Winner Christine Bondi’s photo, “Firefall,” displayed the natural phenomenon of the Yosemite Firefall two weeks of the year. She accepted her award from Mayor Dave Fleisher at the Fall Into the Arts juried art show.
One of the township’s annual traditions is the Fall Into the Arts juried art show at Croft Farms-Art Center.
The opening reception for the free display of work by local photographers was held on Nov. 3, and the gallery is open for viewing until Thursday. Pieces on display ranged in size, style and subject matter, including portraits, wildlife and natural landscapes, abandoned buildings and abstract images.
Amy Bash is a member of the Cherry Hill Arts Board who has two of her own pieces on display.
“It’s really very dynamic, very colorful, and there’s a lot of talent,” she said. “It’s wonderful to be able to offer this platform as an exhibition for local artists.”
The show received 185 submissions, with 72 pieces chosen. Photographers could submit up to three pieces each, with a $10 fee per submission that will help fund a scholarship for students at both of the township’s high schools to help them continue their arts education.
The opening reception enabled viewers to meet the photographers behind each of the pieces to learn about their inspiration and process. Three winners were chosen from the submissions and were displayed at the back of the gallery along with honorable mentions. Winners got a cash prize and honorable mention artists received a certificate to honor their achievements.
Winners and honorable mention photographers celebrate their wins with local officials and members of the Cherry Hill Arts Board.
Mayor Dave Fleisher, Councilwoman Sangeeta Doshi and Assemblywoman Melinda Kane announced each of the winners and presented their certificates.
“We’ve been doing this for many years, and I can tell you, this is maybe among the best that we have seen,” the mayor said of the exhibit. “The work is absolutely terrific.”
Third-place winner Christine Bondi’s photo, “Firefall,” was a landscape showing the natural phenomenon of the Yosemite Firefall, when the sun two weeks of the year illuminates Horsetail Fall on El Capitan, making it appear to glow and look like fire.
“It was the first time that I ever did solo travel …” Bondi recalled. “And so I almost didn’t go on the trip, because I was scared to death to travel by myself. But I survived, and I have the picture to prove it.”
First-place winner Becky Lewis’ piece, “Ants on Parade,” is a demonstration of extreme macro photography, with the image of a flower as ants walk along the petals. Her process took several hours because she shot close-ups of each part of the flower to later be joined into one image, a technique known as macro stacking.
“It’s a collection of like 500 pictures together to get every pedal in focus,” Lewis explained, “and then the ants kind of just magically appeared on that. And normally it would wreck the picture, but for whatever reason, the ants were in focus.
“I can’t recreate it,” she added. “It’s one of a kind.”
Lewis’ husband James Lewis also entered work into the show. One of his pieces, an image of a room in an abandoned building through an open door – called “Through the Doorway” – got an honorable mention.
“I realized that there were stories to tell in these buildings,” he noted. “So I started to try and look for the story … A lot of it has to do with mourning. I lost a lot of family members, and it was kind of a way to express my feelings of grief, a process of working through it.”
