Photographers featured at Gallery 23

BLAIRSTOWN — The windows at Gallery 23 will feature the work of photographers Elaine Smithson and Diane Pratt during the month of May. A reception will be held on Saturday, May 8 from noon to 5 p.m. The artists will be on hand to discuss how their visions of shape, form and mood create fine art value in their black and white photographs. Smithson photographs exclusively in black and white, sometimes sepia toning or hand coloring her archival processed photographs. She works with the contrast, texture, and tonal qualities of the monochrome medium. As a fine art photographer, she strives to communicate “the enigmatic and the symbolic” through her photographs. “I photograph what intrigues and inspires me, whether it be the humor and social statement of inner-city graffiti, the long-dead child’s face carved on the decaying tombstone in a Boston cemetery or the fragile, ageless beauty of Flowers in a Venetian window box,” said Smithson. As a photographer, Pratt creates images using many photographic processes. She uses black and white infrared photographs of still life and landscapes “to show a time and place often missed.” Black and white infrared images create a feeling of reflections or memories of another time. Pratt then adds color to selected images using transparent oil paint and pencils to create mood or drama. For more information, visit www.photodesignsbydiane.com.

if you go
Gallery hours:
Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.
For information:
Call 908-362-6865
Visit: www.gallery23.org