Photographer captures ‘this magic' of undersea life

Warwick - If you’ve never taken in an event at the gallery at Port Of Call, do it now, before it’s too late. The popular home furnishings/art gallery is going out of business. Owners Debra and Tony Blomfield apparently decided to go out on a high note, leaving the art community begging for more. Featuring the underwater photographic work of long-time Warwick resident, Idell Conaway, and the paintings of local artist/energy therapist, Phyllis Lehman, the current show upstairs in the gallery will run through April 6. A native of New Mexico, Idell Conaway lived in Warwick for 25 years before moving into New York City where she has a photography studio in the village. She now divides her time between New York, New Mexico, the Philippines and Southeast Asia to which she has travelled for many years photographing indigenous peoples. In recent years however, her sense of curiosity and adventure has taken her to a new world. Through her use of photography, she brings that surprisingly colorful, form-filled world under the oceans above ground to the viewing public. ”At a midpoint in my life while visiting Australia,” Conaway wrote. “I challenged myself to take scuba lessons. This new experience changed my life immensely, transporting me into more exotic and remote corners of the world along a path of inner fulfillment. Many of the images in this exhibit originated this past year in Batangas, in the Philippines, as well as in the Sulu Sea on the Philippines’ southern perimeter near Borneo.” Using a Nikonos camera with a strobe, Conaway records what she refers to as “this magic” and which she goes on to explain, “renders the image with more clarity and simplicity by framing it apart from the profusion of ongoing sea activity.” Conaway uses 35 mm slide film. “The images are then scanned and digitized, and then printed photographically on fine papers and are archival,” Conaway wrote. Running concurrently with the show at Port of Call is an installation of Conaway’s underwater photographs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York through Jan. 13, 2008. Entitled Undersea Oasis: Coral Reef Communities, the exhibition of 30 full-color photographs captures photographically “the dazzling invertebrate life that flourishes in the unique ecology of coral reefs from purple anemones to pale yellow sea squirts” according to the museum’s brochure. There also will be a presentation of Idell Conaway’s work to the Sierra Club’s photographic group in New York City on May 30.