Biff Heins

Several years ago, I started to photograph the people who live and work along the D&R Canal [our pristine part of the state!] and the first person I shot was Biff Heins because he was an artist, I already had a good relationship with him and I really saw him as a sweet man. I think about Biff whenever we are having a spell of beautiful weather, the air about him was always calm and radiant and I find his shop wonderfully picturesque!

He grew up living on the Canal and for many years was restoring antiques in the barn that his father had built right across the street from where he lived. He was also an incredible watercolorist working with the glorious palette of colors along the Canal in all of the seasons

Biff passed away three years ago; he came by our house to rototill our garden [he had a big Troy Built rototiller that he owned with his sister and they had a policy of not loaning equipment to friends for fear it would damage relationships]. He had lunch with us after he did our garden and then went back to his shop to paint. That night he died in his sleep , I'm told, with a wonderous smile on his face. I and many others miss him! He was such a kind man, a talented artist and a true craftsman.

So, when we get this kind of weather, and the colors really begin to sing, I head down Canal Road, put on my "Biff glasses" and just work on photographing some of the beauty that he would always see in this area.


Whether it's a box of old tools sitting outside his shop or all of the various vises and clamps that still hang in his shop.


Or maybe just the rain barrel that still sits outside his shop so that he could water his little vegetable garden.....

Nat