With his hands encased in white cotton gloves so he will not leave fingerprints, Peter Harron is sorting through photographs-not just any photographs, his own. They are for his upcoming show at the Chester Gallery, which opens Friday, May 4, as part of Chester's 21st annual May Daze Night Gallery and Shop Stroll.

"I didn't know what to call the show and people said to choose some pictures, so there it is-Choices," says Peter, explaining how the exhibition got its name.

Before him is a selection of photographs that include scenes as close as the Falls River in Essex, where he lives, and as far away as sand dunes in Morocco, where his wife Colette was born.

Getting the Moroccan shots was not easy.

"We went out on camels early in the morning because of the light; you can see the camel tracks," he says, pointing to one side of the photograph.

Making an extra effort for a unique perspective isn't unusual for Peter. He used a small boat to capture a picture of the underside of the Baldwin Bridge, showing light coming through a slit that runs along the center for drainage. It was a challenge to get the shot in focus, he says, because the boat constantly rocked back and forth.

One of the photographs he plans to exhibit encapsulates some 200 years of American history, from the first president to the divisive conflict in Vietnam. It shows the Washington Monument reflected in the shiny black stone of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

Looking at a photograph, Peter says, demands more than a quick glance. He wants people to take time to process the image in their mind's eye.

"Listen, listen to the photograph. Allow your imagination to work," he says.

There are some photographs, notably shots of wind rustling meadow grass and water tumbling over rocks, for which he hopes viewers have an even stronger auditory reaction.

"I want them to hear the music of the photograph," he says.

Photography is both the first and last of Peter's artistic ventures, if early experience is taken into account. In his time, he has been an actor, a director, a producer, and a documentary filmmaker. Photography, however, started it all when he got a Kodak camera and developing kit for his ninth birthday.

"What a mess," he recalls of the developing materials.

Now he shoots with what he calls an old warhorse, a Nikon F2. He doesn't do much digital work, though he sees digital as the future not only of photography, but of movie-making as well.

"They're going to be doing movies without film, doing them all digitally," he predicts.

Early on, Peter mastered the fortunate gift of being in the right place at the right time. Born in Bermuda, where his family has lived since 1628, he was sent to boarding school in Canada at the age of 13. One of his classmates was related to actor Richard Kiley, the original Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. Peter, eager to become an actor, got an introduction to Kiley through his school friend. Kiley, in turn, arranged an introduction to Helen Hayes, who helped Peter to get a summer internship at the Tappan Zee Playhouse in Nyack, New York.

He studied acting with actress and noted drama teacher Uta Hagen in New York and acted in road companies of Broadway hits, among them The World of Suzie Wong, in which he acted the part of a British sailor and understudied the lead.

"I only got to play the lead once," he recalls.

Ultimately, he says he found directing more to his liking than acting.

"I thought it was more fun than acting because it encompassed the whole process," he says.

He produced two Obie-winning plays at Manhattan's Cherry Lane Theatre, one with a cast that included the young Frank Langella, then a relatively unknown actor.

"You could see it at once. You knew the guy was going to go all the way," Peter says.

Peter's own career entered a new phase with his growing interest in film and his interest in combining film and live theater. There was, however, a problem.

"I didn't know enough about film," he says.

He bought an eight-millimeter camera and started to teach himself. The learning process turned into television work and a number of documentaries, including an anti-war film that he produced for the Canadian Broadcasting Company during the Vietnam years called Listen America.

He is still sorry the film was never shown in the United States.

"They said it was anti-American, but it is just the opposite; I love America," says Peter, explaining it was his passion for this country that made him advocate an anti-war position.

He was also director of photography on an anti-war concert at Madison Square Garden that featured the late rocker Jimi Hendrix. Colette, who was the proprietor of an avant-garde clothing shop on East 9th Street in Greenwich Village, was responsible for some of Hendrix's most famous outfits, including a famous white-fringed jacket with blue beads he wore at the Woodstock Festival.

Peter met Colette some 45 years ago at Elaine's, the restaurant of the late Elaine Kaufman that was once the favored gathering place of New York literati and glitterati, among them Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, and Dick Cavett.

"Elaine called me and said, 'Get yourself up here; there's someone I want you to meet,'" Peter recalls. "I lived on 10th Street and Elaine's was way uptown."

The journey was worth it.

"I couldn't imagine life without Colette," he says.

Peter's work has been exhibited in a number of local galleries as well as in galleries in New York, London, and Stockholm. Among those who have owned his photographs was the late writer Dominick Dunne, a longtime friend whom Peter first met as a result of producing plays in Bermuda. When Dunne, who had a weekend house in Lyme, died in 2009, Peter was one of the honorary pallbearers at his funeral.

Peter says he is always thrilled when a person buys one of his photographs.

"I feel very fortunate when somebody likes my work. If I can live with it, hopefully other people can, too," he says.

Choices, Photography by Peter Harron

Chester Gallery

76 Main Street, Chester

Artist Reception,

Friday, May 4, 5 to 7 p.m.