HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP

Photographer’s exhibit finds focus in contrasting, uninhabited images

Photographer Shana M. Grove’s art lives in contrasts.

She loves stark shadows and bright light, but they are often diffused by the reflection of a window. No, she doesn’t take double exposures, she tells people who invariably ask.

While the Hermitage woman’s black and white photos are unaltered by post-image manipulation, her color photos are often altered through processing gimmicks.

She rarely photographs people -- and never their faces -- but she finds life in uninhabited images of alleyways, houses and crumbling buildings.

She claims to love the moment, which is what attracts her to photography, but often finds that moment through repeated visits to a site or subverts it during processing.

The many contrasts of Ms. Grove’s art will be on display in a show of about 40 works -- her first solo show -- which opens Friday at the Valley Arts Guild, Sharon.

Ms. Grove has only been photographing for three years, and found a focus for it last summer.

"It’s instant," Ms. Grove, 23, explained of photography’s appeal. "It’s not easy at all. But you produce the image right away and work with it from there."

Most of the images in the show were taken locally or in Lock Haven, Pa., but she believes they have a universal appeal, reflecting small town life.

"They’re images that almost can be found anywhere in any town. They’re not specific to one area," said Ms. Grove, who graduated in December with an art degree from Lock Haven University.

Ms. Grove said she follows the philosophy of noted photographer Walker Evans, who said, "To stare is to educate the eye."

"I like just to walk around and look and stare," she said. "I’ll pass something quite a few times and then decide I have to go back and look at it."

Although there might not be any people in a shot, she believes the scenes show a human presence.

"They seem to all resemble, to me, some sort of life. There’s something that was there; there’s still meaning in it."

In her black and white photos, which she calls the focus of her work, the meaning is gleaned from what was actually there.

But with color photos, she injects or augments the meaning with hand coloring, emulsion lifts -- a process of lifting an image off the photo paper and placing it onto another kind of paper, such as watercolor paper -- or stirring up the chemicals of Polaroid SX-70 prints, which are unstable for 12 hours.

Manipulating the Polaroid prints, which is done with a sharp item such as a key or a pen cap, disrupt the chemicals "to where they almost look like a painting," she explained. The reworked prints are sent to a lab to be blown up for the final image.

An internship with a professional photographer, Anna Hannah Mancini of Centre Hall, opened her eyes to the possibilities of photography.

"I didn’t know where I was going. I was just playing around with different things, until last summer, when I did the internship. That’s when everything just changed. It gave me a whole new outlook. She taught me a bunch of things. She taught me about the Polaroids and more interesting stuff to do."

The show, which opens with a public reception from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, runs through July 28. Ms. Grove will teach a photography class for kids July 17-21 at the Guild.