“Wintry Weather,” by William B. Post, of Fryeburg, Me., is a capital example of the snow-pictures, through which Mr. Post has made himself famous in photography.—Our Illustrations, Camera Work VI, April, 1904

Taken most likely in 1903, this view shows a winter scene of a farmhouse and barn located at 41 River Street in Fryeburg, Maine.

William Boyd Post: 1857-1921

In 1898, American amateur photographer William Boyd Post moved permanently into his family’s summer vacation home in Fryeburg, Maine. He had just sold his seat on the New York Stock Exchange a year after his father had died. An active exhibitor since the late 1880’s with the New York Camera Club, his wealth and new life as a country gentleman gave him the opportunity to devote more of his time to the hobby he loved.

Photography scholar Christian Peterson, in his 2005 volume The Quiet Landscapes of William B. Post, states the artist first began taking winter photographs in 1895.  He would eventually devote a great deal of his time to the season, with his sublime masterpiece Intervale, Winter, taken in 1899, a direct nod to several of Peter Henry Emerson’s naturalistic winter studies which appeared in his 1895 volume Marsh Leaves. Later in the new century, Post continued taking winter landscapes, writing about it in 1910 in The Photo-Era.