By Martha Nodar
Autumn is upon us and so is the annual Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival, now in its 16th season. Founded by Atlanta artists, ACP is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting creative ideas and engaging the viewer’s imagination.
Among the different locales around town participating in the festival this fall is the Mason Murer Gallery in Midtown. Gracing its walls through Oct. 31, are three different exhibitions all by female photographers. Helen Reddy would be proud.
One of the exhibitions is “Women in Focus XXI, Juried by Fay Gold,” with 83 images.
Carolyn Meltzer, Sheri Garza-Pope, and Kelly Thompson are among 36 members of Women in Focus, an Atlanta-based group of female photographers whose work was selected for this event.
Meltzer’s “Awakening,” is a photo of the lake at Georgia’s Sweetwater Creek State Park capturing the dawning of a new day. She said the early stages of her own artistic journey exploring innovative ideas may be echoed in this image.
“I wanted to reflect the emotional connection with nature rather than depicting a replica of the scene,” she said.
Intrigued by “Awakening,” Midtown artist David Swann said Meltzer’s piece requires more than casual observation.
“When aesthetically analyzed, ‘Awakening’ is the image of a branch hovering over a pond of water,” he said. “Its reflection on the water’s surface lures us in and then we notice it is graphically replicated—digitally flipped—and then monochromed. Black and white awakens to color.”
Awakening our senses and looking deeper at the concealed details is what it is all about, said Garza-Pope, who suggests “there is something extraordinary in everyday moment.”
Thompson agrees. She said she wanted to capture a moment-in-time and a sense of mystery in “Coming for You,” a photo she took at the Wormsloe Historic Site in Savannah.
“I kept thinking – is that person coming here for a reunion?” she said about a car stopped by a fence in the background.
While Buckhead artist Nathan Dean also detected a sense of mystery in Thompson’s image by “the arches of the trees leading toward a distant, vanishing point,” Cheryl D’ Amato, a Midtown artist, was moved instead by a sense of romance. She perceived the same image with “the majestic canopy of oak trees as a tunnel for couples to walk hand-in-hand under its inviting shelter.”
Engaging the viewer is what artists intend to do. A parallel may be drawn between the connection a photographer develops with the lens and the intimacy a viewer may develop with a composition.
Rounding up the rest of the exhibits at Mason Murer for this year’s festival are: “The Family as the Vernacular,” by Margaret Hiden, Libby Rowe, and H. Jennings Sheffield; and, “Lucinda’s World” a solo-artist exhibition featuring Lucinda Bunnen’s pieces.
Other venues around town celebrating the annual event are Piedmont Park, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia/TULA Art Complex in Midtown, and the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in the Virginia-Highland-Poncey area among many others.
For a complete listing of events happening during the festival, visit acpinfo.org.
