Many of my photos from our trip to Ireland in August 2009 are on display this month at
Frame It Yourself of Westwood.
Photo by Ken Ernst, Frame It Yourself of Westwood
My photo, Masai Dancers, has been selected for the Women’s Work 23rd Annual Fine Arts Show in Woodstock, Illinois. It will be on display from March 1 until April 30.
Two of my photographs — one from Coney Island and one from Africa — have been chosen for the Art Center of Northern New Jersey’s Bergen County juried exhibition. They will be on display from Feb. 7 until March 1 .
Opening reception: Sunday, February 7 from 2 to 4 p.m., 250 Center St., New Milford, NJ
My photo, below, is on the cover of this year’s New Jersey SEEDS annual report.
Wreath behind bars
Santa in traffic
Waiting for customers at the Christmas tree stand
Private picnic in public space
Tree gazers at Lincoln Center
I’ll have a blue Christmas tree …
Turns out it was a juried show — the juror was Charles J. Magistro, an art professor from William Patterson University.
My photo “Laundry Day in Santorini” won Honorable Mention!
FOCUS New Jersey –2009
Art Center of Northern New Jersey, 250 Center St., New Milford, 201-599-2992
The art show runs until December 15. Gallery hours are Monday - Thursday 10 to 4 and Friday 10 to noon.
Yesterday, I went to NYC”s annual photo convention at the Jacob Javits Center and attended a seminar Making a Difference with Your Photography given by Phil Borges, photographer. His images, mostly photos of indigenous people worldwide are striking, beautiful and deceptively quiet. His work’s mission: To bring awareness and inspire support for individuals and organizations that address social issues around the world.
Borges started out as an orthodontist and practiced for 18 years in CA, before he decided that he would reinvent himself and become a photographer. He moved his wife and young son to the state of Washington and launched his new life and career. He became an international success. He spoke calmly and eloquently about his work for over two hours yesterday. What was most unexpected for me — his emphasis on how his decision to dedicate his photography to doing good has brought him success, resources to shoot more photographs, do more books and venture into multimedia.
Borges showed a photo that he had taken of a 27-year-old Ethiopian warrior, a highly esteemed member of his tribe. The young man belongs to a tribe where disagreements of any kind between the members of the tribe are discouraged. Even raising one’s voice toward another fellow tribe member is considered bad form. The warrior’s arm, clearly visible in the photo, was marked with rows of raised scars. Each scar represented someone he had killed from another tribe.
“This tribe’s circle of compassion extends only to members of its own tribe,” Borges said and showed on the screen this quote from Albert Einstein:
A human being is part of the whole, called by us, “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such an achievement is in itself part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
That’s what we’ve tried to do in the United States, Borges said, and now we’re trying to develop a global circle of compassion.
As I sat and listened, deeply moved by Borges’ powerful photos and compelling talk, I remembered sitting in a journalism ethics class at the Columbia j-school several years ago. The course was co-taught by two professors — Stephen Isaacs and Jim Carey (1934-2006). Carey, a native Rhode Islander ( I can’t resist that noting that fact!), was a cultural historian, a theorist on communication and a wonderful teacher. He was a small man with a big voice that boomed out in the big lecture hall. He urged us, his students, to view journalism as the foundation of a democracy, as a conversation required of citizens, and that it was our responsibility to continue to draw more and people worldwide into the conversation.
I am glad to have this chance to honor my former professor (who died not long after my course concluded) by connecting the theme he stressed in his lifetime to Phil Borges’s photography and Albert Einstein’s thoughts.
Today, I was delighted to learn that the photo below was chosen to be displayed at:
The Putnam Arts Council’s 47th Annual Juried Fine Arts Exhibit
The Lodge (building #8) at Tilly Foster, 100 Route 312, Brewster, New York
October 17 ~ November 6
Reception & Awards: Saturday, October 17, 4 - 6 p.m.
Sheltering Arms Community Pool, Harlem, Summer 2008
The jurors were Neil Watson, Executive Director of the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York and Rae Wood, an artist whose pastels and oils are exhibited internationally and a teacher at the Katonah Art Center.
I need a clone for the weekend! I’ll be in Newport on Saturday, preparing to run the half marathon on Sunday morning (got my lucky number 2960 by e-mail today), so I won’t be able to attend the artists’ reception, to my regret.
