Photographers @ American Fine Craft Show @ Brooklyn Museum

Multi-talented photographers join sculptors and artisans in the Beaux-Arts Court at the fifth American Fine Craft Show Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum Nov. 18-19. One is also a woodworker; one a master printmaker and computer software expert and the third uses unconventional hardware and pioneering underwater techniques to achieve desired visual impact.

• Cindy Walpole, FocusFrog Fine Art Photography combines talents of award-winning fine art photographer, master printmaker and computer software expert. Walpole often takes 1,000+ shots and of these develops only one or two. To achieve a painterly quality of the finished print involves hours of meticulous computer work. Until 1987 she managed a Wall Street brokerage firm’s trading desk. The NY-based photographer travels to capture images of wildlife from the Nambian deserts, jungles of Costa Rica and ecosystems of Antarctica to the Florida Everglades.
• Andrea Bonfils, with studios in Darien, Conn. and Santa Fe N.M., uses “pioneering underwater techniques to create large-scale photographs of dream-like rapture to achieve images of submerged floral sculptures that morph into sacred geometric abstractions” for her newly released “Submerged Garden” series, “a photographic meditation on an idealized oceanic paradise.” Bonfils writes: "Using a blow torch, iron and other heated tools, along with paper, photography, resin and natural materials, Bonfils’ uncommon mixed media techniques give way to a vision that is mysterious, layered and ethereal.” Inspired by an expedition to Belize 20 years ago, before the coral reefs had begun to die off, Bonfils created this series to memorialize their original majesty and to support their restoration.
• James Venuti, a photographer and woodworker based in New York City, combines both skills in his "Living Frames" series, photographs he described as “infused into aluminum and mounted onto an intricately designed mixed media platform. The aluminum brings sharper color and detail to the scene while the birch frames, hand-carved and stained/painted, expand on a mood expressed in the photograph.” Venuti starts by capturing the ideal shot: at sunrise for the perfect gradient of colors; at night for the reflection of the city lights in the East River. His subjects range from the city skyline and buildings to bridges.

Tickets to the craft show include general admission to the Brooklyn Museum. For more information, visit www.brooklyncraftshow.com. Hours November 18 & 19, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Directions: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/visit/directions.php