One of the best things about Shelburne Falls is its natural beauty. But if you don’t live there, or can’t be there often, the next best thing is looking at Marty Yaffee’s photographs of the town and its surroundings.
Almost daily, the talented Yaffee walks the Deerfield River’s edge or crosses the Bridge of Flowers before dawn, photographing those first rays of sun shimmering on the water, or that most subtle hint of pink warming the petals of a blossom. For the last few years, he’s posted his digital photographs on Facebook.
Those images drew a lot of attention, and Yaffee has plenty of viewers who live in Shelburne Falls, or who used to live in the village, but have either moved away or become winter “snow birds.”
After nearly three years of photographing the scenes near his Ashfield Street home, Yaffee is holding his first photography show this month at the Shelburne Arts Co-op at 26 Bridge St. It’s called “Magical Shelburne Falls,” and it runs through Monday, June 25, coinciding with Shelburne’s 250th celebration.
“It started when I was woken up by the birds,” said Yaffee, who takes all his photographs with a Samsung smartphone, equipped with a 13-megapixel digital camera. The birds are generally singing before sunrise, giving Yaffee enough time to get up and walk out near the river just as the first rays of sunlight are coming up.
“There are moments, often at dusk or dawn, that show the changes between night and day, the reddening of the sky, the hint of pink in the clouds,” Yaffee said.
Some of Yaffee’s photos are taken from a viewpoint beneath the blossoms. For instance, one photo, taken from the underside of red poppies, makes the flowers appear to be large and looming toward a mackerel sky.
“I like taking pictures from the ground up,” he commented. “I like the sky to be part of the picture.”
Years before Yaffee picked up his smartphone, he was best known as a musician, a composer, and a pastry chef and baker.
Yaffee grew up in Newton. While still in high school, Yaffee, an oboist, won a concerto composition contest and his prize was to play with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall. He went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied music before continuing on to Harvard University, where he studied electronic music. At Harvard, he played in a concert that featured John Cage, with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
For a while, Yaffee held a job with ARP Instruments, which made electronic musical instruments and synthesizers that rivaled the Moog synthesizer.
“I was an ARP demonstrator,” he said. “I would bring an ARP synthesizer out to (music) groups and show them how to use it.
“I got to meet Jimi Hendrix,” he added of the famed guitarist. “He spoke to me, but not much. His band was there to learn (the synthesizer), and he was just there to see what it did.
“Sometimes I wish I could have been able to follow that (music) path,” he said. “But once I had a family, I couldn’t. Most composers teach and then (write music) on the side.”
When Yaffee was offered an apprenticeship with a German baker, he took it and earned his living as an assistant pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston, and then ended up managing bakeries in the Boston area.
When Deborah and Marty Yaffee’s daughter was born in 1981, the couple wanted to move out of Boston, deciding on Shelburne Falls. For the first year, Yaffee was a partner in running the Sweet Pea Bakery (where Delicatesse is now). For about 11 years, he and Deborah ran their own restaurant, Marty’s Riverside Restaurant and Bakery, which is now the West End Pub.
Yaffee also co-started the bakery at Green Fields Market, and taught pastry and baking for eight or nine years at Holyoke Community College. He now teaches cooking at Greenfield High School.
When asked about how he started taking photos, Yaffee replied, “I don’t even remember doing photography. I think we had a point-and-shoot camera years ago. But I’ve never been a photographer. But I was a composer for many years. It’s not that hard to transpose one art form to another.”
He compared composing music to framing a picture, putting all the ingredients together.
“With digital photography, you don’t have to set anything; you have faith that all the information will be there (in the electronic image). You just have to sort it all out.”
Yaffee said he likes the photos to look “the way I saw it,” so that viewers see what he saw when the picture was taken.
After this show ends on Monday, some of Yaffee’s prints will be displayed in July at Green Fields Market, he said.
In putting together this exhibit, Yaffee said he learned a lot about matting and framing.
“Debbie was instrumental in helping me put this together,” he said of his wife. “I couldn’t have done this show without her. I didn’t know how much work it was.”
Greenfield High School shop teacher Carlene Heimiller-Ford also helped him learn frame-making basics.
Yaffee said he had a good turnout at the June exhibit’s opening reception. Some of his Facebook friends have asked him to make a video of the show, so they can see it from afar. Others, who came to the reception, have suggested he create a photography book.
“There are clearly people who are enjoying the pictures and are looking forward to them,” he said. “I enjoy taking pictures. It’s of value to me, that people are out there enjoying them.”
And Shelburne Falls has a special place in his heart as his primary model.
“It’s a very special town,” he said. “It keeps me tuned in to the wildlife on the river. And it’s very quiet in the morning.”
Staff reporter Diane Broncaccio has worked at the Greenfield Recorder since 1988. Her beat includes West County. She can be reached at: dbroncaccio@recorder.com or
413-772-0261, ext. 277.