Taken By:  Valerie Gruner

Meeting presided over by our President, Gittel Price

 

 

Jenny Helderman received an e-mail from Gittel alerting her to our presence.  She’s just starting as an amateur photographer, and she is also a writer.

Ledra Davis spent nine months in the west at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography.  She likes landscapes and other things and does contract work.

Mytie Cope was at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography with Ledra.  She has been an interior designer and has owned a fabric store.  She likes to shoot quilts.

 

Chris Mitts has one piece, for sure, in the Georgia in Bloom show in Madison, GA, which coincides with the annual Madison tour of homes.

Valerie Gruner has a piece in the Atlanta Artists Center March show.

Debra Booth and Gittel Price have a pieces in the Roswell Expressions of Light show at the Visual Arts Center until April 10th.

Hazel Berger in in the Roswell Photography Society show this month.

Gittel Price made the cut into the upcoming Trees Atlanta show, as did our speaker, Marilyn Suriani.

Several of our members plan on being in Atlanta Photography Group’s Push-Pin show, pin-up melee March 13, 7:30, through March 20.

 

Dear World Library Show:

Pick up your work any time during Library hours on Saturday, March 28.

 

We would like to do something else with this worthy group, perhaps over the summer.  The Board will be thinking of programs and/or activities, but members are encouraged to also think of what might be fun to do with these girls.  E-mail Gittel or other Board members with any of your bright ideas.

 

The meeting is scheduled for the 8th, not the 15th, as announced in an earlier e-mail.  We apologize about the timing, just before Easter, and, most conflicting, first satyr of Passover.  The speaker is John Clemmer, who will be demonstrating Photoshop tricks.  It was decided to keep the meeting on its regular second Wednesday, as that was the date to which John agreed, and it would be less confusing to new or prospective members.  This is a program that was much requested on the questionnaire, and we are trying to work out video-taping the session with John, or somehow documenting it in a way which would be instructive to members unable to attend.  Hopefully the taped program can be put on the website.  All of this is being looked into for everyone’s convenience.

 

Debra Booth (digitographer@comcast.net) is looking into having Binders stock odd sized mats.  She is interested in 8x12, 11x16, and 12x12.  What sizes would interest you?  E-mail her to coordinate preferences.  Also, Debra has more 13x19 Clear Bags with backing boards than she can use.  If anyone would like to buy 25-50 of them at the rate she paid for them, let her know.

 

 

Marilyn has been in photography for 30 years, primarily as a documentary photographer.  She has a bachelor’s degree in social work, but decided against that as a career.  She went to art school for interior design, and signed up for elective courses in photography, which got her hooked.  She also studied for a time under Dennis Darling, an eminent  documentary photographer.

She was a staff photographer for Emory University, but most of her career has been free-lance.  She has received art projects from the state and the city of Atlanta, as well as companies’ annual reports and portraits.  She has lately been into nature photography since her move to her new home on Berkley Lake near Duluth.  She has sold her work through art consultants to hospitals, hotels, and other venues.

Unable to overcome a technical glitch, Marilyn was unable to project her wonderful images, but she and the WIF membership persevered by watching her slide show on her laptop, elevated on a chair on the table.  She presented her pictures in thematic groups, some with series within series.

Her series The South included images from smaller series such as Main Streets, Storefronts, Nocturnal Atlanta, the Acworth Civil War Ruins, and Environmental Racism in the South.  She shoots mostly film, with a Hasselblad and 35 mm, some 4x5, and a Holga.  She’s owned a digital camera for only two years.

Her World View series included images from France, Assisi, San Miquel, Tokyo, Kyoto, Jamaica, Mexico, and Amalfi.  She likes to experiment with the details of a scene, telling a story by not showing everything.  She likes to find a different angle, something odd in the foreground to add interest to the background.  She likes to shoot people, then spend some time not shooting people, changing her MO to change her POV on her own work.  She likes how the light at night turns the world different colors with long exposures.

Marilyn spent 12 years, off and on, doing a Stripper series, which she put together in a book, “Dancing Naked in the Material World.”  To gain access and understanding, she even worked almost three months as a cocktail waitress at the Gold Club.  Some of the shots were of her subjects posed against a backdrop, a la Irving Penn or Avedon.  Marilyn and some of the profiled dancers appeared on the Sally Jesse Raphael show when the book came out.

Her Krishna series was taken right here in Atlanta in the 90’s, in a Krishna community in Candler Park.  She spent a lot of time talking with them, getting to know them, until she was welcome to come when she pleased.  The pictures are a variety of posed portraits and images of the community’s life.

Marilyn got her start into nature photography through her Water series when she moved to her lake house.  They were fascinating images, utilizing no filters, of abstract ripples and reflections, each with its own sense of mood and movement.  Their tranquil presence is much wanted by hospitals, and she prefers them to be presented as very large prints.

Her Nature series takes up three pages on her website.  She likes painterly shots and results, as she doesn’t consider herself to be a realist in this portion of her photography.  She enjoys shooting nature in all kinds of weather and conditions, and she has a protective bag covering for her camera.

Marilyn finished her presentation with her unusual series of Self Portraits.  They were much like her other photography, focusing on pieces rather than the whole, and here she did some layering work with reflections, x-rays, MRI’s, and other found images.

Random Program Notes:

Do careful research when shopping for an art consultant.  There are a few in Atlanta, but Marilyn uses Soho.

Marilyn is marketing all the time, and is currently re-working her website to sell prints employing PayPal.

Don’t compromise your ASA.

Keeping track of negatives, disks, all the information, is a lot of work!

Lensbaby has a Holga lens as an accessory with a new model.