Portrait Photography Exhibit Slated at VGCC
Award-winning portrait photographer Bill Gerber will exhibit his work at Vance-Granville Community College for almost a month this fall.
Among the examples on exhibit will be portraiture of families and children done by Gerber and his wife, Kathy, who operate their portrait studio at his Creative Color Lab on Dabney Drive in Henderson. Include in the exhibit will be portraits done on film, as well as ones produced on computer through digital imagery.
“We’ll show that photography is a lot more than people perceive it to be,” Gerber said. “We’ll give people an idea of just what is available today in portrait photography.”
Gerber said that at least half of the portraits he shoots in his thriving business are digital. “This is the art of photography,” he said. “We can produce digital paintings, actual paintings of photographs on canvas in all media used by artists – oils, watercolors and pastels – and all done by computer.”
“Only your imagination limits what can be done,” Gerber said.
Gerber won first place in women’s portraiture in Professional Photographers of North Carolina judging and in the Southeast Region of the Professional Photographers of America. Two of his portraits won merit awards in national competition of the Professional Photographers of America and hung in the Print Salon in Chicago this year. His work has won national awards three years in a row.
The public is more aware of digital photographer than one would think, Gerber said. “We probably average two calls a day from people who want to know how to save their digital photos and how to print them,” he said.
“The quality of digital photography is as good as film up to 48-inch by 72-inch prints,” Gerber said. “With the computer programs available now, there is no limit to what can be done. Our exhibit will give potential artists insight into what they can do.”
Gerber opened his photo finishing business in a bedroom in his home in 1980. He moved into a shop in downtown Henderson two years later and then moved his growing portrait and finishing business to the Dabney Drive location in 1996.
Both Bill and Kathy Gerber have earned the Craftsman Photography degree through the Professional Photographers of America, and both teach their craft. They have taught workshops at the International School of Photography in Atlanta, and they conduct seminars in their Henderson studio.
“We get students that come here from all over the Southeast,” he said. “I’m amazed that people have come all the way from New Jersey to study here.”
Keeping up-to-date on progress in the photo industry requires constant study by the Gerbers, too. “I’ve been studying Photo Shop six years, and I’m still learning its capabilities,” he said.
The Gerber portrait exhibit will be shown Sept. 24-Oct. 17 in the Civic Center lobby at Vance-Granville Community College, at Exit 209 off I-85 between Henderson and Oxford. It will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays.
