By Kelsey Rogers, Asst. Living & Arts Editor
Student work is on display in the third annual Blough-Weis Library student photography exhibition. All of the students who are participating are in adjunct faculty in photography Gordon Wenzel’s fall photography classes.
The images, which were selected on technical excellence and creativity, according to Wenzel, represent three different photography classes: Digital Photography, Advanced Photography and Black and White Photography.
Junior LeighAnn Miller was previously a student in the Digital Photography class when she had completed her assignment, “Depth of Field.”
Miller said that the group was challenged with going to downtown Selinsgrove and composing a photo with a detail that Wenzel had never seen before.
“I saw these beautiful yellow flowers and I tried to compose an image that uniquely represented the beauty of them,” Miller said.
Miller said she loves the outdoors and nature, so composing the piece and being able to enhance the beauty of a natural object was very enjoyable. However, Miller said she saw a challenge with the particular photo because everyone thinks that flowers are pretty.
“I had to find a unique way to capture them,” Miller said. “So I tried many times before composing the perfect shot.”
When Miller originally spotted the flowers, she looked carefully at them and had to find a way to make them more interesting, she said.
Miller used techniques she learned in Wenzel’s class such as selective focus and shooting from a diagonal. These techniques resulted in what Miller described as an “awesome, ‘painterly’ effect where the flowers in the background seem almost like brush strokes and add symmetry by repeating the colors of the focused flower.”
Sophomore Kathryn Price, a student in the Black and White Photography class, was also assigned “Depth of Field.”
“When I originally took the image, I was considering all the crosshatched lines and allowing for the curves of the image to be the subject, a certain complexity at play,” Price said.
In the beginning of her assignment, Price said she had struggled a great deal to produce a technically correct image through the film and developing processes.
“When I was outside searching for inspiration, the biggest issue I had was using a lens that couldn’t zoom and consequently needed to find abstraction in a wider sense of the term,” Price said. “I greatly struggled with whether or not to crop out a small telephone pole towards the bottom of the image and yet decided to keep it considering the subtle personality I found.”
Price said that her impression of her image changed over the time of the project.
“The thing with film photography is you get to know the image you’re taking very well,” Price said. “Initially, I saw the image as a pretty concrete representation of its subject in the film roll and yet, over time, as I focused on developing it and darkening up aspects of the image that were previously overexposed, the lines and angles I initially hoped to emphasize were emphasized again.”
Price said that being able to properly execute an image in film was exciting. She enjoyed watching it develop from something that was originally not very exciting into something very abstracted.
“I had really struggled with the developing process, so to be able to produce not only an image that looked good technically but also aesthetically was a huge accomplishment,” Price said.
Price was a student in the Black and White Photography class along with junior Hannah Johnston, who was also featured in the exhibit.
Senior Kathryn Savidge had her photo essay displayed as a representation of the advanced photography class. Seniors Yu Zha and Yalling Yu were also featured from the Advanced Photography class for their final.
The Digital Photography class featured various juniors and seniors in the annual exhibit.
Juniors Rachel Saint, Ashley Porter and Dylan Scillia were each assigned “River of the Long Reach.”
Miller and junior Emily McMahon’s photos displayed from their assignment “Depth of Field.”
Seniors Jordan Burkepile and Remy Perez showcased artistic mediums for their assignment. Burkepile focused on portrait style and Perez focused on texture.
Juniors Charlie Riley and Christiana Straub both took on the assignment “Learn to See.”
Senior Lauren Beaver’s piece portrayed passion, which was the campus theme for the class of 2021.
Senior Carissa Sweet’s assignment was “Reflections” and senior Chad Hummel displayed photography from his GO trip.
Other students who had work displayed were seniors Maura Geiselman and Damian Munoz.
The exhibit will be on display on the first floor of the Blough-Weis library until Dec. 15.
