SSH Gallery Exhibit: "Bending Light" Sept. 24-Nov. 15

An exhibit by three Oregon photographers who use their lenses in unusual ways will be on view Sept. 24 through Nov. 15 in the South Santam Hall Gallery at Linn-Benton Community College, 6500 Pacific Blvd. SW, Albany.

“Bending Light: Mood/Magic/Metaphor” features the work of Eric French of Corvallis, Matt Reese of Eugene and Kurt Norlin of Albany.

 A reception and gallery talk will be held Wednesday, Oct. 10 from 11 a.m. to noon in the SSH Gallery.

 French creates moody “noir” photographs with his custom-built “camera obscura,” which he says “bends the light in a way different than ordinary lenses, creating gently modified images” that reveal elements of nostalgia and mystery. “With my imagery, I aspire to bring about glimpses of melancholy, serenity, sentiment and memory,” says French.

 “Magic” is the word Reese uses to describe the results he gets from repurposing old lenses and adapting them to his otherwise ordinary digital camera. His colorful selective-focus close-ups of plants have been exhibited previously in Eugene galleries, but never shown in the mid-valley before. “Any subject is fair game,” he says, “but most of the time I find myself drawn into the hidden natural world, peering with my glass eyes at scenes of beauty and drama usually overlooked.”

 Norlin describes his photography as “part science, part art and part ritual.” His abstract color images are created by employing “intentional camera movement” (ICM) with a pinhole lens on a digital camera. “This method allows me to literally draw with light and has led more and more to dealing with things that lay outside the frame,” Norlin explains. “Dreams, visions, memories and metaphors have become the subject matter of my art.”

 The South Santiam Hall Gallery is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.