Kelley photos at Town Hall Seeing the beauty that surrounds him

SHARON — Photographs by Chris Kelley, a Sharon resident who has lived in the area for 18 years, are on display now at the Town Hall art gallery.Photography is a bit of a departure for Kelley. He’s a voice-over artist who is perhaps best known for his work with ESPN, the sports channel, which is headquartered in Bristol, Conn. It’s Kelley’s voice that’s heard every night across America saying, “This is SportsCenter.” Kelley got his start in the recording industry as a musician, back in the late 1970s. One band he was in, Rods and Cones, had a single called “Education and Love” that got air time on MTV. Another group, the Elliot Mouser Floating Blues Band, does covers of songs by the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, the Band, Little Feat and many other classic rockers. While performing in New York City in 1989, Kelley was approached by an agent who offered him an opportunity to do voice-overs. He’s been in the industry ever since. “It was right around the time when the voice-over industry started hiring young gravelly voiced guys, and the agent wanted someone who could compete with those voices. He heard me on stage and said, ‘I gotta get this guy,’” Kelley said. He was also the voice of Pepsi’s Generation Next campaign, Uncle Ben’s wild rice and, for a year in the early 1990s, VH1. (You can hear his voice online at voice123.com/chriskelley;click on Chris Kelley Promo Demo.)His work as a voice-over artist allowed him the financial stability to start a family and find a great place to live. “I drew a two-hour circle around Manhattan. I eliminated New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester, so I had to move north. I found Sharon, fell in love with it, built a house and had two beautiful children,” Kelley said. The digital age has allowed Kelley to record most of his voice-over work from his Sharon basement, so he has plenty of time to enjoy the beauty of his rural surroundings — and to capture it on film. A new vision He was given his first camera as a gift for his 50th birthday, although he had taken photos when he was a young man. After a year of taking photos with his birthday camera, a photographer friend said he had talent and advised him to purchase a professional camera. His photography has now become an important part of Kelley’s life, and has changed the way he looks at the world around him. He explores more, and takes the time to drive on roads he has never been down before. He’ll stop and get out of his car to take photos along the way. He revisits many of his favorite locations and tries to capture them at different seasons or different times of day. “I think everybody misses so much everyday because our world is so busy,” Kelley said. “There’s so much joy in simple moments. There are pockets of beauty everywhere, even on the worst of days, and I go out and find them.” Town Hall showIf you see someone out by the side of a road taking photos of barns, ponds and animals, it’s probably Kelley. One of the people who happened upon him while he was snapping pictures was Tax Collector Donna Christensen, who is the curator of the art exhibits at Town Hall. Kelley gave Christensen a disc of his photos, and shortly afterward, his work was hung in the Town Hall gallery. Many of the scenes highlighted in Kelley’s photos are familiar to Sharon residents. They are barns seen on the drive home, the beavers that can be found playing in ponds and streams and the antique trucks parked on the lawns of farms. But Kelley’s perspective and his willingness to revisit beautiful scenes and landscapes offers views into these familiar places that not everyone is willing to wait to see. Kelley’s photos will be at Town Hall through April.