The Lumberjack

Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Community

Media Credit: Heather Birchard An art piece from Ellen Walden is shown at the Umpqua Community Art Gallery.

For Ellen Walden, photography is a very personal and emotional experience.

Walden, whose photo project shows the harsh reality of self-injury, is one of the 21 featured artists in the "Someday I'll be Happy" photography display at the Umpqua Community Art Gallery.

Walden's piece is a medicine cabinet with a fogged-out mirror. In the photo at the bottom of the cabinet, a girl stands in front of her own bathroom mirror and stares down.

The viewer opens the cabinet to find that it is complete with personal hygiene products and first aid supplies. Stuck to the back of the inside of the cabinet is a photo of a wrist, bloody from self-inflicted cuts.

"I think that there will be mixed reactions," Walden said. "I'm sure that some people will react negatively either because they don't understand the subject or know it all too well. I'm sure that there will also be people who are intrigued by it."

Walden used the medicine cabinet and laid out the photos with careful thought. "I mounted my photos on and inside a medicine cabinet to help put the viewers in the same situation. I also fogged up the mirror to push the feelings in the photo on the mirror. It gives people a chance to see their image a little distorted," she said.

The remaining framed photo displays contain various subjects and tones. Live animals, humans, still life, and architecture are some of the subjects in photos on display in the gallery.

Shawnee Santos, whose photos consist of bridges, feels film photography is just as valid as digital. "I prefer film because it's higher quality than digital. There is more of an organic nature to it. With film, I have the ability to add my own touches to it instead of going through a program," Santos said.

Santos chose to photograph bridges because of her deep-rooted interest in architecture. "I wanted to use everyday objects in my photos and bring them to stand out. I think a lot of things are overlooked in our society and people need to pay attention to them," she said.

The gallery also contains photographs of nature. Daniel Lofredo has a large horizontal photo of a tree branch on display. His photo, titled "Untree," is one of the few on the walls that were not shot in black and white; however, Lofredo said, "The colors are monochrome and not flashy."

Lofredo said he chose a tree branch for his subject because, "it's a tree that has lost its 'treeness.' It is alive, but dead. It does not hold the same power as a tree, but it has a power of its own." He wanted to photograph the branch in a way that would make it stand out from its surroundings. "I chose to shoot the branch horizontally so it would have enough space to be its own thing," he said.

Emily Wahab has two pieces up on the walls. One of them is a photo of wood shards and mud. The other shows a cow, which has a vignette effect at the top border, giving the illusion of looking at the cow through the viewers' own eyes.

"It's nerve-wracking (displaying my work), but it's kind of cool too. It's exciting and surreal," Wahab said.

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