One frigid Saturday morning, White Memorial’s “official”
photographer Leo Kulinski, Jr, met me for breakfast and
conversation. “I hope you’ll be able to get enough material for
your story, Gerri.”
Leo is a Torrington, CT native and a graduate of Xavier
University in Cincinnati, Ohio with a Bachelor of Science
degree in Industrial Relations. (Those of you who know Leo
are saying, “HUH?”) Leo is quiet, modest, and unassuming.
He is a brilliant photographer, an amateur astronomer and
meteorologist, and a dedicated runner (he has participated in
every edition of the Litchfield Hills Road Race and qualified for and completed the Boston Marathon in 1997 and 1999). His two
books, “Veronica the Red-tailed Hawk” and “The White-tailed
Deer of White Memorial” grace the shelves of our gift shop.
Many of his breathtaking pictures can be found on our website
and his own (www.whalesandwolves.com) and his blog. His work has
been used by filmmakers, publishers, and television producers.
Leo stays humble. He never toots his own horn.
He wasn’t always inspired by nature or running. Kulinski
discovered White Memorial in the late 1970’s while preparing
for the first Litchfield Hills Road Race. A few of his friends
decided on a lark to run the seven mile test. They began
training in April for the June event. (You runners out there are
saying, “HUH?”) After the race was finished and the
debilitating pain subsided, (“We were lucky we didn’t kill
ourselves! I couldn’t walk downstairs for a week.”) Leo was
hooked on running.
On his regular jogs through White Memorial (40-50 miles
a week), Kulinski met Jeff Greenwood, White Memorial's Education Director. He even began
keeping a log of weather conditions on each run (visit Leo’s
weather station website at LitchfieldCTWeather.com) He also began hiking the
White Mountains with friends (he has climbed all 48 of the
4,000 footers in the White Mountains). He tried his hand at
photographing birds and mountains. Interest in taking concert
portraits when Eric Clapton came to town triggered Leo into
buying his first 35mm camera and telephoto lens (see this
photo on Leo’s website). A photography and development
course stoked Kulinski’s interest in his new found hobby.
When he saw a Carl Sams photograph of a deer and
wildflowers on the cover of a 1987 Audubon Magazine (which
Leo brought to our meeting!), the wildfire started! Sams’
book “Stranger in the Woods” coauthored with his wife, Jean
Stoick , is a photographic fantasy of the relationship between a
small family of deer and a snowman. It tugs at Leo to this day.
Eventually Kulinski approached Greenwood about having a
photography show at the Conservation Center, “White
Mountains, Whales , and White-tailed Deer”. (Did I mention
that Kulinski has been on over 100 whale watches and has
assisted experts in the photographic cataloguing of fluke
patterns of Humpbacked Whales?)
Kulinski and Greenwood became close friends. Together
they spent a day hiking the five 1,000 foot peaks of White
Memorial. “It would have been quicker”, said Kulinski, “but
Jeff had to describe everything he saw. We got ten feet along
the trail and he (Greenwood) started in. I knew it would be a
long day.”
Funny, talented, disciplined, generous, kind, passionate, and
curious: Leo Kulinski, Jr. is a man of few words but a man
about whom volumes could be written.
