Garland Wetland
July 21, 2019
The Fairborn Art Association “FAA”, recently held a 2019 landscape juried art exhibition. The subject of the competition was the newly created Garland Wetland Reserve located in Fairborn, Ohio. The art exhibition is a collaboration between B-W Greenway Community Land Trust and the Fairborn Art Association. This yearly art exhibition was established to heighten the public awareness of our local green spaces and the need to preserve them. For me this was an exciting opportunity to showcase my photography and enter into my first juried exhibition.
The opening reception was held on July 14 from 2-4pm, where the announcement of the winners would take place and the gallery would be open to the public, to see all the art work on display. The Landscape Exhibition was not just for photography but for any art work 2D or 3D as long as it was not larger than 30x40 inches. I had been preparing for several months for this art exhibition as it was my first. I visited the Garland wetland reserver several times at different times of the day to try and get a feel for what I wanted to submit for the exhibition. I finally decided on doing panoramic shots of the wetland. I submitted 2 black and white pano shots of the wetland one in wide format 12x36 inches and the other in tall format 16x24 inches. The pano stitch technique is one that I like doing because I think it preserves the look of an environment and gives you a sense of scale almost like if you are actually there. For both of my photographs I wanted to do something different so one is a winter time shot with snow on the trees. The other is an early spring shot of Garland wetland just as the sun is about to set. Both photos I am very proud of as I spent several hours editing them. I would edit then re-edit, edit and re-edit them both until I was finally satisfied they were perfect and ready for print.
Once July 14 came I was very surprised by the number of paintings that were submitted to the art exhibition. There were over 100 different pieces submitted from different artists in the area. Some of them were photographs but a lot were paintings all judged in the same competition without separate categories for paintings and photographs. When the winners were announced I was pleasantly surprised to have received a green ribbon for “Judges Merit Award”. Needless to say it was a very fun and exciting day. I really enjoyed the art exhibition and getting to talk to people about my photography and how it was done. I am looking forward to future competitions.