Hillcrest Hospital Unveils New Photo Exhibit

A new permanent art exhibit at looks at Lake Erie's transformation through the seasons.

Photographer Catherine Opie, who now lives in Los Angeles but was a Sandusky resident until she was 13, returned for a reception and talk Wednesday at the opening of Somewhere in the Middle, a suite of 22 images of Lake Erie.

However, Opie, who created the exhibit specifically for the site after reviewing the Seidman Tower concourse where the photos have been placed, prefaces the collection with a shot of a cornfield.

"There's never a moment that you're going through Ohio that there's not a sliver of cornfield," she said.

Opie said the intent of the exhibit is to provide a space where people can gather thoughts, be transported and understand the landscapes of their back yard. In most of the photos, the horizon is in the middle of the frame, spliting the image between sky and water and providing a consistant horizon line running throughout.

She added that she doesn't use Photoshop or any means to enhance photos, preferring to capture images as seen with the naked eye.

"Everything is as it was when I saw it," said Opie, who considers herself a documentary photographer. "I'm still interested in the moment."

She said there's nothing wrong with digital photography or Photoshop and she respects artists who prefer that, but she doesn't mind waiting for two hours for the light to be just right.

Opie said she went through thousands of photographs to come up with the perfect 22 to be featured at the hospital. Photos were taken in November, February, March and the end of May to be able to catch the lake in every season.

However, she came close to missing out on shots of ice before it melted and noted that a similar project involving Lake Michigan had to be postponed a year when that lake didn't freeze over.

Opie has had her photographs exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Japan and was featured in a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. This was her first site-specific commission in a hospital setting and she started her talk by saying she was pleased to work with Hillcrest Hospital.

"Art doesn't necessarily need to exhibit only in the museum and gallery system," she said.