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Peter's Picks of the Month
November 5 -
November 30, 2008
Peter Marr picked his favorite
photos of the show
by the featured and guest photographers, here is how he described his choices:
All images copyright by the individual photographers
Antarctica Journey
Although Ted Tatarzyn”s
sublime images of Antarctica are the focal point of this exhibition, please
enjoy his other striking prints, representing scenes from some of the other
continents that he has had the good fortune to visit.
Antarctica,
the coldest, windiest, highest and driest continent, is a place like nowhere
else on earth, an environment that Ted Tatarzyn has admirably captured in this
exhibition, with memorable images that reflect both the austerity and beauty of
this hostile world. I would love to
comment on all of the prints, but because of space restrictions, I will
highlight two or three, and then say a little more about my two favorite images.
As we move around the exhibition, “Blue Ice and Wave” immediately catches
one’s eye as an awe-inspiring picture, where we envisage the power of the sea,
the fantastic abstract formations of the blue ice resembling fingers reaching
out to engulf you. All
of this coupled with a background of subtle color hues that seem to dance
across the sea. Further on, we encounter
another magnificent image, namely, “Adelies Porpoising in front of Blue Bergs”
that truly highlights life in Antarctica, from
the fantastic iceberg formations with an ice-shelf enjoyed by two penguins, to
the mad dash of their cousins “porpoising”, in a world where time is of the very
essence. In prints that follow, one has to
marvel at the superbly colored King Penguins in close-ups, and in colonies
numbering in the hundreds of thousands of penguins, photographed in dramatic
landscape settings. Here, I will now
detail my two favorite images.
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Adelie Penguin,
Rainbow Sky and Icicles
by Ted Tatarzyn
For me, this sublime image is quintessential
Antarctica. he glacial
icicles, the dramatic blue ice, colored blue as the compressed ice absorbs all
light except blue, the gorgeous soft reflective light, the warm pastel colors in
the sky, all culminating in the presence of a solitary, majestic Adelie penguin.
The latter poses alone, yet we all know that this striking, heroic
penguin, is representing colonies of thousands of these magnificent animals,
that have made this unique landscape their home.
This penguin, a living sentinel on the tip of a glacier, gives all of us
hope, that although we are on the “tip” of ecological disaster due to global
warming, there is still survival and life in the future, if only man can change
his ways. This is truly a magnificent, thought –provoking image.
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King Creche Pattern at the River Mouth
by Ted Tatarzyn
This outstanding photograph, with a powerful s-curve that takes the
penguin colony breathtakingly way beyond the confines of the print
border, a colony which seemingly goes on forever. The wonderful deep
blue “water hole” gives the image a strong focal interest point. Besides
being photographically stunning, it is the consummate story that is
revealed that really grabs our attention. Most
of us are aware of the perilous journey that a King Penguin has to
make in a forbidding environment, of the long incubation of a single
egg in very adverse weather conditions, culminating in a magical
period where offspring have to be nurtured, fed and reared into
adulthood in a very short space of time. Here
in this expressive image, we can envisage the love, affection and
parenthood, depicted in an oasis of fervent activity, one of
anxiousness, of foreboding, but definitely of hope for the future,
for this colony, and for Antarctica.
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Porthole
by Julie Oldfield.
Julie Oldfield’s exquisite prints of vignettes of Rochester and its environs are displayed in
the East Gallery.
I have highlighted “Porthole” to comment on, because this
eye-catching image so dramatically captures Julie’s artistic talent.
The strong three dimensional “porthole” leaps out of the
frame, whilst the receding planes inside seem to disappear into the
wall, definitely enhanced by a mysterious shadowy image of what is
possibly a reflection of a traffic light.
Adding to the mystery element, is the question of what is
this “porthole” doing set in a non-descript,
faded brick wall?
What obviously enhances this outstanding image, is the vibrant red
color of the porthole, a brilliant color mirrored countless times
under the peeling white paint of the old brick wall.
Furthermore, as an added bonus, we have the powerful element
of a sweeping arch of green ivy, clinging desperately to the wall,
reaching out to one day engulf our circular focal point.
It is unusual in dramatic photographs of this type to have a
dominant circular design, and it is probably why this image is so
strong and captivating. Our
eye is transfixed into travelling around and then through this
porthole, looking into the beyond, into the past, and possibly into
the future, even though our mind would remind us constantly that
this is no passageway.
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