October is Photography Month at OCAG.

From the Ocean County Artists Guild (OCAG) Photo Group is the news that the annual photography exhibition, Exposure 2023 will have its opening reception on Saturday evening, September 30th from 6-9pm. We expect it to be a worthwhile outing with three of our galleries being full of work. The exhibition is juried with monetary prizes in 4 categories, Portraits, Still Life, Landscape and Abstract, and a prize for Best In Show.

This year the Juror is Ira Wagner, the Executive Director of the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ. A fine art photographer in his own right, he began studying photography in 2008 after working on Wall Street for more than 25 years. With an interest in urban history and design, he has focused on photographing the urban landscape. Prior to his responsibilities at the museum, he taught photography at Monmouth University from 2013 to 2021. In 2018, he received an individual NJSCA Artist Grant. His project, Houseraising, photographs of houses being raised on the Jersey Shore following Hurricane Sandy was featured in numerous publications including National Geographic and The New Republic and was released in a photo book published by Daylight Books in 2018.

The exhibit this year is chaired by Dan Epstein who has been a working photographer since 1976. Prior to coming to OCAG he was for several years a trustee at Studio Montclair, Inc, a national fine arts organization based in Montclair, NJ, where he continues to coordinate and moderate artist critique groups. Professionally, he primarily photographs people and food; his work has appeared
in advertising and countless national magazines. He has exhibited his personal work since 1988 and has had solo shows in New York City and New Jersey.

Co-chairing the exhibit is Robert McKay, who, along with his wife and partner Elisabeth Koch-McKay, owns and operates McKay Imaging Photography, a photo studio in Red Bank, New Jersey. Since they began some 29 years ago, Robert has co-chaired art shows, directed a film festival, entered and juried many photography shows, served on a curating committee, and an advisory committee for arts organizations, all in addition to hosting over 40 exhibits in their Red Bank
studio space. As an artistic outlet for himself, he enjoys photographing what he sees… with his iPhone.

The exhibition runs for the month of October, until the 28th. In addition to the exhibit, on Wednesday, October 11th, from 7 to 9pm, the monthly meeting of the OCAG Photo Group will host an evening with Amy Becker. A recent recipient of a New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship Grant and widely exhibited and published artist, she’ll be presenting work, with a Q and A to follow. Becker’s work is interesting, provocative, and fun, and the evening, along with the opening reception for the exhibit, is not to be missed by anyone interested in visual art.