“A is for Agave, B is for Belize” is a photographic walk-through all of the letters of the alphabet that will be on display next month at the Waimea Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery.
Artist Barbara Schaefer selected images spanning 35 years, six states and five countries for this diverse display of her work that will be exhibited Sept. 2 to Oct. 2. The public is invited to meet the artist at a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 11.
Schaefer sees photography as a method for capturing moments, preserving a particular view of history at a specific time. Some of her moments are timeless representations of form and color. The first moments she captured were with a Kodak folding camera when she was in grade school heading off to summer camp. With her mother’s camera and some instruction from her dad, she began her journey to record bits of history as she encountered and experienced them.
Schaefer eventually graduated to a Pentax SLR camera after beginning her first full-time job supporting astronomers at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. Kodachrome color slide film was her media of choice at that time, rendering the colors of nature in their richest hues. In 2007, she finally made the step to the latest technology — digital photography. One of her friends told her she would never go back to film after shooting digital photos and, indeed, that has been the case.
“My profession in the astronomy field has afforded me opportunities to be in amazing places during special times, seeing views and conditions others seldom have the opportunity to experience. I’ve also been fortunate to travel the world, capturing images of distant places and cultures. My goal is to see and gather images of places and experiences in a different light, to notice details others might miss,” she said. “Sharing these images, giving others the opportunity to also see, experience and enjoy them, is, for me, the most rewarding part of photography. A photograph is successful if it captures and communicates the sense of place and feelings the photographer is experiencing or if it sets the viewer’s imagination free to roam, wander and wonder. The craft of photography is getting the exposure, focus, and composition as planned in an image. The art of photography is capturing moments, experiences and feelings. I am always striving to improve both my art and my craft.”
“A is for Agave” is a theme that has been running through Schaefer’s mind for years. Now retired, she’s had time to pull together what she describes as an “eclectic alphabet soup” of photographic images. For this showing she has chosen to display her images fused onto aluminum, a relatively new way to vibrantly display photographs.
The Firehouse Gallery is located at 67-1201 Mamalahoa Highway in Waimea. It is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.