"For the Love of Rust, Dirt & Dust-Photographing History"
by Lisa Cuchara, HonNEC-CT
Monday, April 2, 7:30 PM


Lisa will discuss the love for RUST and her experience with photographing historic and abandoned buildings, urban decay, etc. She will show techniques for wide angle and close-up photography including the use of HDR-high dynamic range, EDR-extended dynamic range, HDR-panoramas, and light painting in this program. Equipment and techniques used to bring out the beauty and drama of these subjects will also be discussed as we show our fascination with RUST. She aims to inspire you to visit new ‘old’ places and to get to know them well enough to tell their story, inspire you to capture high dynamic range images and to light paint, and inspire you to create art from decay.

There is Beauty in Decay and Abandonment. Old, Historic, Grand, Dramatic, Unique -- these characteristics draw us to explore and capture the essence of these rusty, dusty subjects and locations. Urban exploration –UrbEx- is the art of finding and exploring abandoned locations. Not all locations are technically ‘urban’ or even ‘abandoned’. The term abandoned is used VERY loosely. It is not ‘being abandoned’ that attracts us to a place, it is the history, beauty, decay, charm, and architectural details. Another definition of UrbEx is the investigation of seldom seen man-made structures, a definition more consistent with our quest, since our subjects may be FAR from abandoned -like the architectural grandeur of bustling Grand Central Terminal or the surprising drama of the empty neo-Gothic Eastern State Penitentiary, but these sites count as ‘unseen’ because few people actually stop to appreciate beautiful prison architecture or the jaw-dropping details of Grand Central, a place that they might even rush through twice a day.

Lisa Cuchara, PhD, Cr. Photog., HonNEC, is very passionate about photography and she enjoys both being behind the lens and in the digital darkroom. She loves to photograph nature, but finds many subjects equally intriguing. From birds and flowers to babies and UrBex to HDR, she appreciates the world around her and embraces the challenge of interpreting what her eyes see and her heart feel via her photographs. Lisa says that photography allows her to pay attention to the details, to be mindful, to slow down and appreciate all of the beauty, details and nuances of everyday life. Lisa met her husband Tom thru photography and they are both very active in many local, national, and international photography organizations. Lisa and Tom have been photographing people professionally for over 15 years and have their own Photography Studio in Hamden CT. Their portrait philosophy is based on ‘We do not remember days, we remember Moments’.

They have had many successful gallery exhibitions with their work accepted into many juried exhibitions and their images have won awards at the local, state, national, and international levels. Their photographs have appeared in Adirondack Life, Wild Bird, Birder’s World, in calendars and on calendar covers, and on the cover of a fictional paperback novel. Lisa has also had images accepted into the PPA-Professional Photographers of Association loan collection. Amherst Media recently asked Lisa and Tom to write a photography book about their HDR and light painted images. This paperback book, called ‘Create Fine Art Photographs from Historic Places and Rusty Things’ can be ordered online from Amazon and is also available at brick and mortar bookstores like Barnes and Noble. She loves to teach, inspire and share, and has presented a wide variety of motivational and instructional programs and workshops on Photoshop, Digital Workflow, HDR, RAW processing, Macro photography and Travel photography at many photography groups and organizations.

Lisa will have her book on ‘Rust Photography’ for sale the night of the presentation for 20 dollars. She will accept cash or checks. To see more of her images and get information about their photo and editing classes, their photo tours and workshops, please visit their website at www.photographybyLisaAndTom.com