‘Wet’ photos win awards in Port Townsend

PORT TOWNSEND — For a long quarter of a minute, Alisa Steck waited, watching the torrent of water rushing by.

And Steck’s photo, “Woman and Waterfall”, turned out exactly as she hoped. The image of Marymere Falls overlooking a lonely woman was accepted into the ‘Wet: Reflections on Water’ photography exhibit. Then it won him the Curator’s Choice Award of $500.

The image is one of 49 photos exploring the power of water in “Wet,” at Northwind Art’s Jeanette Best Gallery, 701 Water St.

The exhibition ends this Sunday at the gallery, which is open from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Many photos are available for purchase, and visitors are invited to vote in the People’s Choice Award voting all weekend.

“When photographing waterfalls, I always take very long exposures to give the falls an ethereal feel,” said Steck, of Bainbridge Island.

“This image is an actual capture of a moment in time, not a staged one with a model. I was crossing my fingers that she wouldn’t leave the scene during my 15 second exposure. I was amazed that she stood still the whole time,” she added.

Another shot of Steck, also from the northern Olympic peninsula, appears on the “Wet” show: “Waterfall and Curious Dog”. It shows Rocky Brook Falls in Brinnon dwarfing a large dog below.

Three other photographers received $300 merit awards from the “Wet” show: Kathy Fridstein of Port Townsend for her “Coastline Impressions #3”, Sharon Swanson of Seattle for her Edward Hopperesque “Upstairs” and Elisabeth Mention of Port Townsend for his “Headdress”. ”

“There are so many that move me,” curator Christopher Rauschenberg said of the “Wet” photos.

“Upstairs,” which shows a woman in the foreground with a sunny chair and an open window to the sea behind her, is “very psychologically rich,” Rauschenberg said. The Blue Sky Gallery co-founder at the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts in Portland added that Swanson’s photo offers several messages to its viewer.

“To me, it’s the value of art,” when a piece of art tells you one thing on Monday and something else on Tuesday, he says.

Fridstein, who often photographs a nearby Port Townsend beach, said his walks became contemplative moments as the country tried to navigate through the turbulence.

“I find it refreshing to watch the ocean tides come and go, depositing marine life and rocks in different places every day. When I photograph these daily variations, I do not modify or move anything; I focus on detail and texture,” she writes in her artist statement.

Mention, for his part, said that over the past three years of the pandemic, photography has become his creative outlet.

“I see beauty in virtually all the wonders around us. From the shape of a knob of butter melting in an iron skillet to a vast landscape seen from the sky, I want to capture it and share it,” she said.

Ocean waves, urban streams and sea creatures also share the walls of the Jeanette Best Gallery. Port Townsend’s Lisa Luckenbach photo of a green anemone evokes “the eye of Gaia,” Rauschenberg said, adding that it looks like he’s wearing “wonderful, over-the-top trail makeup.”

“I never thought Mother Nature would be so feminine, but I’ll take it,” he said.

“It is so beautiful.”

When Rauschenberg presented the entire “Wet” exhibit, he placed Port Townsend photographer Sarah Wright’s “tank” at the beginning. It represents her husband, Reed Aubin, lying on the smooth surface of the water, his eyes closed.

“I wanted to start the show with someone relaxed and restrained,” the curator said.

“It’s a really important thing to say: that the water sustains us.”

The “floating” image turns out to be another photograph taken at Olympic National Park. Aubin is lifted by the cool water of Lake Crescent.