Art lovers will have the opportunity to travel across the world while still in Long Island thanks to the “Visions of the World” photo exhibit, which opened at the Gold Coast Arts Center on Thursday.
The exhibit, which runs to June 28, presents pictures from around the world taken by American and foreign photographers.
“The work on view at the Gold Coast Arts Center explores contemporary photography’s ability to describe and convey a sense of place and those that exists within it” Gold Coast Arts Center gallery curator Jude Amsel said. “Whether referencing an immediately identifiable location or one that is conceptual and abstract, each photograph encourages the viewer to contemplate or decipher the physical context in which the picture was taken.”
Photos in the exhibit portray the people, culture, lives and landscapes of Bhutan, South Africa, China, Cuba and even some shots of Long Island.
French photographer Jean Timsit said he spent more than seven years in Bhutan, a small landlocked country that borders India and China.
“They have this nature of happiness,” Timsit said when he was asked why he picked to do a photo study in Bhutan. “Even though they are money poor, they are happy rich.”
Timsit, who has been a photographer for more than 35 years, said he tried to focus more on the happiness in his study, rather than on letting people looking at the photo know where it was taken.
“They are not descriptive of Bhutan,” he said of his photos that hung on the arts center’s walls. “Nothing in it lets you know that it was taken in Bhutan.”
Timsit pointed to a picture of Bhutanese children laughing and smiling when asked what his favorite photo in the exhibit was.
“Look how happy they are,” he said.
On the other side of the gallery, Adelphi University President Robert Scott told the story of his photo of the Main Beach in East Hampton, which he calls “Taking Stock.”
“I saw this woman walking toward the horizon and it looked like she was surveying the beach,” Scott said. “That’s why I call it ‘Taking Stock.’”
The photo was used as the cover of the United Nations Chronicle magazine cover in May 2013, in an issue that focused on the world water shortage.
Scott, who will be retiring as the university’s president on July 1, 2015, said he has always taken pictures whenever he travels, but decided to pursue the hobby more seriously about eight years ago.
“I bought myself a better camera and decided to take lessons,” Scott said.
Scott then began to submit his work to amateur photography shows, where he received high praises from fellow artists and art lovers.
One art lover at Thursday’s show was Adelphi University’s basketball coach David Duke.
“I came by to support the president’s work,” Duke said. “He has some great photos.”
Other photos by Scott included a decorated water tower in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup and several portraits of people from around the world.
Photographer Emily Corbato, a Boston resident, said her photos of Cuban people showed nothing more than that the people in the communist-ruled country “are people.”
“The buildings need repair,” Corbato said while surveying her artwork. “The people are broken but fully open-hearted.”
Corbato, a former concert pianist, said she had the opportunity to visit Cuba, a country Americans are usually prohibited from travelling to, on an open visa as a member of the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
“We were not tourists,” Corbato said.
Corbato said she began taking night classes for photography more about 30 years ago and after retiring from being a full-time pianist, took up the hobby more seriously.
Corbato’s photos are all in black and white because, she said, she primarily shoots in film and has the develops the photos by herself.
“I only recently went digital,” she said.
