“It was wonderful,” Clements recalls. “I was hired as the carpenter initially but then I was able to work with the theater department and I was finally back doing my artwork and I had the opportunity to work with kids in so many areas, including science and art and theater. It really was an amazing time.”

The serendipitous nature of Clements position at Greens Farms would come in the form of a student who wanted to do an architectural course and asked Clements if he could construct such a course for her to take. Up for any challenge, he agreed and with that the course was put into the curriculum. This gave Clements the opportunity to do some side jobs for people in the world of design. “Those days, they didn’t pay much at private schools,” he adds, “and I’m not sure if it is any different now.”

This class and side jobs would eventually lead him to a full-time architect position and to the railway car that would become his office. “I decided that when I was at Green Farms that it wasn’t cool to just have a house and so I decided to buy a railway car and fix it up. It was crazy though because the building department didn’t know what to do with me, because the car rolls and therefore nothing complies, and I could do anything I wanted with it.” Clements would go on to name the car Sasqua after a sect of the Pequot Tribe and the car eventually became the office of his architectural firm. But Clements love for railway cars did not end with the purchase of just one. For Clements it was a matter of, well if one train car is so delightful, what would owning an entire railway feel like? And so it was that Clements came into owning a railroad. “What happened was the State of Connecticut does this thing called Rail Banked and when they do that, they maintain the continuity of the line.” Clements goes on to explain that while the cars were not running on that particular strip of rail, it was maintained and could run railway cars if someone were to want to buy a railroad. Lucky for the state, Clements wanted to do exactly that. The railroad ran from Danbury to Cannan and through what Clements describes as “one of the most scenic runs in our state.”

As we walk through the various rooms of Clements’ home, he points out the 3-D architectural maquettes that dangle on the walls and are miniature sculptures of what he captures in his photography. Not only do these carboard, wood, paint and canvas models bring to life the historical buildings that Clements is dedicated to preserving the history of, but they represent a time and place not just in building form, but in the lives that have passed through. If you peer into the windows of this decoupage like models, you witness the lives behind the curtains, the emotional frailty of those people who spent their lives calling these buildings home.

While Clements still travels to his office in Stamford at least once a week, via train or automobile, he is more engaged in his photography and his documentation of the historical buildings that are abundant throughout New London. His love of history, his keen sense of the power of black and white film and his eye for the lines and contours of the structures that surround our lives, is what keeps him riding the rails.

To view more of G. Roger Clements work, visit his page at:

https://www.facebook.com/Sasqua-Design-ARTitecture-G-Roger-Clements--366658466820675