‘EXPOSED III’
Lynn Holley loves Erick Madrid’s black-and-white close-up of a man smoking.
“Eric’s an incredible photographer,” Ms. Holley told the News-Press recently in a gallery at the Bronfman Family Jewish Community Center. “I look at that, and I totally understand what he’s trying to capture in this person.”
Another black-and-white photo near Ms. Holley featured dramatic lighting of a Montecito site. It was David Auston’s “Walking Haskell’s Beach.”
“Look at the rocks and the detail,” Ms. Holley said with a smile.
A hundred or so black-and-white and color photos grace “EXPOSED III,” a new juried exhibit that runs through Jan. 9 at the Jewish center at 524 Chapala St.
Twenty-five percent of the exhibit’s sales will go to the Art at the JCC program.
Christopher Broughton, who served as a longtime instructor at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, is judging the show. Winners will be announced during an opening reception, set for 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the center. There will be refreshments and live music during the event, which is part of downtown Santa Barbara’s 1st Thursday activities.
Awards of Excellence will include a cash reward for the first-place winner.
The exhibit features “Winged Angel,” a photo donated by Ernest H. Brooks II, a former Brooks Institute president and son of institute founder Ernest Brooks Sr.
Ms. Holley, the exhibit’s curator, emphasized the exhibit’s variety in subject matters and techniques with photos taken with cameras and phones. She said the show had no theme or restrictions on the size of the pictures.
The family-friendly exhibit does not include pictures with gratuitous violence or sexuality, but otherwise, photographers, who paid entry fees starting at $15, could bring in anything that was ready to be hung and sold.
“It’s a very important to me to have a show that way,” Ms. Holley said. “When you start limiting photography, you will not get everybody who likes to be in the show.”
Some photographers used Photoshop to enhance their pictures, Ms. Holley said.
“All the arts, dance, poetry and music have changed as the technology changes and is used by people getting used to the technology,” she said.
“Everybody today is a photographer if they own a phone, and that’s fine because photography is something that is for personal use. There are a lot of great photographers who don’t take photos for someone else,” said Ms. Holley, who earned her master’s in museum studies in 2007 at the University of Leicester in Leicester, England.
She said the exhibit’s photographers are from Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, New York City and states such as Michigan and Wisconsin. “There are some interesting views of life from people in other areas.”
Ms. Holley noted the importance of photos that say something, such as Michelle Nesbitt’s color picture of an old truck. It’s called “Out to Pasture.”
“You know the truck doesn’t need to run anymore, and it’s in a field of flowers,” Ms. Holley said. “It says something. You can relate to it.”
She noted “EXPOSED III” has more black-and-white photos than the first two “EXPOSED” exhibits.
One example is “Street People.” Mr. Broughton, the exhibit’s judge, took the black-and-white picture of a man walking by two other men who are talking to each other and don’t notice him.
“There’s an interesting story just by looking at the photograph,” Ms. Holley said.
She noted the poignancy of Mr. Auston’s black-and-white photo “Pondering the Imponderable,” in which a young girl looks at a wall filled with names.
“She is perfectly captured,” Ms. Holley said.
The curator also praised the exhibit’s color photos, which include Felicia Capelle’s pictures of penguins in their native habitats of Antarctica and the Falkland Islands.
“She captured some fun moments in her life,” Ms. Holley said.
The exhibit’s color photos include pictures of plants that have the qualities of paintings.
One dramatic photo is Lynn Altschul’s dramatic, tight close-up of an elephant’s face. It’;s the area around one eye.
Nancy Barasch played with lines, circles and images of two men in her photo, “Bike Trick.”
Other photos show action, everything from someone doing the backstroke to ice skaters at the Olympics.
There are also contemplative scenes such as sailboats or a horse in a forest.
Ms. Holley discussed the saying that a photo is worth a thousand words. She took it a step further.
“Sometimes a picture might only be worth one word, and that one word might mean more than than the thousand you just wrote. I think it’s the whole thing about a story.”
FYI
“EXPOSED III,” a new juried photography exhibit, runs through Jan. 9 at the Bronfman Family Jewish Community Center, 524 Chapala St. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Fridays. Admission is free.
Winners will be announced during an opening reception, set for 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the center as part of downtown Santa Barbara’s 1st Thursday activities. There will be refreshments and live music.
