It’s only NATURAL

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January 9

Individual lenses capture complements and contrasts

By Mike McGinley mmcginley@timesleader.com
Features Writer

Chip Forelli enjoys nothing more than an early-morning drive with a cup of hot coffee and his camera. On those drives, he scours Northeastern Pennsylvania for natural images he can photograph.

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Chip Forelli, who favors black and white photographs, said he attempts to find views the average eye may not always appreciate. In background, this view of the Hudson River captures Robert Rodriguez Jr.’s love for nature and the lure of the outdoors before sunrise and after sunset.

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“People aren’t aware of the presence of these things that I manage to see in photographs. It’s revealing what’s not always obvious and not always seen,” Forelli said, referring to the numerous images he’s captured in the past 20-some years.

More than 30 pieces of his art will be on display beginning Sunday at Lizza Studios in Tunkhannock.

“He’s an incredible photographer,” said Betsy Green, studio spokeswoman.

Forelli works in three categories of landscape: intrinsic, which shows no evidence of man; inhabited, which shows evidence of man through structures and manmade objects; and industrial.

To Tunkhannock he will bring some intrinsic and some inhabited works.

“It’s all about how you approach a subject,” he explained. “It’s how you emphasize what’s important in a photograph.”

Forelli photographs all sorts of scenes, from cobwebs and daisies to mountains and peaks.

“I particularly enjoy discovering things,” he said. “I refer to them as visual gifts.”

Forelli said he spent a great deal of time in Vermont when he was younger and enjoyed the state’s natural beauty.

Having lived in New York City for more than 20 years, he felt a need to change his surroundings, so he and his wife moved to Damascus, Pa.

“… We moved up here for rocks, worms and bugs,” he joked.

Now, as he drives through the hills of Pennsylvania, he’s constantly looking for areas worthy of a photograph.

“There are so many roads to get lost on, which I look forward to,” Forelli said.

His friend Robert Rodriguez Jr. will join him in displaying photographs at Lizza Studios.

While Forelli will bring all black and white images, Rodriguez, primarily a landscape and nature photographer for the past seven years, will bring colored ones.

“Our photography sort of complements each other,” said Rodriguez, 42, who hails from the Hudson Valley area and generally photographs natural landscape scenes in the Northeast.

“A lot of it involves hiking,” he said. “I’m usually out there before sunrise or after sunset. It’s not what you would see during the day.”

He’ll bring along 14 images he cares about, he said, noting he specifically looks for places that “somehow move me.”