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Video: A UConn professor's 'obsession' is creating a near-daily photo record of Horsebarn Hill

Nearly every time the sun is rising or setting at Horsebarn Hill in Storrs, Connecticut, Milton Levin is present and making photographs. The Uconn research professor works with a predictability nearly equal to that of the sun’s movement through the sky.

“It just became like an obsession to me,” Levin said while recently photographing the sunrise at the hill’s Jacobson Barn. “I started right as COVID started, so it got to be my COVID hobby.”

Levin, who said he “never deletes photos,” estimates he's made about half a million photographs around Horsebarn Hill.

“This is my routine,” Levin said while sitting in his truck watching deer emerge from woods near the hill. “I usually get up early, get some coffee, and drive around Horsebarn Hill."

"I'm just sitting here listening to birds and watching deer play," he said. "What better way to start your day? And if I capture a couple photos, that's even better. “

Mark Mirko is Deputy Director of Visuals at Connecticut Public and his photography has been a fixture of Connecticut’s photojournalism landscape for the past two decades. Mark led the photography department at Prognosis, an English language newspaper in Prague, Czech Republic, and was a staff-photographer at two internationally-awarded newspaper photography departments, The Palm Beach Post and The Hartford Courant. Mark holds a Masters degree in Visual Communication from Ohio University, where he served as a Knight Fellow, and he has taught at Trinity College and Southern Connecticut State University. A California native, Mark now lives in Connecticut’s quiet-corner with his family, three dogs and a not-so-quiet flock of chickens.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.

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Connecticut Public’s journalism is made possible, in part by funding from Jeffrey Hoffman and Robert Jaeger.