Griffin Museum of Photography

29th Annual Members Juried Exhibition

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29th Annual Juried Members Exhibition

Juror – Lisa Volpe, Curator of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

20 April – 28 May, 2023

Artist Reception 21 April, 6.30 – 8pm

We are thrilled to announce the 29th Annual Members Juried Exhibition. 

Our thanks to Curator of Photography Lisa Volpe, from the Museum of Fine Arts Houston for selecting sixty artists from over 250 artists and 1250 images submitted. 

This exhibition, called Under the Mask, focused on exploring the psychological, social, and emotional results of the last three years. We’ve all seen the photographs of masked citizens, but what transpired behind the mask? What were the aftereffects when we put our masks away?

This years award winners – 

Arthur Griffin Legacy Award – Nancy Scherl

Griffin Prize – Suzanne Revy 

Honorable Mentions – Alexa Cushing, Barrett Emke, Ellen Konar & Steve Goldband, Barbara Peacock, Sylvie Redmond

Directors Choice – Suzanne Theodora White

Exhibition Award – Lynne Breitfeller

Juror’s statement from Lisa Volpe – 

It’s not easy to describe the last three years.
Oddly, the best description I’ve found for our pandemic era was written in 1895. Yet, somehow that a temporality seems right for the topic. It was Charles Dickens who said it best, naming his own moment both the best and the worst. He continued, “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
This members’ show, featuring work from the last three years, reflects the conflict and contradictions of those many months. The frantic energy of sourdough baking and mass challenges, felt in bright colors and crowded compositions, giving way to quiet and to ennui as the pandemic wore on. The passage of time referenced in diptychs, triptychs, multiple exposures and blur. The feeling of standing still in quick captures and fleeting moments. A feeling of change. A desire for the familiar.
Only a range of photographs, points of view, and styles representing wisdom and foolishness, light and dark, hope and despair could capture a sense of our last three years.

Lisa Volpe
Curator, Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Artists in the exhibition (in alphabetical order)

Stephen Albair, Hannah Altman, Mark Atkinson, Diane Bennett, Jennifer Bilodeau, Jennifer Booher, Sally Bousquet, Adele Quartley Brown, Lisa Cassell-Arms, Jo Ann Chaus, Diana Cheren Nygren, Richard Cohen, Anne Connor, Nicholas Costopoulos, Alexa Cushing, Steve Delaney, Lisa Donneson, Sharon Draghi, Adam Eaton, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Barrett Emke, Alex Ferrone, Joan Fitzsimmons, Patricia Fortlage, Carole Glauber, Steve Goldband & Ellen Konar, Cassandra Goldwater, Joe Greene, Law Hamilton, Anne Hermes, John Hesketh, Sandy Hill, Allan Hiltz, Nanci Kahn, Gabrielle Keller, Ray Koh, Susan Lapides, Jeff Larason, Rob Lorino, Bruce Magnuson, Joetta Maue, CoCo McCabe, Dawn McDonald, Mike Ritter, Kiersten Miller, Robert Morin, Connor Noll, Terrell Otey, David Oxton, Barbara Peacock, Suzanne Revy, Travis Rainey, Sylvie Redmond, Vicki Reed, Mary Reeve, Lynn Saville, Nancy Scherl, Dan Weingrod and Suzanne Theodora White. 

The companion online exhibition for the Members Exhibition can be found here.

Stephen Albair | Silent Scenes

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About Stephen Albair –

Life’s ambiguities—love, loss, and longing—are subjects for my artworks. Found objects combined together in a tight space link, and create a dialogue. The silent conversation becomes a reflection of my experiences as an artist, teacher, traveler, and twin. This process is based on traditional tableau photography in which models on a stage remain motionless for an observer. The camera simply records the scene.
In my works, Found objects combined together in a tight space link, and create a dialogue. Just as there are many ways of looking at the past and the present, tableaus narrate many possibilities. Story threads diverge while the viewer searches for meaning. The resulting photograph has a painterly quality which reveals and conceals layers of information. While specific interpretations are left to the viewer, according to their own experiences, my staged objects create an expectation that something meaningful just happened—or is about to.

Jon Chase | Coal Country

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Jon Chase’s intimate view of Appalachia, made in 1978 and 1979 highlights the grit, determination and personal stories of the coal miners that live and work in the mountains of Coal Country.

About Jon Chase –

I have been a staff photographer at Harvard University for the past 27 years. I got my start in photography by taking a six-week introductory course at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1973. Following that, I came to the Boston area and moved to Newton Corner, where I began to photograph my neighbors in an old apartment building. This led to my obtaining a grant from the Mass. Foundation for the Humanities to produce a book of photos and interviews with people on all sides of what became a city-wide controversy when a developer bought the property. In 1987, The Fight for Newton Corner was published and distributed free of charge to every town and city planner in Massachusetts.

I subsequently moved to Cambridge and worked for several newspapers as well as Associated Press in Boston. In Cambridge I again photographed my neighbors, this time in a residential hospice on my block over a period of two years. Other projects include prison inmates at the Billerica House of Correction, coal miners and local people in Appalachia, and orphanages and flood victims in China. I have always felt an affinity for people living outside the mainstream, and that has been the focus of almost all my personal work.

I am a strong believer in combining words with photos, both to provide historical context and to add anecdotal information that personalizes the images. I have done that with my photographs of coal miners, which are mostly portraits, but which also document a specific time in the history, often violent, of coal mining in those areas of Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia known as Coal Country.
I live in Acton with my wife Louisa, with my adult daughter Maya living nearby.

 

Infralucent Clouds

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Infralucent Clouds

The scientist in me gets very excited to discover something new, never seen before, and not easily explained, either.

What I found is that imaging the night sky with an infrared camera emphasizes some features. The most intriguing part are those very thin, light clouds in the atmosphere, which one cannot see with the naked eye or a regular camera.

These clouds are delicate waves of what is likely ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Transparent to visible light, but reflecting Earth’s infrared radiation, which only an infrared camera can see, and only at night.

With reference to noctilucent clouds (which we can only observe in particular locations at a specific time of night), I named these infralucent clouds, because they shine only in infrared light and at night. They add a wispy fabric to fill the otherwise empty night sky to create otherworldly views.

With this collection of images I want to share that ethereal sight and enable people to see infralucent clouds in their full beauty, creating awareness that there are many things we do not perceive, cannot easily explain, but that are real and ever present. -JL

About Jürgen Lobert

Jürgen Lobert is a Massachusetts-based fine art photographer and educator, born and raised in Germany. He received a Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry from Gutenberg University in Mainz before moving to the US in 1991.

Jürgen is fortunate to have a daytime job, so he got to specialize mostly in night photography, but he also creates daytime long exposures, urban exploration and infrared imagery.

Jürgen’s work has appeared in numerous group shows and he has also organized, curated and exhibited in others. Among those exhibits are the Night Becomes Us at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA. His artwork is in the permanent collection of the Art Complex Museum, and in private collections.

Jürgen organizes over forty photo excursions and workshops each year. He is an international lecturer, instructor and competition judge. He has taught photography at the New England School of Photography (NESOP) and currently at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Jürgen is an executive member of the Boston Camera Club, member of Stony Brook Camera Club and the founder and organizer of the Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup group.

CV
Exhibitions
Solo & Featured Exhibits

  • Griffin Museum of Photography @ WinCAM, Winchester, MA, Infralucent Clouds, January 2022.
  • Hingham Library, MA. Ethereal Night Sky, 2014.
  • Photographic Resource Center, Cambridge, MA. Night Sight, a curated, digital presentation of four photographers 2012.

Exhibitions as Organizer, Curator & Exhibitor

  • Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA. Group exhibit Night Becomes Us, 2016- 2017.
    90 night photographs from 12 artists.
  • Front Street Gallery, Scituate, MA. Group exhibit Night Vision, Scituate, MA, 2018.
  • Front Street Gallery, Scituate, MA. Group exhibit Luminous City, Scituate, MA, 2015.
  • Mashpee Library, MA. Group exhibit The World at Night, 2015.

Juried Group Exhibitions

  • Duxbury Art Association, MA. Winter Juried Show, 2021.
  • Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. After Dark, 2020.
  • Duxbury Art Association, MA. Winter Juried Show, 2020.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. The Fine Art of Photography, 2018.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. The Fine Art of Photography, 2017.
  • Providence Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI. Unseen, 2017.
  • Darkroom Gallery, Burlington, VT. Optics Illusioned, 2016.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. Art of Show, 2016.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. The Fine Art of Photography, 2014.
  • Visionspace Gallery, Lynn, MA. Night Light, 2013.
  • Front Street Gallery, Scituate, MA. New England Night Photographers, 2013.

Other Group Exhibitions

    • Photographic Resource Center, Cambridge, MA. Your Work Here, November 2021.
    • Boston Camera Club, Boston Seaport, MA. The Focused Eye – Our Unique Views, a public banner installation, 2021.
    • Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA. Winter Solstice, 2019.
    • New England School of Photography, Waltham, MA, through the Boston Camera Club. Light & Shadow, 2018.
    • New England School of Photography, Waltham, MA. Staff Representation, 2017.
    • Boston Camera Club at the Wellesley Library, MA. Abstract, 2015.
    • Center for Arts, Natick, MA. Boston Camera Club, 2012.

Ongoing Bodies of Work

  • The World at Night, a diverse portfolio of night photography and its sub-genres.
  • Infralucent Clouds, a collection of stratospheric clouds invisible to the human eye.
  • Moody Architecture, a collection of daytime long exposures about serene views in busy cities.
  • Industrial Beauty, a collection to show the glamorous character of industrial installations at night.
  • The Orb Sphere, a collection of light drawings at night.
  • Trichroic Impressions, a colorful collection of long exposures to visualize motion.
  • Black Light, a collection of studio light drawings.
  • Down in the Dungeon, a collection of dark, abandoned, underground spaces.
  • Gravelscapes, a collection of otherworldly quarry scenes.
  • Moon Streaks, a collection of very long exposures to show moon rises and sets in one image.
  • Uplifting, a collection of night time photos featuring bucket lifts.

Collections

  • The collection of the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA.
  • Private collectors throughout the USA.

Publications

Bibliography

  • Full page photo and text spread, Country Gazette newspaper, Vol. 35, No. 33, p. B1, 10-April-2020.
  • Artist’s profile in fifty plus advocate, Eastern edition, Vol 46. No 5, p 4-6,  May 2020.
  • Page spread about Night Becomes Us exhibit, Duxbury Clipper newspaper, p. 12, March 22, 2017.
  • Featured photo Blood Moon over Point Judith, in: Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark by Lance Keimig, p. 93, 2nd edition, 2016.
  • Article about the artist and Night Becomes Us exhibit, South Shore Living Magazine, p. 24, October 2016.
  • Live presentation & published video, of Jürgen and the GBNight Meetup group, Common Cod Fiber Guild, Ignite Craft: Boston, January 2015.

Related Experience

  • About 40 technical publications for atmospheric chemistry and contamination control, incl. Nature and Science magazines.
  • A 30-year record of public presentations on scientific and photography topics with audiences up to 250.

Teaching Experience

  • Griffin Museum of Photography, 2021 to present.
  • Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup, 2013 to -present.
  • New England School of Photography, 2017 to 2019.
  • International camera clubs and regional photography conferences, 2013 to present.
  • Registered speaker and photo judge at the New England Camera Club Council.

Education

  • Ph.D. in Chemistry, Atmospheric Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, 1990.
  • Masters in Nuclear Chemistry, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, 1985.
  • CAPA National Judging Course, Canadian Association for Photographic Art, Boston, MA, 2012.
  • Workshop “Introduction to Night Photography”, New England School of Photography,
    Boston, MA, 2011.

Languages

  • Fluent in written and spoken German (native language).
  • Fluent in written and spoken English.

Professional Affiliations

  • Owner, JM Lobert Photography LLC
  • Founder and organizer, Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup (2013-present).
  • Member, Boston Camera Club, Brookline, MA (2010-present).
  • Co-organizer of the New England Night Photographers Meetup (2012-2013).
  • Memberships
    • Professional Photographers of America (PPA; 2014-present).
    • Photographic Society of America (PSA; 2016-present).
    • Stony Brook Camera Club (2016-present). Griffin Museum of Photography (2017-present).
    • Photographic Resource Center, MA (PRC; 2011-12, 2021-present).

View Jürgen Lobert’s website. 

Garden Whimsy

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Statement
In my garden, I see the morning light in a dewdrop. The single last seed on a dandelion. A bug perched on a blade of grass. The furry little hands of a squirrel exploring me for a peanut. It is these sublime moments that catch my attention. My digital camera is usually handy. I do not want to miss that pollen-covered wild bee in the Agastache blossom.

It starts with a digital photograph. From there, it becomes an inkjet negative, and eventually a Ziatype print.

Why Ziatype? Ziatype is an alternative process by which the photographic emulsion is mixed individually for each image, and brushed onto a piece of – in this case – watercolor paper. The negative is sandwiched on top, placed in a printing frame and exposed to UV light. The Ziatype process leans on similar processes that are over 100 years old. To me, it carries with it the awe and mysteriousness of early photography, the intimacy of the moment, and a dreaminess that gives me a break from the hustle of everyday life. It is hands-on, real and unique in a way that the most perfect digitally printed color image can never be.

Bio
Silke Hase is a German–born photographer who has lived in Boston for 24 years.

She gathered her first darkroom experience in an extracurricular photography workshop in high school in Germany. To build onto her early self-taught technique she began a more formal training at the New England School of Photography in Boston taking workshops for several years. She studied historic and alternative processes in workshops with Jill Enfield (Wet Plate Collodion), Michelle Rogers (Wet Plate Collodion), and Anne Eder (Ziatype).

Hase’s work reflects a diversity of subjects in a variety of formats and photographic processes.

Hase’s work has appeared in a number of solo and group shows in Europe and the United States, and can be found in a few private collections. Her photos have been published in various magazines and other publications such as ANTILISPEIS, Open to Interpretation, Backstage, F-Stop, and Shots.

Her work has been exhibited in many acclaimed international juried toy camera shows, like the Krappy Kamera (SOHO PHOTO Gallery, New York, NY – 2013, 2011, 2010), The Somerville Toy Camera Fest (Somerville, MA – 2015, 2014, 2013), Plastic Fantastic (Lightbox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR – 2015, 2014), and the Annual International Plastic Camera Show (RAYKO Photo Center, San Francisco, CA – 2013)

Hase won First Prize in the Black & White Classic at the Brush Art Gallery, Lowell, MA in 2009 and had a piece in the Traveling Exhibition Perceptions (Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece in 2011).

Nocturne

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Statement
Nocturne is about my emotional responses to New York City. This project features composite photos of the waterfront and landscapes in New York City or straight photos of reflections of the landscape on the water’s surface. The landscape in my works is murky, dark, and far away from viewers, which means that there’s always a barrier between me and this city. The composite photographs derive from my imagination, and the straight photographs are the projections of reality. The alternation between imagination and reality function like melody and rhythm, and together they compose a nocturne that explains the name of this project and individual images. I think it’s a time for native and local people to rethink and re-understand New York City due to coronavirus. WHC

Bio
Wen-Han Chang was born in Kaohsiung, a southern city of Taiwan, in 1982. His journey into photography began in university. While doing his BS in physics, he studied light and was fascinated with laser photography and optics. Soon, he found that he loved photography more than physics, so he decided to forfeit his master’s degree in physics.

Time went on until the 2008 financial crisis, he was laid off from an engineering job and had nothing left except his camera. In order to try to see if the career of photography could be continued, he signed up for the 2008 EPSON contest, of which the judges were all Japanese, including Daido Moriyama, Mitsuo Katsui, and so forth. The first prize came when he almost gave up taking photos. Following that, more tries rewarded him with international competitions and prizes, such as PX3 and IPA.

From 2009 to 2017, he worked as a medical photographer. The work led him to a professional field that consisted of photographing procedures, such as heart surgery, and documenting patients’ visible symptoms. The work was fascinating but didn’t satisfy his artist’s soul. Therefore, he quit his job in 2017 for his true passion, abstract photography. In 2020, he got his MFA degree in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, continuing his professional track in art. Now, he is a director of photography in an international IT company.

Image List

An Introduction by Nat Trotman
Inspired by his experiences as a newcomer to New York City, Wen-Han Chang creates photographs of depopulated cityscapes that evoke a sense of dreamlike stillness. He deliberately underexposes his black and white images, sometimes combining multiple images into invented composite scenes. Nearly every image features a darkened body of water, often bearing an abstracted reflection of natural or artificial light. This recurring motif brings to mind the musical patterns to which his artwork titles allude—a connection made explicit in the accompanying soundtrack by Yun-Chun Jasmine Sun.

Nat Trotman, Curator of Performance and Media at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

A Review by Natasha Chuk
The images in Nocturne are beautiful: extremely fitting of the title given the series and the traditions of this form of music, altogether eliciting a kind of appealing sadness. The work overall references the transition from day to night, the crepuscular light, which forces you to make adjustments and, sometimes, produces an overwhelming awareness of this struggle. The metaphor and assertion of the barrier working together is strong in its promotion of the idea of distance and incomplete understanding and perception.

The musical score is a tremendous accompaniment, drawing out the sensations of longing and unfulfillment, almost like the exploration of a gap that isn’t filled with emptiness so much as an alternative experience or encounter. It takes on a life of its own, entrancing and enveloping the viewer.

The work also references a state or idea of liminality You could say the work is visually and conceptually betwixt and in-between, which encapsulates the state of your daily encounters in a city that teeters between being accepting, indifferent, and rejecting, almost simultaneously. With this in mind, your influence by Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs are apparent: they’re situated at the threshold of resolution, and they produce a quiet discomfort in their unwillingness to forge definition. This promotes the value of these liminal spaces/conditions as being and having definitions of their own, worthwhile and encompassing of a feeling or situation.

The work of the Pictorialists and the broader notion of elevating the status and possibility of a photograph beyond looking and recording also are integral to this work, encouraging the images to suggest movement, almost toward transformation. The reference to Sally Mann’s layered and mostly obsolete techniques of image-making — which infused her images with a sense of physical, emotional, and ultimately temporal texture — plays well here. Nocturnehas an effect of suspending a sense of reality, or the image’s referent, somewhere inside, unlocatable and at a remove. The result is arresting: both intimidating and extending an invitation to look closer.

Natasha Chuk is a critical theorist and writer whose research interests focus on the use of creative technologies as systems of language at the intersection of expression, interface, and perception. She teaches courses in film studies, digital cultures, aesthetics, and art history at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. natashachuk.com

View Wen-Han Chang’s website.

Elastic Sidewalk

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Statement
Street photography for me is an act of meditation, using breath and heightened senses to experience one instant, then another. Reminiscent of the Surrealist concept of “objective chance,” there are times when geometry, light and gesture converge, when street-level reality collides with some broader myth, and the public space stretches into something more. I try to record those moments. I search the real, looking for the really real.

Although my style is more subconscious gestalt than documentary photography, I follow the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) guidelines – my images are not staged nor are components materially manipulated beyond their in-camera capture. In so doing, I hope to show that the revelations of the street, just as they are, rival and often surpass those of imagination.

Bio
With or without a camera, Diane Bennett often asks herself: Where is the emotion in these surroundings? This long-standing focus informs her photography, which merges street-level reality, broader myth and personal resonance.

Now a Boston-based photographer specializing in black & white street images, Bennett attributes her visual education to living and working in New York City, with its rich diversity, many art institutions and storied history of street photography. With an academic background in theology and psychology and professional experience ranging from social services to software engineering, Bennett’s photographic practice has grown by working with Doton Saguy (Street Photography Masterclass), Emily Belz (Advanced Critique) and Sue Anne Hodges (Digital Printing) and absorbing many years of inspired programming at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

CV
Solo Exhibitions

2022    Elastic Sidewalk Series, Concord Free Public Library Art Gallery, Concord, MA

2021    Elastic Sidewalk Series, Griffin Museum of Photography Griffin Gallery, Winchester, MA

Juried Group Exhibitions

2021    BCA Photo Group, The Library Show, Bedford, MA

Juror Erin Carey, Artist, Educator and Independent Curator, MA

2021    PhotoSC, Surrealism: The Unusual & the Subversive, Columbia, SC

Juror Natalie Dupecher, Curator, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX

2021    Concord Art, 22th Annual Frances N. Roddy Exhibition, Concord, MA

Juror Sam Adams, Curator, deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, Lincoln, MA

2021    Bromfield Gallery, Streetwise, Virtual Juried Exhibition, Boston, MA

2021    Photographic Resource Center, 25th Annual PRC Exposure Juried Exhibition, Boston, MA

Juror Kris Graves, Artist and Publisher of Kris Graves Projects, NY

2021    Griffin Museum, 27th Juried Exhibition, Winchester, MA

Juror Arnika Dawkins, Owner, Arnika Dawkins Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2020    Griffin Museum, 26th Juried Exhibition, (Virtual) Winchester, MA

Juror Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director, Griffin Museum of Photography

2020    SE Center for Photography, Black, White & More, Greenville, SC

Juror Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director, Griffin Museum of Photography

2019    Cambridge Art Association, 2019 Open Photo Exhibit, Cambridge, MA

Juror Karen Haas, Lane Curator of Photographs, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

2019    New England School of Photography, Untold Stories Juried Exhibition, Waltham, MA

Juror Emily Belz, Artist/Instructor, Griffin Museum and deCordova Museum, MA

2019    Suffolk University Law School, Public Domain Day Exhibition, Boston, MA

Juror Erin Carey, Academic Director, New England School of Photography

 

View Diane Bennett’s Website.

Mantel

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The Overarching Idea
The overarching idea behind this exhibition revolves around a very broad interpretation of “home” through the eyes of eleven photographers in ten solo exhibitions and one video.

Statement
Photography for me is an act of distilling reality into my personal vision. A photograph speaks without words; it provides a medium in which to express myself. It allows me to fix place and time to my memories.

This has been a difficult year because of the pandemic, shelter- ing-in-place and not being able to socialize in person with my community. This has forced me to rethink how I go about making new work — its a time of transition. I am not sure where it will take me but I have enjoyed the challenge.

This past year having time I started making composites using im- ages from my archives and new images of botanicals created during my walks in Golden Gate park and my garden.

For some time, I have been interested in mantels and fireplaces and the symbolisms they represent. In all my travels, I have pho- tographed fireplaces and mantels throughout the world. Some cultures believe them to be a shrine, idols or images of deities were placed on the mantle, a fire was lit, prayers were offered and in some cultures offerings were made by burning possessions or trinkets of a departed person.

Today with the advent of central heating, fireplaces with mantels, photographs, flowers, and favorite ceramics now create some- thing more nostalgic than spiritual.

Bio
Judi Iranyi was born in Hungary (1943). After World War II, she and her family lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany for a few years be- fore emigrating to Venezuela, where she lived until she finished high school. She has also lived in Trinidad, Barbados, Germany, and Okinawa before moving to San Francisco in 1971.

Ms. Iranyi became interested in photography in the sixties. She earned a BA degree in Art/Photography from San Francisco State University. Later she received an MA degree in Visual Design from U.C. Berkeley; complet- ed a master!s level museum studies program at John F. Kennedy Universi- ty; and an MSW Degree in Social Work at San Francisco State University.

Ms. Iranyi has worked as a freelance photographer taking environmental portraits. She was also a staff photographer at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley and worked at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums.

She also worked as a California Licensed Clinical Social Worker until her retirement.

After retirement, Ms Iranyi dedicated her time to photography. She has been published; exhibited in group and solo shows across the United States and Europe; and self-published two books: “Arg-e-Bam,” about the ancient citadel in Iran, and “Remembering Michael,” a tribute to her son, who died of AIDS in 1984.

Her work includes portraits, travel photography, documentary, and street photography. Recently she has shifted her emphasis to botanicals and still life photography.

Three of her life passions are traveling, literature, and photography, which have broadened her view of the world.

View Judi Iranyi’s website.

The Gift

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Statement
When I was just thirteen, my world changed overnight with the sudden death of my father. My mother Barbara became the core of our little family, guiding my sister and me through grieving using faith, laughter and love. She helped us find our footing again, easing the inevitable sadness with ready hugs and encouraging words.

When I started college, I missed our physical closeness and began photographing my mother when I visited home. I always carried my camera, frequently recording moments, expressions and compositions that caught my eye. My candid photographs eventually formed an intimate narrative of our tight family bond. But it was only after my mother’s death when I was twenty-six that I realized they exposed her true gift: how to find joy after loss. Without knowing it, she had prepared me for life after her own death. I hope my images capture her grace and honor her legacy.

Bio
Sandy Hill grew up in a small town in Northeastern Ohio. She spent many hours on her horse at an old farm, or driving around with her mom looking for beautiful country settings to photograph or paint.  The natural beauty as well as the rustic farms in the area provided the inspiration for her interest in photography. In fact her first newspaper cover was taken at one of these farms and later a significant photography project revolved around an old family farm in upstate New York.

Her mom’s artistic skills encouraged a constant stream of creativity in Sandy’s childhood. Other influences included Sandy’s father who traveled the world for his work and inspired a curiosity about other people and countries.

Her current work in portraiture has grown out of her interest in illustrating the stories of different people and cultures.

Hill was a photographer for several daily newspapers and a wire service in the greater Boston area. She was also a public relations photographer for the University of Rochester.

Her work has been exhibited in multiple juried shows including several by the Griffin Museum and The Curated Fridge. The South X Southeast Gallery, Lenscratch, RIT Honor Show and The Center for Fine Art Photography have also included her work in juried exhibits.

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