Highs from Charlie Lowe

From 1957 to 1981, whatever happened in Gloucester - from fires to football games, politics to parades, kids playing to fishermen at work - was captured on film by Gloucester Daily Times photographer Charlie Lowe. An archive of about 40,000 of Lowe's photographs was donated by the paper to the Cape Ann Museum and has now been electronically digitalized by the museum's photo archivist, Fred Buck:

More than 100 of the 6,000 photos Lowe shot in one year, 1975, are on exhibit at the Gloucester museum through May 31. A catalog of Lowe's images is available in conjunction with the exhibit.

"News photographers need to have an eye for the news, an ear cocked to the police scanner, and the eye of an artist," Peter Watson, former editor of the Gloucester Daily Times, wrote in the catalog introduction.

He said they also need "exquisite timing, a sense of humor, and that inexplicable ability to be unobtrusive while taking in-your-face-photos of people who do, and who don't, want their picture taken."

Lowe's photography was honored 17 times by the Associated Press and United Press International. Prize winners are included in the show.

Lowe died in of lung cancer in 1981, at age 49.

Watson, who organized the exhibit with Buck, moderates a program at 3 p.m. March 21 in the museum's Folly Cove Auditorium. Call 978-283-0455.