R. Thomas Berner describes himself as a “print guy” during his years as a journalism professor at Penn State. But Berner has had a lifelong interest in photography, and the digital world has opened up new opportunities for him in retirement.
Berner’s work, much of it focused on photographing Pennsylvania barns, earned him top honors — the 2017 “Sweepstakes Award” — from the Pennsylvania Press Club.
Berner’s self-published book, “Pennsylvania Quilts Barns,” earned first place in nonfiction and book design categories. The book features photographs by Berner of painted quilt blocks on barns covering a wide swath of Pennsylvania.
Inspiration for the book goes back years. Berner and his wife, Paulette, retired from Penn State in 2003 and moved to New Mexico. They sometimes drove across the country to visit their daughter in North Carolina, then made the trek up Interstate 81 to visit Paulette Berner’s mother in Luzerne County.
“I kept admiring these barns,” Berner said.
When the Berners decided to move back to Pennsylvania in 2010, they lived for a time with his mother-in-law in Hazleton and commuted along I-80 as they looked for a home in Centre County, taking in more fascinating barns along the way.
Wanting to do something with this interest, but realizing “there are a million barn books on Amazon,” Berner wondered what he could do that was unique.
That led to his book “Pennsylvania Barn Stories,” which features photos and text on barns that have an interesting story behind them.
There is, for example, a photo of a barn in Clearfield County that has American flag painted on it. “It turns out the owner did that after 9/11,” Berner said. “It became a local attraction.”
Thinking about a barn in Potter County that he had photographed for “Pennsylvania Barn Stories,” and his wife’s interest in quilting, helped Berner hit on his next idea: a book on quilt barns.
Berner spent about a year working on the book, casting a “wide net” and covering most areas of the state.
“I probably could not have done it as quickly had it not been for the Internet,” he said of his search for barn quilts.
There are five or six barn quilt trails in Pennsylvania. “I found them online and went from there,” he said.
Berner is a member of the Historic Barn and Farm Foundation of Pennsylvania, and his contacts there helped, as did historical societies and his letters to the editor published in local newspapers.
In addition to honors for his book “Pennsylvania Quilt Barns” (available on Amazon), Berner also earned awards from the Pennsylvania Press Club — an affiliate of the National Association of Press Women — for a feature story on barn quilts published in Grit magazine (ironically, he said that because of a miscommunication his photos were not used with the piece), and for a story and photos on barn quilts in the Altoona area published in the Altoona Mirror.
(Photo by Paulette L. Berner) R. Thomas Berner, of Bellefonte, says his interest in photography “really took off” after he retired from Penn State, where he was a professor of journalism and American studies.
While Berner appreciates barns, he acknowledges that he’s no barn expert.
“I can’t tell you about how they were built,” he said.
Berner’s talents as a photographer go beyond barns. He won three other press club awards for published photographs, including from travels in Utah and Portugal, and for a photo of a class at Juniata College on bad literature published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
‘LIFELONG INTEREST’
As a professor of journalism and American studies at Penn State, where he was on the faculty for 28 years, his work focused on editing, newswriting, reporting and the literature of journalism. But photography has been a “lifelong interest,” going back to black-and-white photos he took in the mid-1950s. He used to have a wet darkroom.
That interest in photography “really took off after I retired — digital gave me more control.”
Up next are two very different projects. He is photographing interesting churches in Centre County — such as Grace Lutheran Church in State College, with its unique stone architecture. And Berner is about to embark on a project he calls “Anonymous Eyes,” in which he’ll photograph, with permission, only the eyes of his subjects.
“I just keep seeing people who have interesting eyes,” he said.
