Marion Lightfoot, left, and Dale Shaner show two of the works they are exhibiting in the display cases located just outside the Shafer Gallery in Barton Community College’s Fine Arts Building. The artists are photography students of Barton art instructor Steve Dudek.

Photo: Linda Jerke

July 16, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Story by: Linda Jerke

Students of Digital Photography Exhibit Works in Barton’s Fine Arts Display Cases

People passing through Barton Community College’s Fine Arts Building will see two contrasting types of digital photography if they pause to look in the fine arts display cases outside the Shafer Gallery. Great Bend photograph artists Marion Lightfoot and Dale Shaner are exhibiting their work in those cases.
Lightfoot digitally enhances his photographs, using computer programs to make his work as realistic as possible. Shaner describes his work as digitally altered because he takes a realistic image and makes it into something new.

They are students of Barton art instructor Steve Dudek, who selected them to exhibit their work as part of a series of student exhibits. He said both photographers represent his most advanced students of digital photography and Photoshop.
Shaner uses differences in light and shape to turn his photographs into abstract works, while Lightfoot likes to use digital techniques to enhance realistic images. “Both are self-motivated learners and it’s nice to have them as students,” Dudek said.

Lightfoot’s subjects include Southwestern landscapes, the outdoors, wildlife and aeronautics. Having retired as president of Great Bend Industries about 10 years ago, Lightfoot has been involved in photography for approximately 20 years and has developed his hobby into a business. He has been working with digital techniques for the past 10 years.

Shaner, a retired Union Pacific railroad engineer, has pursued his interest in photography for the past 10 years and has been experimenting with digital techniques for two of those years. His work in this exhibit features floral photographs taken in the backyard of his father-in-law. When he turns a realistic photograph into an abstract image, “it’s up to the viewer to see what’s in it,” he said.

Dudek said many people will enjoy this exhibit because it lets them take a look at two distinct types of digital photography. The exhibit will continue through August.