Photography brings focus to Bethel Park artist’s life
Harry Blichfeldt of Bethel Park, just like Johnny Cash’s legendary song, has been everywhere, man. Almost.
“I haven’t been to Alaska nor Yosemite,” he said.
The state and the national park are on the bucket list of Blichfeldt.
A nature photographer for 34 years, Blichfeldt was among the 115 artists showcased at the third annual Bethel Park Arts and Music Festival held July 25 along the Park Avenue Streetscape.
“It’s been a very festive experience and it’s exceeded my expectations,” Blichfeldt said of the event. “It introduces kids to art and it’s a wonderful thing for our community. It brings everybody out.”
And everybody, neighbors and visitors, all wanted to know about the exquisite images produced by Blichfeldt and displayed prominently at the Bethel Park Community Center. His photographs, mostly metallic mounted on metal, featured Americana nature scenes from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans as well as towering aspens and lush forests and waterfalls, not to mention quirky templates of the offbeat photos seen along the way. For example, a Volkswagen graveyard or unusual hotel signs and roadside stops.
Of the photographs Blichfeldt said that it’s true. “It’s always a good conversation starter. People share their stories with me. They want to tell me where they’ve been. I’ve even planned people’s trips right here on a napkin,” he enthused.
Blichfeldt’s venture into photography was not choreographed and was rather circuitous.
He grew up in Carrick and attended St. Basil High School, graduating in 1974. He earned a degree in nursing from Duquesne University and worked at Mercy Hospital for six years before he returned to school, earned an MBA from Robert Morris University and worked in the corporate world.
When his parents died in 1986, he and his brother took a trip out west where he photographed Moraine Lake in Alberta.
“Mom and dad always wanted to go to the Canadian Rockies but they never got to do it. So this was our memorial-type trip,” Blichfeldt said. “That place brought me to my knees.”
And to his senses.
Blichfeldt took a leave of absence from work in 1988. The next year, he took another trip to the Canadian Rockies.
“That gave me that whole inspiration that maybe I should start doing this more seriously.”
After balancing work and his hobby, Blichfeldt had his final wake-up call in 2001. He had “an episode” of cancer and his left kidney was removed. The good news was there had been no metastasis. The cancer had not spread.
“That was kind of the gut-check moment,” he said.
Blichfeldt added he didn’t want to go back to the formal work world and he didn’t want to do photography part time. “I wanted to do this all the time,” and his wife, Sharon, “supported” his decision.
In addition to his adventures to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks in Utah, Acadia and Cadillac Mountain in Maine and a vast number of other places, Blichfeldt has spent time in the trenches promoting and selling his products at exhibits and art shows across the nation.
So the short trip to the Bethel Park Arts and Music Festival was a welcome stop.
“To be here in my hometown’s a wonderful thing,” Blichfeldt said. “People from the coffee shop, neighbors, and friends were coming. People that I didn’t know that I knew came. It’s so cool.”
An even neater thing is Blichfeldt has expanded his artwork to include inspirational phrases and verses. Yet in the end the subjects speak for themselves.
“I thought about the cancer and all that happened and since I have always been a faithful person and nature always made me feel closer to God, I took it to another level,” Blichfeldt said.
“I’d like my photographs to be more contemplative. I want people to go a little deeper than ‘oh, that’s a pretty picture.’ I want them to appreciate nature and I want them to feel like they can walk into the photograph. I want them to draw you in,” he added.