About our Juror LYNN PILEWSKI
Lynn has been an artist since she was a small girl. She started ballet classes at two and used her sculpting talents to make sandcastles at the beach every weekend in her native Florida. Strangely, the one art she had no use for was photography because of her father’s endless posing the family for pictures. Happily, as an adult, Lynn finds photography the perfect medium to satisfactorily express her vision.
Lynn followed her artistic dreams into college where she earned a BFA degree from the School of Theatre at Florida State University. Lynn’s specialty was lighting design and stage management, and she spent years working in technical theater both in NYC and Jupiter, Florida. She also began to hone her skills on her new hobby of photography.
Lynn and her husband Greg relocated to Greenville County following the hurricane season of 2004. When deciding where they wanted to move, a large map of the United States was procured. They then shaded out any states that were prone to hurricanes, blizzards, tornados, desert heat, and earthquakes. That left them with the Blue Ridge / Great Smoky Mountains area and Seattle. On their first visit to the Blue Ridge, Lynn and Greg knew they’d found their home.
The mountains of North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee were a totally new world to Lynn, who was familiar with tropical surroundings. Every season brought a new delight and inspiration. From the delicate bulbs of early spring flowers to the autumn leaf colors, she felt compelled to try to capture the details of the world around her with her camera. She approaches every image with the enchantment of a child whose imagination is almost overloaded by sight and smell. No detail is too small or mundane to be overlooked.
To that end, Lynn uses her camera and digital darkroom techniques to bring forth her unique vision of nature’s splendor. Each image is a celebration of the beautiful things in life – capturing just a moment in time that she hopes will bring a revelation to the viewer.
Her photography can be seen at a wide range of venues, from private homes across the country to the US Pentagon. Her work, “Territorial”, is part of The Fujifilm Print Collection on exhibit at Fujifilm Manufacturing U.S.A., Inc. and was recently featured on the National Geographic Magazine website.
Lynn’s work has won many national and international awards and been exhibited in numerous public collections and shows throughout the US and Europe, as well as online and in print.
When not behind the camera, Lynn works for Greenville County Soil and Water Conservation District as an educator for land and water conservation.
LYNN’S ARTISTIC VISION
“The moment one gives a close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world unto itself.” Henry Miller
The words of Henry Miller really sum up the way I feel about my photography. Too often, we walk through our lives without really seeing or noticing the amazing beauty and detail around us. That changed for me when I started looking through the lens.
Photography allows me to stop and take the time to really examine the splendor in the world around me. I am intrigued and nourished by Nature in all its forms – minuscule to magnificent. From the intimate detail of a flower, to the intricacy and symmetry of a bird’s feathers, to the many layers in a magnificent panoramic vista, I truly believe I am better for taking the time to really “see”.
My photography is my attempt to capture the magic of our world and is a celebration of the Blue Ridge Mountains where I live and the places I’ve visited. All of my photos are captured “out in nature”, so expect to find small surprises or something unexpected in the landscape or flowers – I always do. As I like to note “there’s always a bug”!
I am particularly interested in exploring the essence of the nature around us. To that end, I experiment with depth of focus to highlight a specific part of the scene that I feel captures the core of the subject. I make no attempt at documentary style imagery – I want the viewer to actually feel immersed in the image. For me, a viewer that walks away having “smelled the green” is success.
Psychologist Rachel Kaplan, PhD at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is at the forefront of research on what they call “restorative environments”. She is exploring nature’s impact on people’s mental functioning, social relationship, and physical well-being. Among her findings, is that fascination with nature helps people recover from what she calls “normal psychological wear and tear”. Even when represented with photographic simulations of a forested area, she noticed that the photographs boosted people’s mood.
It is my mission and my goal to bring some de-stressing beauty into viewer’s lives. I hope that my collectors feel enriched by a sense of peace, tranquility, and beauty in my images.
I am pleased to be able to share my unique vision of our sometimes mysterious, always awesome, and incredibly magnificent world through my photographs.