Some Current Shows featuring Southern (and no-so-Southern) Photographers -- Vrba, Adams, Leigh

Chapel Hill's Lori Vrba has been out and about in the world these past few months, with shows in places like the SE Center for Photography in Greenville, SC and, together with Atlanta's Anne Jarrell Berry, the  Dishman Art Museum of Lamar University, Beaumont, TX.

Now back home, Vrba has a really engaging show up at the Community Church in Chapel Hill, until April 30th, 2017. 

This show -- a site specific installation of images from her My Grace is Sufficient portfolio -- is up in the Sanctuary of the Community Church. 

The Community Church in Chapel Hill is a bit hard to find, over on Purefoy Rd, but this body of work, in its setting, is definitely worth your seeking out. 

And while you are looking for photography in the Research Triangle, head over to the NC Museum of Art, which currently has up a trifecta of photography shows. 

The featured exhibit is a collection of some 50 master prints of images by Ansel Adams, up now through May 7th, 2017. 

Also on view is a set of images by photography students from North Carolina's Pitt Community College which have been, as the museum folks put it, "Inspired by the work of Ansel Adams." 

More important for us, however, is the fact that they "present traditional and digital black-and-white photographs of the changing industrial and agricultural landscape of Eastern North Carolina." 

This work is up through May 14th, 2017. 

Opening at the NC Museum of Art on April 8th, and up through September 3rd, 2017 is a show of photographs entitled You and Me.

The Museum's curators say the work in this show reveals "the complexities of relationships, particularly those between two people: mother and daughter, a married couple, two friends, colleagues, multiple generations, and neighbors."

Photographers represented in this group show include Ralph Burns, Sue de Beer, Harry Callahan, Carolyn DeMeritt, Sarah Anne Johnson, Deborah Luster, Danny Lyon, Barbara Morgan, Caroline Vaughan (see image above), Alec Soth, and Luis Rey Velasco.

Finally, for now, and heading out on I-40 and I-85 from the Research Triangle of Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham, all the way to the High Museum in Atlanta, there is a show up now of work by Savannah's Jack Leigh (see image above).

Entitled The Spirit of the Place: Photographs by Jack Leigh, this show is up at the High through June 11th, 2017 and features work that, in the words of the High, documents "the unique character of [Leigh's] home city as well as the marshlands, fishing villages, and roadside towns of the coastal Lowcountry. 

"Working exclusively in black and white, he was drawn not only to the region’s landscape and aging architecture but particularly to its people, those who possessed a deep connection to the land and sea. 

"Many of Leigh’s subjects—the oystermen, shrimp boat crews, and residents of riverside hamlets—led a vanishing way of life as urbanization and industrialization became more prevalent across the South. 

"Through his discerning photographs, Leigh sought to capture the spirit of these places and the people who embodied them. This exhibition is drawn from the High’s permanent collection and from a promised gift to the Museum."

Good to have work by Leigh featured at the High Museum of Art.  For more on Jack Leigh, go here and here, from Lenscratch, and here, from Garden and Gun.