"Forest Fire" - Best in Show, State of the Art Gallery, Ithaca and "Peter's Pick" Award, Image City Photography Gallery's Juried Show
A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart. Hal Borland
WINNER of one of seven prizes given out at the awards ceremony Friday March 2, 2012 at State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca. at their Annual Juried Photography Show February 29 - March 31, 2012 http://www.soag.org
One of five images to receive the "Peter's Pick" Award, a recognition of "Best in Show" out of 175 images at Image City Photography Gallery's Juried Show - January 2012
Forest Fire review by Peter Marr
It is well known that viewers reconstruct photographs in ways that are individually meaningful to themselves and that they project their own imagination to see what they want to see. In Angela’s excellent print, there is a reawakening of a sense of wonder as to what one would see and experience if they were in close proximity to a real forest fire. You can almost feel the heat, smell the acrid odors, and imagine the terror and sadness as some of nature’s beautiful achievements are rapidly consumed and destroyed by nature itself. Although some fires are the result of human interference, invariably they are part of nature’s renewal process, and hopefully, from the conflagration we are witnessing here, a new forest will eventually emerge. In this impressive print, the color palette is resplendent with a glorious range of hues that truly represent the striking colors experienced in real woodland infernos. Probably invoking some digital artistry, the author has done a superb job in rendering the undergrowth, grasses and background trees in a dramatic way, that gives a marvelous representation of flames and burning debris twisting and dancing in the updrafts in a very believable forest fire. The tree trunks appear as strong and resilient sentinels, whilst the flames dance around them, forever hopeful that they will survive, and not end up as blackened hulks after the fire moves on. This is a delightful and imaginative forest-scape, imposingly captured and creatively printed.
