By Yvonne Wright • The Current Contributing Writer
Someone once described retirement as a multifaceted period in one’s life that signifies not the end of the road, but the beginning of life on the open highway; a new chapter of existence during which a person stops ‘living for work,’ and starts working at living fully, embracing interests and activities unrealized or put on hold for decades.
Not rigidly confined to a particular age group these days, and fluctuating widely in terms of social and economic backgrounds, retirement (as seen in contemporary terms) gives a chance at redesigning, or reinventing one’s life by managing supplementary free time to learn something new, or pick up past interests with much greater commitment and passion.
Artistic interests cultivated upon retirement more often than not can lead into fulfilling new hobbies, even careers, enriching peoples lives at the same time. Photography is one of those creative mediums that has been greatly enabled in its popular appeal by advancements in digital technology. No longer confined to the bulkiness of film rolls, and freed from over-the-counter film processing services, home darkrooms, or expensive professional studios (although still in use)… today, photography is the most popular, democratized, fun and constantly evolving creative medium to play with and enjoy.
All you need is a decent quality digital gadget (such as a classic camera, smart phone, or tablet), which can be coupled with an Instagram, Flicker, Facebook or other social media account allowing you to share your images with a world wide audience…. and you are good to go.
“Pick up photography after retirement, would be my advice to others” shares Lucy Freck candidly, a watercolorist and photographer from Towamensing Township (located within the boundaries of the Palmerton Area School District) and retired Executive Assistant to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, who is currently a member and serving secretary of the Carbon County Art League, and past-President of the Palmerton Camera Club. “In retirement, I knew I had to develop interests outside the house, and I saw the medium of photography as something I was already familiar with from my childhood, a possible hobby.”
Born in the Bronx and raised with six younger brothers, Lucy grew up in a home filled with her mother’s favorite jazz and blues records (Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, etc.), her father’s photographic gear (and discussions about F-stops, ISO, the Rule of Thirds, and the importance of the ‘photographer’s eye’), and occasional trips to art museums with her mother (most of which were admission-free in New York City at the time).
Rekindling her interest in photography after retirement come to Lucy naturally, because she grew up with a father who was a commercial photographer for Alexander’s Inc. department stores in New York City, which were high quality private label stores founded in 1928. Headquartered on Manhattan’s 7th Avenue, the company used their own photography studios and dark rooms for processing images of their merchandise (jewelry, fashion accessories, household items, sporting goods, etc.,) to be advertised in their flyers.
“Pop was also the designated family photographer” recalls Lucy fondly, “every image on a roll of film developed was made into several copies to be shared among family. He also helped me as the photographer for my high school year book. He supplied the film, developed the negatives and provided the contact sheets, so we could choose which photos to use.”
One time, as Lucy recalls, her father was working on a family Christmas card, but one of her brothers “would not behave while he tried to take the group shot. After several attempts he gave up and later superimposed an image of the misbehaving boy into the family photo, creating an early ‘photoshop’ trick” – thereby teaching young Lucy Freck the valuable lesson of not giving up and always looking for practical solutions to creative problems.
Not considering herself a technical person, but rather intuitive in her approach to art, Lucy’s subject matter has varied over the years from nature to architecture, each posing unique sets of challenges she enjoyed resolving. These days, she is particularly interested in flowers and floral arrangements, believing that flowers “transcend the timelessness of beauty within us across all stages of life.” Their colors, textures, shapes and even their progression from growth to wilting can be creatively arranged and photographically exposed in ways that make unique artistic statements, showing off the plants’ magnificence at the same time.
Photo-editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Topaz Studio have helped Lucy to expand her skills and creative vocabulary by pushing straight forward photography into the realm of creative investigation. One of such examples is her “Flowers for Pete” image, where a traditional approach to still life has ‘intervened’ in a fresh and interesting way.
According to the artist, it all began with two Valentine’s Day gifts from her boyfriend: a bouquet of two Protea flower stems, and the book Flowers for Lisa: A Delirium of Photographic Invention by Abelardo Morell, a contemporary Cuban-born American photographer renowned for his use of camera obscura.
“Morell’s book encourages photographers to explore one of the most familiar artistic subjects – the flower,” Lucy explains, “and how through a series of optical and painterly processes one can create images that are at once conventionally aesthetic and subtly surreal.” Motivated by examples in the book, and fascinated by the exotic beauty of Protea flowers with their large seed pods, rich color and hard-but-smooth textures, Lucy decided to follow Morell’s teachings and improvise with materials at hand to make her photo interesting.
“I used the same two flowers in each take, repositioning the stems in each shot” explains the artist regarding her working process, “I fed the resulting photos into Photoshop and, with additional manipulations, used them to create a vase full of flowers that appear [simultaneously] real and unreal,” thus looking somewhat familiar or as if phantoms to unsuspecting audiences, wondering how it was done. As a result, this ephemeral, digital mixed-media image, based on a cleverly manipulated photographic collage, appears contemporarily fresh and vibrant in its narrative. Not surprisingly, in 2019 “Flowers for Pete” won first place in the Digital Art category at the annual Palmerton Concourse Club Art & Photography Show.
Many more awards followed as a result of Lucy’s persistent perfectionism: Second Place in Digital Art for “Luck On the Road”; First Place in the Wildlife category, and the People’s Choice Award in the Carbon County Environmental Education Center Art Show for “Golden,” Honorable Mention in Macro at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center for “Dogwood,” and several ribbons for her nature photographs at local Carbon County Fairs.
Today, an accomplished photographer in her own right, Lucy much enjoys meeting other local photographers and artists, and seeing their work; …there is so much to learn from others. Each person has unique ways of looking at things and such experiences are invaluable in presenting meaningful alternatives to one’s own work. She admits of learning a lot from the many experienced guest-speakers at the Palmerton Camera Club, or from online tutorials and books. A photographer with an enquiring mind, Lucy has a creative restlessness that is infectious, and when faced with an image that possesses that special ”wow” factor, she immediately wants to know how it was done, and if it can be reproduced in her own work.
Along with many other Carbon County visual artists of mature age, Lucy Freck has proven that life can be reinvented and invigorated through artistic interests pursued upon retirement, whether through painting, sculpting, writing, photographing, blacksmithing, or crocheting, these newly adopted interests or rediscovered earlier hobbies, can lead into fulfilling post-retirement identities.
And when one is freed from restriction to mundane responsibilities and obligations that once took over-riding priority, don’t be too practical, don’t be afraid to try new things, and view art as something to pursue with a sense of purpose…. but most importantly, create art to nourish your own mind and soul.
Yvonne Wright is the owner of STUDIO YNW at 100 West Broadway in Jim Thorpe. She can be reached at studio.ynw@gmail.com
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