Pingree W. Louchheim was the staff photographer, photo editor and darkroom superintendent for The Southampton Press from 1972-1997. During this time, she photographed every aspect of community life, from the mundane and ordinary to pivotal events in Southampton’s history.

 

Louchheim’s regular beat included small-town life: Town Hall, school sports, civic organizations, the arts, entertainment, and featured individuals. Her primary contribution to the pages of the Press, however, were her images that were not strictly journalistic. A graduate of the Yale School of Design, Louchheim, a highly talented and technically proficient photographer, preferred to zoom in on subject matter that was more artistic in nature. She delighted in shooting slice-of-life, behind-the-scenes moments. While not necessarily “newsworthy”, these images nonetheless told a story and gave readers a sense of the unique community in which they lived. She particularly enjoyed focusing her lens on the rural landscape, even as it became increasingly developed and virtually disappeared before her eyes.

 

Between shooting, processing and printing film, Louchheim, the wife of Don Louchheim (publisher of The Southampton Press from 1971-1998) and a mother of three, devoted a significant part of each week, 51 weeks per year for 25 years, to the paper. Yet she worked in relative obscurity. Her name did not appear on the masthead, nor did she take a salary. The credit line under her images read simply, “PWL Photo”.

 

This exhibition consists of 100+ photographs selected from the nearly 34,000 taken by Louchheim during her career at The Southampton Press. While some of these images appeared in the paper, this is the first time that many of them have been printed and displayed. They were selected because they showcase Louchheim’s artistic talent and personal vision, the lens through which she viewed the East End community during a period of tremendous change. Beautiful to behold, her work is also meaningful and poignant because it documents a place in time that is no more.

 

Through Her Lens: A Place in Time will be on view to the public at the Bridgehampton Museum’s Nathaniel Rogers House (2539 Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton) from Saturday, July 12th through August 16th. The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 am to 3 pm.