Hosmer Gallery

Anne Miller

Fifteen years ago, I picked up a camera and started working on the techniques I thought were most important to good photography.  After many classes, tutorials, and workshops, I learned a lot about sharp focus, good lighting, and effective editing. But it was when I began to regularly take my camera for a walk in the world that I began to realize that my goals had changed—because my vision had deepened. With every moment of pause with my camera, I was learning not just to look, but to see, to pay attention, to feel the moment that I was capturing through my lens. And the more I let myself do that, the more fully I understood why I was drawn to a particular image or scene. I was seeing a story in that picture, revealed in a certain slant of light or a simple gesture by a passerby.  

I am learning, as a photographer, that both our natural and human worlds are constantly offering us glimpses and hints of a beauty or spirit that pulses below the surface. I want to capture that essence in my photographs and always be ready for that moment.  Mary Oliver has written that “there are so many stories more beautiful than answers.” How true. 

Jill Toler

I returned to my camera when I retired from teaching in 2014. I wandered around the valley in the early morning to discover a wonderful stillness and mystery in the pre-dawn light. Like most photographers I hope to capture the interplay of light with the atmosphere surrounding a scene: the aftermath of rain, a newly fallen snow, a drama unfolding in the clouds.

Simultaneously, I learned to edit and print my photographs digitally. The editing process is as much fun as being in the field taking pictures.  I hope to recreate in the photograph’s two dimensions the rush I felt when suddenly caught in the swirl of a snow squall or the delight that held me when watching light and shadows dance one summer afternoon in Child’s Park. To come close to the “thing” that moved me during my meanderings within the printed photograph is deeply gratifying.

Karen Brown-Courage

When I was nine years old I became very interested in my family’s small, black and white photos. I was amazed that I could identify faces and remember the locations of the ones that I was in.  A few years later I received a treasured Brownie camera as a present.  Most of my early photos were blurry or off center, but I enjoyed those that I could identify and marveled at the miracle of it. 

 Many decades later I am still marveling when a photo looks like what I was experiencing when I took it. Not all photos, of course, elicit that feeling, but when they do, I am transported back to the moment I pressed the shutter and hoped – hoped that this photo would carry the magic feeling that led me to it. Usually this happens with photos of nature — feelings ranging from appreciation to a spiritual connection.

Nancy Lowry

My scientific training informs my approach to photography. Both require seeing with a creative mind and inquiring eyes, understanding and experimenting with light and color, and appreciating structure and composition. 

Photographs hint at a greater understanding of a particular scene, item, or situation. I am particularly interested in subjects that show themselves at interfaces, in reflections, and through the otherwise unnoticed, where we can see and glimpse in ways that “honor what is greater and more interesting than we are.” (Robert Adams)

Photography has introduced me to new places, new techniques, new friendships, and a deeper identification with the world we all live in.