Michael Solano

For Daniel Hennelly ’26, the path to the visual arts has been anything but direct. At times, it has meant hauling a toilet across the quad or staring out the window of a train.

A military veteran and current senior in his 30s, Hennelly uses his film camera to share his experience as a nontraditional college student.

His reentry into photography began almost by chance. Nearly two decades after an initial encounter with a high school photography class, Hennelly found himself signing up for Photography I in the spring of his sophomore year.

“What I remembered about photo from high school was that it was tedious, a long process that forces you to be patient,” Hennelly said. “I’m very patient with people, but processes? Not at all. So I knew photography would force me to slow down.”

Photography I did more than slow him down. It completely altered the former history major’s academic trajectory.

“That class made me change my major,” Hennelly said. “The fall of junior year, I didn’t take any art classes, and I was miserable…. I didn’t realize how much I’d loved it.”

Hennelly’s newfound passion soon gave rise to one of Bowdoin’s most unconventional art projects: the “You Belong at Bowdoin” series. Born from a class assignment, it consists of nude self-portraits of Hennelly on a toilet across campus.

What began as a way to poke fun at the College and the inherent absurdity of “going to boarding school in your 30s,” as Hennelly felt, gradually revealed a more profound meaning.

“It started making me think about how [Bowdoin] is a lonely experience for me,” Hennelly shared. “I can move freely between all conceivable social groups here, which is sick. But I also don’t belong to any of them, which hurts. These are things that I’ve thought about a lot and had never been able to articulate until I’m looking at myself naked on a toilet.”

Following his self-portrait series, Hennelly’s lens turned outward through “All Aboard: The People and Places of Rail Travel.”

With fellowship funding and the guidance of Professor of Art Michael Kolster, he left Brunswick for a five-week, cross-country Amtrak journey to document the people and places of rail travel.

“The first couple of weeks, I was stressed out because I had no idea what I was doing,” he admitted.

Kolster, who advised Hennelly on the project proposal, saw uncertainty as a crucial part of the process.

“I told him that when he proposed the project, that part of this was going to be challenging—he knew that already,” Kolster said. “The most important thing is to go out and see what happens. I tried to get out of his way.… This is the time for you to go out and get lost.”

And get lost he did. Hennelly navigated uncomfortable seats and wrestled with unsuitable photography conditions. Packed to the brim with equipment, he pressed his camera against the window and shot roll after roll.

Navigating the country required careful planning through Amtrak’s rail pass system, which offers ten rides but reserves a limited number of pass-eligible seats on each train. Hennelly’s itinerary shifted, but it also allowed him to reconnect with a network of friends, family and Bowdoin connections along the way.

Back at Bowdoin, he faces the task of making sense of the nearly 1,500 images he created.

“It’s kind of a chicken or the egg,” Hennelly said. “I could sit down and try to write about this trip, but how am I going to write about it when I’m not looking at what I was doing? Likewise, how am I going to choose pictures if I haven’t written about them? It’s this weird struggle.”

This is the challenge Kolster hoped Hennelly would encounter.

“I was encouraging him to let the photographs suggest a greater understanding of what he was actually doing,” Kolster explained. “When you begin, you think you’re doing one thing, and at the end, you realize you might have been doing something else. That’s growth.”

While reels of film have replaced miles of track, the challenge now is one every artist faces: What does it all mean?

“It’s tedious and a lot of emotional work,” Hennelly said. “I spent five weeks trying to create these photos, and I have no idea how it’s going to be received. How do I make others care about these images? How do I make others care about this trip that I took? That’s what I have to contend with.”

As he mulls over the negatives, he knows the answer will take time. For Hennelly, it’s just another journey he’s willing to take.