Cooperstown photographer Richard Duncan will be focusing his attention and his Hasselblad on Otsego Lake for the next two years.

Duncan is involved in a project sponsored by the Farmers' Museum that will enable him to photograph the lake and its environs as it passes through each season

When completed, Duncan's contemporary photographs and historic photographs, paintings and prints from the New York State Historical Association will be used to produce a large-format, full color book depicting the past and present of Otsego Lake. His photographs will also be the subject of an exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum in 2006 - the same year the book will be published.

This spring, people will get a look at the work in progress in a show at the Farmers' Museum that will feature 20 to 30 of Duncan's photographs and artifacts from NYSHA's collection. That exhibit will be periodically updated with new photos from Duncan and additional material from NYSHA's collection, according to Paul D'Abrosio, the chief curator for NYSHA and the Fenimore Art Museum.

"The lake is so central to Cooperstown's identity and history," D'Ambrosio said.

As far as D'Ambrosio knows, no one has ever done an in-depth photographic study of the lake through all four seasons so when Duncan approached him with the proposal, he saw a chance to document the lake's beauty and its relatively unchanged landscape.

"He said he wanted to have to years in case he had a bad season - he would have another chance," D'Ambrosio said.

D'Ambrosio said he thinks most people viewing historic photos like some of the 50,000 images of the region in the Smith-Telfer collection would expect to see a much different lake.

"They expect to see radical change, but they won't. It's not a radically altered landscape," he said. "That to me is the story - preserving the landscape."

The exhibit this summer will address the issue of protecting the lake and D'Ambrosio believes it will show that much of the landscape has been kept intact, but stressed that the point of the two-year project was the beauty and history of the lake.

Duncan downplayed the idea of the exhibit having an issue or ecological point of view and said that to him it was a matter of "presenting the natural beauty of the lake."

D'Ambrosio said Duncan has complete artistic freedom in the project and will have the opportunity to commit full-time to the project.

"In the past, I've always juggled two or three things," Duncan said. "This will be the first time in my life I can totally concentrate on it. It will be a big jump in my work."

Duncan said it was during two seasons as the caretaker at the village's Fairy Springs Park that he came up with the idea of photographing the lake, but his job left little time for picture taking.

"I was watching the colors and was frustrated. It was so beautiful. I wanted capture the colors. I've always found the lake to be beautiful," he said.

He said he started out sitting on the beach at the park watching the lake, but came to realize that being on land was a limited perspective. "It's a totally different view from the water," he said, explaining that he will be shooting both on- and off-shore. If he gets the opportunity, he may also try some aerial photography of the lake.

The museum did an exhibit of Duncan's garden photographs this spring and D'Ambrosio said he has "a keen eye and brilliant colors."

Duncan, who has been a photographer for over 30 years, said he thinks of himself more as an artist than a photographer. He began shooting the lake in October with his medium format Hasselblad camera and from what D'Ambrosio has seen so far, "the interplay of sky, land and water in his work is dynamic. The way he shoots it makes you see it in a whole new way."

Now that the project is underway, Duncan and D'Ambrosio want to involve the public and ask people to make suggestions about places that may afford a good view of the lake.

"If people know of great Otsego Lake stuff; images, vantage points they've always loved, let us know," D'Ambrosio said.

The exhibit which opens in May at the Farmers' Museum will include not just images, but also lake-related artifacts. The museum has a 1940s ice fishing shanty, boats and all kings of other things which may be included, D'Ambrosio said.

If anyone has historic items they think would be good additions to the exhibit or would like to suggest views of the lake, they may call him at 547-1413.