Named for a peace treaty that brought the War of 1812 to a close and reestablished America’s independence from Great Britain, the town of Ghent, New York, is a place where independence and community have coexisted for over 200 years.

In 2018, British freelance editorial and documentary photographer Richard Beaven helped the small town of 5,402 that he and his family call home celebrate its bicentennial by venturing forth to, he says, “take a ‘snapshot’ of our community as an archive for future generations to discover and look back on.”

In the course of a year, Beaven made 276 portraits and once completed, delivered a box of prints to the town historian for safe keeping. “The portraits focus solely on the people of Ghent yet the spirit and significance of this project always seem to reach way beyond the town borders,” he explains.

Shown here is Stephen Gitto Jr., a pillar of the Ghent community for over 70 years. Says Beaven: “He taught music at the local school for more than 30 years and is still actively involved in the town band. He loves and is loved by all his former students. Ghent owes much of its collective musical prowess to Mr Gitto.”

This body of work, being turned into Beaven’s first book of photographs titled All of Us: Portraits of an American Bicentennial (to be published this coming October), is a compilation of the images he’s taken of lifelong Ghent residents like Gitto that embodies the essence of any and every community in the world right now. “At this challenging time,” Beaven points out, “we are being forcefully reminded of the power of community; big or small, new or old, physical or virtual, we need them more than ever.”

(Photographed on a Pentax 6×7 and Takumar 105mm f/2.4 lens with Kodak Portra 160 film.)

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