Library photography show brings out the best of the community

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"T.I.M.I.D." —Higor Motta

If you’re expecting to find a simple selection of pretty Vineyard landscapes at the West Tisbury library’s community photography show, think again. The show, which features 125 works by 42 different Islanders, includes an impressive range of styles and subject matter.

Earlier this year, the library put out a call to Islanders to submit images for their “Through a Lens” group show. Local photographers responded enthusiastically. The show covers a wide range of individuals — from professionals to hobbyists — and a broad age range.

The exhibit demonstrates the surprising number of people who are practicing photography on the Island. The variety of subjects that Vineyarders chose to capture makes the show a really fascinating study.

For example, Bob Kimberley has contributed an overhead shot of a shopping mall’s food court. The spots of color here and there, provided by the diners’ clothing, parcels, and food choices, makes an interesting contrast to the orderly black-and-white geometrics of the tables, chairs, and floor tiles.

Mr. Kimberly took a series of shots while his wife Daisy was shopping. “I’d just gotten a new camera,” he said. “It was a cool project to do for a half-hour. A mall is exotic if you live on Martha’s Vineyard. There’s always something interesting wherever you go.”

The pictures were taken from the floor above the food court. “Looking down, I realized that these tables were laid out in patterns,” said Mr. Kimberly, who has been an avid photographer for years. “People at the tables were all doing different things. Sometimes you just see something that strikes you.”

Juleann VanBelle takes a similar approach to subject matter. “It’s a funny thing how something can just catch your eye,” she said. In this case, what caught her eye was a series of grain elevators captured just before dawn against a dramatic moonlit sky. The photo is titled “While You Were Sleeping,” and the scene is eerily quiet. A set of train tracks runs between two sets of towering industrial buildings. Spots of light shining up against the structures and reflected in a puddle highlight the stark scene.

Ms. VanBelle, who refers to herself as an “enthusiastic hobbyist,” snapped the shot during a trip to rural Washington State. She made the trip specifically to document wheat farms in her former home state: “I didn’t go out there to shoot grain elevators. I think with photography, if something captures your eye, you better take a picture. I definitely go out on the prowl.”

A former nurse, Ms. VanBelle has lived on the Island for more than 40 years. She has a collection of stunning Vineyard landscapes and scenes from her travels, which can be found at flickr.com/photos/juleann/.

Nan Byrne has contributed a self-portrait to the “Through a Lens” show. It’s an interesting manipulated image made up of four different-colored versions of the same shot, à la Andy Warhol. Ms. Byrne took the original picture with an application on her Mac computer, which allows you to snap a shot right from the screen. Using filter tools, she “colorized” the image in four different ways.

“I call it ‘Selfie Times Four,’” the photographer said of the image, in which she’s seen peering out from behind her computer’s keyboard. “I’ve been doing a lot with Instagram, and people post a lot of selfies. I did it with Photobooth, which people rarely use. I hadn’t actually used that technique before, but I’m always trying to figure out something new and interesting.”

“I’m on this Instagram kick,” Ms. Byrne said. “I did a PechaKucha last year about Instagram.” Art Space on State Road, Vineyard Haven, hosted an exhibit of her Instagram shots. “I’m kind of a snapshotty amateur,” she said. “I have a television background, so I’m very visual.”

Her work is currently on exhibit at Pathways at the Chilmark Tavern, and the photographer will be selling her images — some on metal — at the Arts and Crafts Fair at the Kelley House during Christmas in Edgartown.

The 40-plus photographers represented in the library show are from all over the Island. “It’s a remarkable assortment,” said the exhibit’s curator, artist Rob Hauck. “The response was so great that we’ll do it again next year.”

For more information, visit westtisburylibrary.org.