Art Way Gallery located at Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro showcases a non-juried photo exhibit featuring works by members of Princeton Photography Club. The opening reception is Friday, March 30, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Plainsboro artist Jeffrey Yuan will speak at 6:30 p.m. His photo, “Still Life #29,” a piece from an ongoing series, is on view in the exhibit.
Jerry Spielman, who lives in Village Grande at West Windsor, is exhibiting “Old Organ Grinder,” a photo he took on slide film several years ago in London. He has had eight one-man exhibits of his work and has had pictures accepted in five juried exhibits. He has been a member of the Princeton Photography Club for the past three years.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, he graduated from Brooklyn College with a bachelor’s degree in education. He retired after 31 years as a principal and has been a realtor for the past 32 years. Spielman and Ellie, his wife of 56 years, moved from Somerset to Village Grande in 2000.
Spielman received his first camera from his uncle when he was 12 years old. A year or so later he bought an inexpensive 35mm German camera, built a dark room in the basement of the house, and started to develop and print his own pictures. His uncle bought him an enlarger for his birthday.
“Photography has continued to be my hobby and I am constantly shooting pictures,” he says. “I am constantly learning about photography and I believe you can always learn something new.”
Miek Boltjes
I took my first pictures when I was 16 — vacation snapshots mostly — and switched to a digital point and shoot in 2005, when I started to spend a lot more time taking pictures,” says Miek Boltjes of West Windsor. “I am now using a Panasonic GX1, a compact mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.”
Born and raised in the Netherlands, she studied international relations and communication sciences at the University of Groningen. She has spent most of the past 10 years traveling to different parts of the world as part of a team that mediates conflicts. The mediation work as well as a book she edited on the implementation of peace agreements is with Kreddha, the International Peace Council for States, Peoples and Minorities. Because of her interest in photography she was responsible for the design/look of all of Kreddha’s communications, including publications and its website, which relies heavily on photographic images.
Boltjes moved to West Windsor from Santa Fe, New Mexico, last November, when her husband, Michael, began a visiting professorship in modern international relations at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study.
She spends her off time editing, learning about photography through classes and workshops offered by the Princeton Photography Club, exploring New Jersey, and taking photographs.
Her photograph, “Touched,” depicts stained glass windows at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. “The image shows a burst of color that floods the shrine and touches the pews with exceptional intensity,” she says. “Being in the presence of this light is an extraordinary experience, a moment of which is captured in this photograph.”
— Lynn Miller
Art Exhibit, Art Way Gallery, Princeton Alliance Church, 20 Schalks Crossing Road, Plainsboro. Friday, March 30, 6 to 8:30 p.m. On view to April 29. 609-734-6546. www.artwaygallery.org.
