Former WCAT President Releases First Photo Book

Thanks to David Watts, Jr. for providing this:

Photographer-filmmaker David Watts, Jr. announced the release of his first book of photographs: Battle for the Airfield: Collings Foundation’s World War II Re- enactment. The book documents what has become The Collings Foundation’s most eagerly anticipated annual living history event at their Stow, Massachusetts headquarters, which this year attracted some 5,000 visitors. The book is a compendium of photographs made between 2008 and 2012 documenting the different aspects of the event: the Allied camp, the German camp, the battle, and the all-important veterans’ roundtable.

“The camps, which are also the re-enactors’ home for the weekend, demonstrate to the spectators how each side lived in the field during the war, while the battles show some of the technologies that were brought to bear against each other on the battlefield,” said Watts. “All this, however, are set pieces to what I consider to be the most important part of the weekend event, the veterans’ roundtable, where each day a panel of World War II vets describe some of their wartime experiences.”

The Collings Foundation’s mission, since its founding in 1979 by Bob and Caroline Collings, is to make history more accessible to a wide range of people of all ages through living history events that focus primarily on transportation and the Second World War. Their premiere event is the Wings of Freedom Tour, currently wrapping up its twenty-fourth tour comprising some 112 stops in cities and towns around the continental U.S. The Tour allows people to walk through and fly in a B-17G Flying Fortress, the only flying B-24J Liberator, and the only TP-51C Mustang (dual seat / dual control). The Stow headquarters for the Foundation hosts three annual events: In June, Wings and Wheels / American Elegance, a parade of some of the most elegant motorcars of the 1920s and 1930s. In July is Race of the Century, which depicts the development of transportation from the early 1900s through the 1930s. Battle for the Airfield is held for two days in October each year, over the Columbus Day weekend.

Watts’ involvement with the Collings Foundation began in 2007 when, as producer, director, writer, and one of seven cameramen, he made the documentary Collings Foundation: Preserving the Past (Syzygy Media Works; 2009). During the thirteen-month filming period, the Foundation inaugurated both Battle for the Airfield and Race of the Century. Since wrapping filming, he has continued to photograph each annual event. Out of that work, he has developed a deep appreciation for the living history approach.

“We are at a time when the teaching of history in our school systems has been reduced to little more than names, dates, and places in order to satisfy state-mandated tests that fail to test for any meaningful understanding of history,” said Watts. “The living history approach may help to fill some of the yawning gaps and inspire some people at any age level to look more deeply into history. Battle for the Airfield – the event and the book – is not a glorification of war, but a chance to see in a microcosm some aspects of the greatest cataclysmic event in history and to remember those who served.”

David Watts, Jr is a co-founder of the Wakefield-based production company, Syzygy Media Works. As a photographer, he has worked in a variety of formats in portraiture, photojournalism, commercial, and documentary projects. For fifteen years, until he stepped down in 2012, Watts was a member of the Board of Directors at Wakefield Community Access Television, serving as the organization’s president from 2005 through 2012. He has taught film style production techniques on video (The Film Style Workshop), and he currently teaches workshops on various aspects of still photography.