Colors of life: Bethel Park photographer’s works exhibited at St. Clair Hospital
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Gregory Schmidt experiments with reflections, lasers and other materials in his photography. He also gets creative with presentation: Here, he wears a photograph printed on a blanket.
Courtesy of Gregory Schmidt
Images like this – leaves gliding over a reflection of trees, from Schmidt’s “reflections” phase – will grace the walls inside St. Clair Hospital’s professional building between July 1 and Aug. 31. The Bethel Park photographer will also display landscapes of Arizona and Iceland alongside some studio work at his first public show.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Bethel Park photographer Gregory Schmidt, whose work is inspired by music, movies and life itself, will show his work publicly for the first time at St. Clair Hospital’s Gallery 1 from July 1 through Aug. 31. Schmidt’s work is a wonderful mix of moody and lovely landscapes; pretty nature; punchy and vibey still lifes and lighthearted surrealistic images.
The framed and metal prints collecting dust on the floor of Gregory Schmidt’s Bethel Park home have finally found a stage.
“It’s going to be my first … public showing,” the tall, lanky photographer said over a cup of coffee outside a local shop on a recent weekday morning. “I’ve been building up a print collection for years. I’ve been kind of just looking for a venue, an opportunity.”
Schmidt has found an opportunity, at St. Clair Hospital’s Gallery 1, where his collection, Colors of Life, will be on display July 1 through Aug. 31. The solo exhibition transports audiences to dreamy other worlds, draws them closer to local nature and, most importantly, shares Schmidt’s view of this beautiful sphere with strangers.
“When I start moving people to think of (photography) as art, I find that most fulfilling,” he said.
Schmidt fell in love with the art form that is photography when he picked up his first camera decades ago. He enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he learned photography theory and to process black and white film in a darkroom. One semester into the program, his then-wife became pregnant and Schmidt left school to work and raise a family.
“It was all very expensive, and so I put my camera away. I hung it up for 30 years,” he said.
Schmidt moved to the East Coast and back home again. The years passed; decades separated him from his film camera. And then, whispers of a newfangled technology – digital photography – reached his ears.
“I kept reading about this digital, the quality of the digital DSLRs. I just finally decided, hey, go for it. So I bought a beginner’s camera with a kit lens,” Schmidt said. “I started taking pictures.”
Schmidt strolled, camera in tow, through the neighborhood with his Great Dane, Jade, snapping photos of flowers.
“It would all be on automatic settings. I wasn’t even sure how quite to use the darn thing,” he said, laughing. “One time I took pictures of bees on some kind of flower and I posted it on Facebook. Somebody said, that looks like National Geographic.”
Schmidt was humbled and encouraged. He started uploading his work to National Geographic’s Your Shot, a now-discontinued website where amateur and professional photogs alike shared their images and commented on one another’s photographs.
“I had two, actually, that got, I’ll call it an editor’s note,” he said. “But National Geographic changed their format. It’s all on Instagram; you know, everything’s on Instagram. I don’t Instagram very well.”
What he does well is capture beauty. Schmidt’s work includes sweeping landscapes of Iceland (photos from his Kiss the Sky series, featuring the moody West Fjords beneath billowing clouds, will be on display at Gallery 1); stunning portraits of plants and animals; and dizzying abstracts of nature, shot in Arizona.
“Lower Antelope Canyon is basically a cave tunnel that is carved from water,” Schmidt said, hands drawing the scene in midair. “It’s all through red rock. You get all these kind of blending sediment, colors in the rocks, that create this really incredible abstract imaging.”
Incredible, too, are Schmidt’s still life portraits, inspired by the album cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
“The front is a prism of light breaking apart the colors. I thought, ‘Oh, I wonder what would happen if I put a laser through a prism.’ I just started playing around with doing long exposures with the pyramid,” Schmidt said. “I was excited with how they turned out.”
The resulting images are a striking feast for the eyes. Schmidt paints wine glasses and roses with lasers to create glossy images more like digital renderings than photographs. Schmidt balances the vibey images with bursts of pop art absurdity: His series, I Love Eggs, is surprising and fun.
Together with his landscapes and nature photography, the laser paintings and surrealistic works showcase Schmidt’s range, both artistically and emotionally.
“I do photography initially for my pleasure,” Schmidt said, “but I really want to share these visions of things with people.”
Folks can enjoy Schmidt’s visions – still life portraits and laser paintings, grand renditions of Iceland’s landscapes, ladybugs relaxing on blades of grass and Arizona’s red, red rocks – during regular business hours at Gallery 1, inside St. Clair Hospital’s Professional Building.
“It’s a great location,” said Melissa Marion, director of development and governmental relations for St. Clair Hospital. “The Gallery 1 … is easy to access. We’ve had watercolor, we’ve had canvasses, a lot of photography. I think that people really appreciate it.”
Marion noted that visitors can park for free – for up to an hour – in the St. Clair Hospital visitors garage, and there is no charge to enter the gallery.
“Art is therapy, whether it is therapy for the artist or for those viewing the items in Gallery 1,” Marion said. “It provides an outlet, or can bring a smile to somebody’s face.”
All Gallery 1 art is for sale, and 20% of proceeds benefit the St. Clair Hospital Foundation.
“It’s also a great way to raise extra money,” Marion said.
Money for both the foundation (Schmidt, a cancer survivor, requested funds raised through his art sales be donated to the oncology unit) and the artists who pour their hearts and souls into works displayed in Gallery 1. Schmidt is eager to hang his framed and metal prints on the gallery’s walls and share his inspiration and visions with the greater Pittsburgh region.
“Music is a big part of what I am inspired by. More than music, more than movies … life. You’re trying to capture something that’s special within everything you see,” Schmidt mused. “I have always wanted to show (my photographs). I am super excited.”
View Schmidt’s images at Gallery 1, or visit https://www.facebook.com/gregory.schmidt.798.