By Rebecca Miller
Born in Montpelier, Ohio in 1959 to Lenora and Carlton Rockwood, Sr., Carlton, Jr. grew up there and attended Montpelier schools through his Junior year, when he quit to join the military in 1977. He ended up moving back to Montpelier in 1993 and is still there to this day, happily gardening, making homemade wines and enjoying life with his friends. But most of all he loves having a camera in his hands.
Carlton started taking pictures when he was fourteen years old. His High School teacher, Mr. Holstein, had an impact on him from 1972-74. During his four years in the Army, he documented everything with his little Ricoh 35 camera. That camera stayed with him for two decades, hardly ever laying around for very long.
The four years of active duty and then twelve years with the Department of Defense working on Patriot Missile Systems at White Sands Missile Range, and as a Field Instructor with students all over the world, ending with Dessert storm, gave him plenty of opportunity to hone his camera skills. Many of his pictures were used by the military for presentations, displays and reports. “They were engineering pictures mostly that got used,” Rockwood explained, “As I wrote reports on equipment and documented the work we did, but I took pictures of everything!”
Rockwood was already living as a disabled veteran when he moved back to Montpelier in 1993, but held a job in a machine shop. One day while near Spokes Restaurant, outside of Pioneer, he was broadsided by a freight truck. “It took a year and a half to recover from that!” Rockwood said. “So now I am doubly disabled but, I still love to take pictures, work in my garden and make homemade wines.” He is full of the joy of living and anyone who listens to him talk about his love of photography, the beauty of the world around him and how great it is to be alive can pick that up quickly.
Rockwood has his own dark room upstairs and loves to use it. “We are really having trouble getting photo paper now, since Kodak went out of business,” he stated as he headed for his Photo Display Room. The walls of the display room are covered with some of his best pictures, many of them decorated with Ribbons from being entered in Fairs. Animals, people in interesting situations, barns, birds by the dozens, gorgeous hot air balloons, frogs, honey bees, zoomed in views of insects and dew bedecked spider webs are just some of his subjects.
“I love taking pictures of everything!” Rockwood says with a smile. “Football games are great. Early mornings out in the fields or the woods waiting for a great shot of deer or birds are delightful, even running out of my house to catch some shots of some lovely little warblers in my own flowering plum tree is fun.” He and his girlfriend, Dana Kubanda, who worked at the Bryan Times for nineteen years, recently did a Baby Shoot together and he says that without a doubt, trying to take pictures of a baby, was the hardest thing he ever photographed. “I would rather chase birds around in the woodand,” he said with a laugh. They have also just started doing weddings which he enjoyed, but some of his absolutely favorite things to photograph are the Veterans Ball every year on November 11th, Montpelier’s Bean Days and the Balloon Festival.
Most of his photos are taken within a 20 mile radius, as he says there are great areas right around Montpelier and Bryan. His swan pictures are from near the landfill and his eagle pictures were taken near the Bryan airport. He loves to get up every morning, and head out around 4 or 5 a.m. to get set in a blind. Then he settles in and waits for any wildlife to come his way. “Deer, turkeys… most of the time I just stumble upon it. One night I was photographing ducks and a whole flock of around 85 swans, on their way to Canada, flew over me, so I left the ducks and drove where the swans were landing. Took half an hour to find them. I videoed the second flock landing. Went back at 4 a.m. the next morning and got all kinds of pics that day. Got video tape of them, too! They were brilliant white with a six foot wingspan,” Carlton shared of one of his enchanting jaunts.
Photography may be his favorite hobby, but garden is full of potatoes, tomatoes, kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, peas, carrots, 6 kinds of peppers, and other delicious vegetables. “We love cooking with all of our fresh veggies. One of my favorites is a pepper called Corno de toro – horn of the bull! They are killer peppers,” Rockwood cheerfully shared. He does his garden starts upstairs in his house in a room that gets plenty of sun.
Planning to enter about twenty five pictures in the Ohio State Fair, for the first time, this year, Carlton has chosen some of his snowflakes, birds, barns and honey bees, along with frogs and a few other subjects. He explained that the process is very complicated but he is excited to have the opportunity to share his photography at the State Fair level.
When you are out and about at The Balloon Festival or enjoying a saunter through town on Bean Days, be sure to say “hi” to the man with the great big camera, who will be catching it all for posterity.