From an X-acto Knife to Photoshop to traditional darkroom developing, ten Photography II students will display a confluence of old and new technologies at The Art of Framing and Gallery through January 12.
Hanging the Fall 2007 Group Show at the 14th Street business Saturday afternoon, the students each presented three black and white images from their final ten-piece portfolio. In addition to selecting the images, students learned to matte and frame them as well as display and label them most effectively in a gallery setting.
Instructor Sheila Stafford incorporates a holistic view of an image beyond simply the photograph.
"All those are little details but they help convey the message,” said Stafford. "Photography is more than just taking a picture, it's visual communication, making sure the picture can stand up by itself in a formal setting and still speak.”
If students are willing to do the extra work and pay materials costs — and they always have been — Stafford likes to wind up her Photography II classes with a show. She prefers to bring her students' work into the community, though if a venue is not available the walls of the college's Fine Arts Building will suffice. She is pleased to have connected with The Art of Framing and Gallery, where co-owner Jackie Baase is an NMC alumni.
"They are definitely Art Angels to let us come in there without renting the space, which is their ultimate goal,” Stafford added.
Capturing in three images a slice of their lives or passion, the students winnowed the final selections from the ten they submitted to Stafford for evaluation. Choosing was both hard and easy because some photographs immediately made the cut while others required more thought and even agonizing.
Aspiring portrait photographer Julie Knauss of Lake Ann took about 40 pictures of three different subjects. When she developed the photographs of dancers, seven jumped out at her but choosing the last three for the ten-piece portfolio was a challenge. The next cut down to just three images for the show was even more of a challenge.
"A couple stood out and then it was difficult trying to make visual flow,” said Knauss, who relished her first gallery showing. "The way I've seen my pictures hung has been in my own house so I love seeing it somewhere else.”
John Hanson of Traverse City created his images with a mission to transcend time. He took this concept literally as he used an exacto knife to carve up and then mounted together his photographs of modern American cities with images from ancient Mexican temples.
"I'm representing American cultures blended without the X axis of time,” he said.
Various travels as near as Grand Rapids and Lansing and as far as Palanque, Chiapas, provided the raw material for his collages.
"There were so many different ways that these could go together, combining them was a challenge,” he noted.
The range of topics covered by students also included images from a playground, flowers, snapshots from J & S Hamburg, a violin and opposites, or the juxtaposition of naughty and nice. Students hung their work with the same focus and intensity they put into conceiving of and taking the photos, culling and then matting and framing them.
"That's where the excitement is every year: where they want to go and playing midwife to the creative process,” said Stafford, who has taught at NMC as an adjunct instructor for more than 30 years.
The NMC Photography II Fall 2007 Group Show will be at The Art of Framing and Gallery through Saturday, January 12. A closing reception will be held at the gallery, 430 W. 14th Street, on January 12 from 3-5 p.m.