Behind the lens
‘CAMERAWORKS’ EXHIBIT SHOWCASES DIVERSITY IN PHOTOGRAPHY
The stunning range of photography’s creativity will be on full display at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists’s biennial exhibition devoted to the medium, “CameraWorks 2021,” on view through March 28. The exhibition will be in the gallery and online. Pamela Stoddart, the Guild’s executive director, said the exhibition began about 20 years ago due to the wealth of talented photographers in the area that deserved their own show. “It focuses solely on photographic processes and methods: film, digital, pinhole, lomography, photograms, encaustic, disposable, iphoneography, lenticular and videography,” she said.
The works featured in the show range from immersive to two-dimensional over the years and this year’s entries run the gamut from landscapes and portraits to abstracted/stylized images — in both color and black-and-white. Storytelling is at the heart of each image and one’s
immediate reaction to the images is often visceral.
“Variety is always desired whenever we do a call for any show,” she said. “We ultimately want the audience to walk away with a sense of what it means to be a photographer and the wide range of outcomes you can have when behind a lens.”
Exhibitions coordinator Chris Perry said this year’s show is only the second show they have had in the galleries since the beginning of the pandemic. “We feel that our audience, and the artists, are hungry for an ingallery experience,” he said. “In the past year, we have only been able to have online shows, and they were all well-received, but we are really looking forward to welcoming in-gallery viewers on a limited basis for this exhibition.”
Nearly 40 area photographers are represented in this exhibition, which was juried by Andrew Delaney of Getty Images. Several awards were presented, including first place to Barbara Loss of Fairfield for her work, “We Didn’t Start the Fire;” second place to Miggs Burroughs of Westport for “Signs of Compassion” and third place went to Patricia Pedraza of Katonah, N.Y., for “Purple Majesty.” Earning honorable mentions were Ridgefield’s Luke Boylan, “Wellfleet Salt Marsh;” Nancy Breakstone of Westport, “Reeds in the River;” Andrew Graham of Redding, “Hold On;” Torrance York of New Canaan for a work (untitled 6341) from Semaphore Project and Tim Nighswander of Hamden for “Magnolia #27.”
Both Stoddart and Perry found plenty here that will challenge, surprise and resonate with audiences. “What struck me was the diversity of submission. There were so many types of images and methods of capturing one that I think we were
very successful in the first year of requesting work that may be considered beyond the traditional,” Perry said. “And our juror rose to the occasion and selected a broad variety of work that reflects this change of
scope. It is my hope that in the coming years we see even more variety of image and method of capture.”
Stoddart noted the wide variety of subject matters and exposures as well as materials among exhibition submissions. “Photographs were printed on plexiglass, in black and white or color and the latest trend, printed on aluminum or metallic paper.”
Pedraza, a self-taught artist, perhaps best epitomizes the challenges — and opportunities — artists find themselves in during a global pandemic. “I am excited to be in the middle of a major life reset! After decades working in the wacky world of television news, I finally and luckily have a chance to reinvent myself and focus on my passion as a visual creator,” she said in an artist statement. “I am currently obsessed with kaleidoscopic creations, which
originate with an original digital photo and take new form through mirroring, repeating, and transforming images.”
In his artist statement Boroughs said he is intrigued by all the changes and transitions — large and small, real and imagined — that are part of one’s daily life. In his lenticular images he is well known for, he seems to reflect a duality, and sometimes dichotomy. “The lenticular medium allows me to explore these journeys through time, space and emotions, in a fresh and somewhat cinematic way. They are, in fact, like short movies with only two frames, and if I can tell a story with the same impact that a real movie does, with more than 250,000 frames, then I have succeeded.”
For more information about the exhibit, visit rgoa.org.