Nature’s beauty, protection inspires ‘Made in NY’ artists


AUBURN — Many of artists featured in “Made in NY 2023,” which opens March 25 at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, have been inspired by nature.

For some, such as Maureen Church, of Rochester, the goal with her piece “Erie Canal at Dusk” is to capture the beauty around them.

“These paintings are part of a series based on my recent plein air landscape works,” Church said in her artist’s statement. “I use rich colors and wild brushwork to represent the beauty I see in nature.”

Other artists focus on a particular aspect of nature. Henry J. Drexler, of Norwich, still lives near the dairy farm where he grew up. His artwork “Bovine Madness XXXV” begins with images of cows that he manipulates to eliminate depth.

“Whether painted in black and white or fanciful hues, I strive for playful, abstract works of bovine madness,” he said.

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Artist Joyce Hertzson, of Pittsford, actually uses bits of nature in creating her artwork “After the (F)fall,” printing leaves and branches on rag paper.

“The finished print is always full of surprises,” she said in her artist’s statement. “Even using the same set of elements and process, I am never guaranteed the same outcome.”

Other artists use their creations to warn of humans’ abuse of nature. Saranac Lake artist Barry Lobdell’s photograph “Chevron Sky” was taken Nov. 6, when the temperature reached 70 degrees.

“Not a normal temperature for Saranac Lake in November,” he said.

While the weather made for a beautiful photo, he asked: “Is this beauty only skin deep, hiding within it the danger which is inherent in our unnaturally warming planet?”

Bill Hastings, of Ithaca, is a naturalist and gardener who is acutely aware of humans’ impact on nature.

“Every action has an impact,” he said. So with his piece “Sway,” he does his part to reduce, reuse and recycle by “utilizing a ubiquitous material that seems unavoidable in contemporary culture: plastics.”

Concern for the environment led Cyndy Barbone, of Greenwich, to alter her art-making material for her work “Our Rights Are Protected in New York State.” Conscious of the growing water crisis, she decided to stop dyeing her yarn.

“I have replaced color with white or natural by using varying thicknesses of linen to explore how transparency and density in weave structure can convey images, thereby eliminating the vast amount of water used in dyeing,” she said in her artist’s statement. “The illusion of light in the resulting work is a powerful metaphor for the human spirit.”

A total of 320 artists submitted 480 entries for this year’s “Made in NY” exhibition. Jurors Gary Sczerbaniewicz, Theda Sandiford and Kevin Larmon selected 81 pieces from 79 artists for the show, which will run Saturday, March 25, through Sunday, May 28, at the Schweinfurth. The free opening reception will be 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, and prize winners will be announced at 6 p.m.

Cayuga County-area artists in the show include Mnetha Warren, of Aurora (“Wonder Bread,” 2022), Denise Moody, of Skaneateles (“Her Trunk,” 2023) and Donalee Wesley, of Marcellus (“The Revelation,” 2023).

The exhibition is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The exhibition will open along with two others at the Auburn gallery: “Triggered, Truth & Transformation” exhibition by New Jersey artist Theda Sandiford and “Positive, Negative, Shallow, and Deep,” by Oswego artist Tyrone Johnson-Neuland. (Editor’s note: Each exhibition will be featured in an upcoming edition of The Citizen’s entertainment guide, Go, and on auburnpub.com.)

Maria Welych is marketing director for the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, a multi-arts center that opened in 1981 thanks to a bequest from Auburn-born architect Julius Schweinfurth. The center’s programs include more than a dozen exhibitions each year and educational programs for children and adults, which feature local, national and international artists. For more information, call (315) 255-1553 or visit schweinfurthartcenter.org.

Photography specialist site DPReview is closing down


Digital Photography Review, a popular online resource for photographers, is shutting down after 25 years of service.

The website’s closure is part of the restructuring plans announced this year by Amazon, which acquired DPReview in 2007.

“The site will remain active until April 10, and the editorial team is still working on reviews and looking forward to delivering some of our best-ever content,” DPReview said in a message posted on its website on Tuesday.

“This difficult decision is part of the annual operating plan review that our parent company shared earlier this year,” it confirmed.

DPReview added that “everyone on our staff was a reader and fan of DPReview before working here, and we’re grateful for the communities that formed around the site.”

Within hours of DPReview announcing its closure on Tuesday, another site dedicated to photography, PetaPixel, revealed it was offering a home to Jordan Drake and Chris Niccolls, whose YouTube channel, DPReview TV, shares camera and lens reviews, along with photography tips and other related content.

The pair will be the faces of a new PetaPixel YouTube channel launching in May and offering similar content as DPReview TV while exploring a number of new photography-related themes.

It’s not the first time Drake and Niccolls have shifted sites, as five years ago they moved from The Camera Store to DPReview.

“The show is going on,” Niccolls said in a video posted on Tuesday. “Everything that you know and love about [DPReview TV] , you’re still going to know it, you’re still going to love it, we’re still going to be doing our technical gear reviews out in the field, which means out in freezing cold Calgary, Canada. That’s not going to change.”

So vast is DPReview’s database of reviews and other content that it’s likely you’ve landed on the site whenever you’ve researched a camera or lens, or sought out news related to the industry. It’s not clear if the site will remain online so that its valuable resources remain accessible to photography fans, but it will certainly feel like a waste if the site simply disappears from view next month.

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Annual Juried Photography Show returns to Ocean City Arts Center


On March 15th 2023, in Ocean City, a town hall meeting addressing proposed offshore wind farm was held at the Tabernacle.



OCEAN CITY — Browse more than 40 photos from photographers across the region during the Ocean City Arts Center’s annual Juried Photography Show, on display daily starting April 1.

Photographers from Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Gloucester counties, and as far as Pennsylvania, submitted more than 125 works, with 40 selected by the show’s judges. The photographed subjects include landscapes, wildlife, architecture and people.

To be selected, judges examined certain aspects of the image, such as the overall emotional feel, techniques used and presentation. 

Guests can join a Meet the Artists reception from 7 to 8:30 p.m. April 14 at the gallery, located in the Ocean City Arts Center, 1735 Simpson Ave., 2nd Floor. The show will be on display through April 27.

Hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, call 609-399-7628.

Photo Finale show opens March 4


Yountville — “This year, nature’s mustard plant is getting the recognition throughout Napa Valley that it deserves,” says Napa Valley photographer MJ Schaer.

Schaer is the founder and director of the first Photo Finale 2023, an open invitation photography exhibition in alliance with the 2023 Napa Valley Mustard Celebration, which will premiere on March 4 at Jessup Cellars Gallery and continue through March 31.

The Photo Finale 2023 has been in the making since last fall when professional photographer Schaer set out to attract professional and amateur photographers throughout wine country to break out their cameras and capture that one-of-a-kind image.

Photo Finale 2023 will exhibit 72 works by 46 photographers showcasing the beauty of Nature’s winter mustard season in the Napa Valley.

The Photo Finale Photography Exhibition will celebrate the “yellow gold” beauty and splendor of the wnter mustard lobom that blankets Napa Valley’s landscape and vineyards from December thrrough March.

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Photographers have four categories to choose from: Landscape, People/Pets, Innovative and Food & Wine, to apply their photographic creativity and skills.

First, second, third and Honorable Mention ribbons will be awarded to the top four photographs in each category. A Peoples Choice Award will be presented at the closing reception on Friday, March 31.

Schaer said, “I am so pleased with the tally of entry submissions by professional and amateur photographers for this first annual event, and to have the unique gallery facility at Jessup Cellars Gallery gives the exhibition a true wine country setting and experience for Napa Valley’s Mustard Celebration 2023.”

Photo Finale 2023 Exhibition at Jessup Cellars Gallery, 6740 Washington Street, Yountville CA. 94599 is open to the public, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., daily.

Photo Finale 2023 Exhibition Photographs will be available for purchase.

For more information, visit photo-finale.com.

A combination of seed shortages due to warming climates, rising glass and cardboard prices and soaring prices for white wine mean you could be paying more for mustard soon.



Bloomington-raised poet, photographer talks Midwest stories for TEDx


Is ‘flyover country’ an appropriate moniker for the Midwestern U.S., or other overlooked places in the world? Through photography & poetry, this talk explores that question through inspection of the overlooked or the avoided: rust; thunderstorms; work; everyday people doing everyday things; politics; social class; et cetera.

A lifelong Midwesterner, Justin Hamm is the author of four poetry collections, two poetry chapbooks, and a book of photographs. His most recent book is Drinking Guinness With the Dead: Poems 2007-2021 (Spartan Press 2022) . . .


BLOOMINGTON — Most Midwesterners, like Justin Hamm, can say they once had childhood dreams of leaving their hometowns for somewhere “things are really happening.”

Now 42, Hamm is speaking about how he changed his perspective on life in the Midwest through the power of poetry and lens of a camera. The 1998 graduate of Normal West Community High School was featured in a TEDxOshkosh talk published Wednesday on YouTube, titled, “The American Midwest: A Story in Poems & Photographs.”







Bloomington-native Justin Hamm, in Mexico, Missouri, holds a stack of his poetry books in this provided photo from 2022. He was recently featured in a TEDxOshkosh talk.




Hamm, who mainly grew up in Bloomington, theorized before listeners in November 2022 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that “there really is no such place as nowhere.

Everywhere is somewhere, and everywhere has a story to (it) we can uncover if you learn to use the poet’s or the photographer’s eye.”

Pushing back against negative stereotypes about the region, like the “flyover country” label, he said the Midwest has kept him artistically busy and interested. Some of the prose recited by Hamm told of the beauty of a rust, “the mysteries of barn wood” and forgetting his jockstrap for a double-header baseball game.


Read this Wednesday, June 10, 1998 file story covering a Normal West High School baseball game against Olney High School, including quotes by then-catcher Justin Hamm.




The former catcher for the Normal Wildcats chanted verses of “Until Death Do Us Part,” as photo slides showing the exterior of Keller’s Iron Skillet & Catering in Bloomington were displayed. He drew parallels in his poem “Rust — Or Perhaps Fine Art” between decay and impressionist painting.

In a Friday interview with The Pantagraph, he said he tries to take photographs that would make good poems: “Quiet little scenes that illustrate something about the region.”


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“Experience another life.”

Hamm explained the title of his latest poetry book, “Drinking Guinness with the Dead.” Drawing from three other previously released books, it was released in March 2022 by Spartan Press, and contains material dated between 2007 and 2021. Hamm said it also has a “book’s worth” of new poems to go with it.

He said one meaning of the title refers to having a few beverages before revising older material. It was weird reading back in time, and he didn’t seem to care or relate to it at first. But Hamm said he didn’t want that to be the case.

He said going back also made him realize he wasn’t doing enough to publicize that work.

Reflecting on his piece titled “A real team effort,” he said he hoped to capture awfully embarrassing moments of adolescence and bring them to life. Hamm said many have told him they can relate.







Poet-photographer and former Bloomington resident Justin Hamm is shown in this 2021 self-portrait.




“They get to experience another life for a while,” he said.

That teleportation also extends to his photography work. Showing stills of rusted-out cars, he said countless people have told them that model was the first they owned.

At another poetry reading and photography showing, Hamm said two farmers lectured him about why a particular style of corn crib was built in Central Illinois but not in South Dakota, because of the immigrants who settled in those regions.







Shown in this 2019 photo provided by poet and photographer Justin Hamm, formerly of Bloomington, is a Central Illinois barn.




See with different eyes

Hamm said he never left the Midwest. He said he got married and went to school in the region, and moved to Mexico, Missouri, where he currently works as a librarian for Eugene Fields Elementary School. He’s a husband to his wife Mel Hamm, and father to two daughters: Abbey, 13, and 9-year-old Sophie Hamm.

He attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville to play baseball, also where he met his wife, and said he got more involved in the English department after hurting his arm. Hamm also explored fiction writing, but said he knew he “was always a poet at heart.”


Tucker drew on Bloomington-Normal ties for his science fiction, mysteries

Coming back to poetry over time, he said he found success. He did his masters of fine arts degree at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and followed another Bloomington native who was coaching wrestling in Mexico, Missouri.

Knowing his best friend “Martin” would be there and his wife liked the school district, he said it was a good landing destination. Hamm said they haven’t found any reason to relocate since they moved there in 2005.

Hamm also edited his startup literary magazine, Museum of Americana, for 10 years. Then in 2019, his poem “Goodbye, Sancho Panza“ was studied by 50,000 students worldwide through the World Scholar’s Cup curriculum.


Bloomington couple hope book, school visits improve birthmark awareness

Around 2009, Hamm said his mother died and he had his first child. That’s when he said he realized his roots are in the Midwest, and leaving was not a certainty. Hamm said he thought he’d better start trying to see things with different eyes.

“Everything that happens in this region is a microcosm of the biggest conflicts and struggles, and also the most beautiful things in the world,” he said.

He said these experiences teach us lessons in human psychology, social interactions and the dichotomy of rural versus urban. There are many different perspectives to view through stories and images, he said, like immigrant experiences and sights of beautiful landscapes.

“When I started to stop and pay attention, I realized how deep that history really is,” said Hamm.

To keep up with Hamm, and read or purchase his work, go to justinhamm.net.

Contact Brendan Denison at (309) 820-3238. Follow Brendan Denison on Twitter: @BrendanDenison



Cosmic curiosity : Gulf Weekly Online



By Mai Al Khatib-Camille

BAHRAINI astro-photographer Yusra Abdulqader Taj was over the moon when National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) featured one of her celestial images on their website, and hopes her photography will inspire young astronomers to shoot for the stars.

The 40-year-old Information Technology professional at the Interior Ministry turned her love for space into her passion during the pandemic, snapping up images with two dedicated cameras (ZWO ASI 533 one shot colour camera and ZWO ASI 294 monochrome camera) and 10 filters.

Her image of the SH2-132 Lion Nebula, taken in August, was featured on Nasa’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) site, that posts photographs of the cosmos captured by professionals from all over the world.

“I have been fortunate to represent Bahrain in the Nasa APOD,” Yusra, a resident of Riffa, told GulfWeekly. “I hope my images will encourage young astronomers from Bahrain to pursue this hobby and to represent Bahrain’s skies to the astro-community worldwide.”

An amateur astro-photographer for two years, Yusra’s love for the moon and stars started from a young age and her hobby was ignited by her laptop.

“I love gazing at the moon and I love the fact that the night sky is unique, in the sense that it is the one place we, as humans, share equally regardless of where we are on Earth,” she said.

“But, I decided to take up this hobby quite recently when a random Windows wallpaper of the Rosette Nebula, by Hubble telescope, popped up on my laptop lock screen.

“This was the first time I had seen a nebula and I was amazed by its beauty. I went down the rabbit hole of astrophotography. The curiosity of the cosmos and the possibility of capturing something not visible to the human eye prompted me to delve into this hobby.”

While astrophotography is both challenging and fun, it does require a steep learning curve, and one should be prepared to spend his/her time to learn how to use the equipment and the software, and develop their skills to process images.

Yusra started her cosmic journey with a normal DSLR full frame Canon 6D Mark ii and a Canon 75-300mm lens. She also used Samyang 24mm and 135mm prime lenses for wide field photography. However, for imaging deep sky objects like the nebulas and galaxies, she used a William Optics telescope, that comes with an apochromatic lens with a focal length of 478mm and a focal ration of f/5.9, that can be reduced to f/4.7 with a focal reducer.

“Light pollution filters also reduce and block the glow of city lights and capture the emission signal of the object in the cosmos,” said Yusra.

She also advises in investing in the right mount, which is pivotal for astrophotography.

“The process is not as straightforward as normal photography,” she said. “It requires planning, patience, and image processing skills to get the best results. It is also important to know the weather forecast before starting any imaging session.

“Bahrain, in most part, has clear skies throughout the year, but heavy light pollution, hot weather and humidity make astrophotography a daunting process. It requires astrophotographers to spend many hours collecting multiple images of a specific object.”

Over time, she has captured star clusters, bright nebulas, emission nebulas, planetary nebulas and galaxies. All her images have been taken from her backyard.

Her favourite photograph is of the M31 – The Andromeda Galaxy, which she said ‘was very challenging’ as it took more than 4,000 shots (27hours and 70GB data). She now plans to shoot the IC 434 – The Horse Head Nebula in the Orion Constellation with a monochrome camera.

Her astro images are published on the Astrobin website, a community where astro photographers from all over the world showcase their work.

For details, visit Yusra Q’s gallery on AstroBin or @astronumb on Instagram.

Astro Fest is go for launch at Orlando Science Center


ORLANDO, Fla. – The Orlando Science Center is set to captivate young astronomy lovers with a weekend of space-themed events.

Astro Fest kicks off at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 19, and lasts through Nov. 20. Daily hours will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Attendees will get immersive experiences such as simulation games, live shows and lab experiments.

Guests can also see an astrophotography exhibit by Derek Demeter, director of Seminole State College’s Emil Buehler Perpetual Trust Planetarium. The exhibition, called “Capturing the Cosmos,” portrays Florida’s night sky and our celestial neighbors in the Solar System.

Admission to Astro Fest is included with your Orlando Science Center admission, meaning ticketholders can add the space-themed fun to everything else offered throughout four floors of exhibits, 3D educational films and live programming.

For more information, and to purchase tickets, click here.


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‘Capturing the Cosmos’ astrophotography exhibit coming to Orlando Science Center


ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando Science Center is welcoming a new astrophotography exhibit called “Capturing the Cosmos.”

This exhibit, on display Oct. 29 through Jan. 29, 2023, will feature a selection of cosmic images by Derek Demeter, a renowned astrophotographer and director of the Emil Buehler Planetarium at Seminole State College.

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Visitors will be able to see these images in “Fusion: A STEAM Gallery” at Orlando Science Center.

Photos of scenic nightscapes, celestial bodies within space, colorful nebulae and expansive galaxies uniquely shot from Florida will all be featured in this exhibit.

According to a news release from Orlando Science Center, Demeter has been passionate about stargazing since he was a child and his interest in astrophotography stemmed from his college photography courses where he used the school’s telescope to capture a photo of the Orion Nebulae.

“Demeter wants this show to capture the audience’s imagination and unlock a passion for the night sky. He hopes it inspires an appreciation and respect for our night sky and encourages people to preserve our dark spaces for generations to come,” according to the release.

“Capturing the Cosmos” is included with admission, which costs $24 for adults and $18 for kids ages 2 to 11.

For more information or to pre-purchase general admission tickets, click here.


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