NORWAY — Photographing veterans is an honor, Trish Logan says.

On Veterans Day, she photographed some 50 veterans individually and with family members in the lobby of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris as they left a Veterans Day program.

“They all have great stories,” Logan said. The photography is free of charge. 

The veterans project grew out of the Logan Legacy Project she started as a way to give back to the community. The project supports a number of initiatives. Last year, the Legacy Project gave $1,700 to the local high school Project Graduation program. The Trish Logan Legacy Scholarship also established a $500 scholarship to support fellow Maine Professional Photographer Association members who wish to further their education.

She has spoken to students about their legacy and how they will preserve what most have only in their cellphones. And she speaks to fellow professional photographers across the country about the business and art of photography.

“It’s something I’m really passionate about,” she said. “You have to give back.”

Logan, who worked in human resources for 20 years before going into photography, got her first professional photography job at the Advertiser Democrat.

Her initial assignment in November 2010 was to photograph veterans at the Maine Veterans’ Home in Paris when the Wreaths Across America project stopped on its way to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to place 20,000 wreaths on graves. 

Because of a delay and the cold, Veterans’ Home administrators pulled the veterans back inside the building. They stood in sunlit windows to see the procession.

Their faces were unforgettable, Logan said. “It just stuck with me.” 

It was the inspiration for her current veterans’ photography project.

She was also taken aback by the lack of knowledge many young people have today about veterans and their role in American history.

“It’s a generation that’s vanishing,” she said of the World War II veterans in particular.

Next year, she hopes to photograph veterans — again at no charge — pairing these photos with pictures of their younger selves in boot camp or just before entering the service.

The goal is to have a record of veterans in the Oxford Hills and to ensure that the American Legion halls have their veterans’ pictures on the walls.

Any veteran who is interested in being photographed for free can call Logan at 739-2805 or email her at trish@trishlogan.com.

“We’re going to be looking for opportunities to photograph veterans,” Logan said. She is working with Linda Jack, a longtime member of the local American Legion Auxiliary, to coordinate the project.

Logan is president of the Maine Professional Photographers Association and has served as director of the New England Photographers Association and many other professional organizations. She is a well-known figure in the Oxford Hills community, sharing her time and expertise to ensure events and people are documented.

She travels across the country, speaking to fellow professional photographers. In January, she will address 1,700 professional photographers in Atlanta at the Imaging USA national convention. But she also speaks to small groups, such as local schoolchildren to show them the power and beauty of photography and to convince them to save their legacy outside of their cellphone.

Logan said she began photographing people after someone suggested that her newspaper photographs looked more like portraits and that she should start photographing people.

“I could never go back,” she said. “I love photographing people.”

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net