Remembering the Good Times Photo by Jack Rosenberg
Imagine seeing Hurricane Sandy hitting Havana, Cuba, a colorful local train in Santiago, Chile, the tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a column of Spain’s Alhambra, South Beach, Tangier Island, the C&O Canal all in a single day.
The opportunity is right around the corner from Potomac. Visitors to the OASIS Art Gallery in Bethesda’s Montgomery Mall will travel around the world and the area through Jack Rosenberg’s photography exhibit. The tour is through the eyes of Rosenberg, a photographer who doesn’t just focus on snapshots of buildings or scenery. He captures the gritty faces of people, the high waves and horrific winds of a hurricane, and one-of-a-kind images of the canal.
“I believe that art should take you somewhere; take you to an imaginary place or time that doesn’t exist, but makes your imagination start revving and searching for a time or place that only is in your mind as a viewer of the image,” he said.
Rosenberg, a retired orthodontist and an avid traveler, has always loved photography. Because of his dental background, he has an eye for “details and small parts of the whole. This visual attraction to the smaller parts of the whole has carried over to many of my images.”
Rosenberg has brought 50 photos to the gallery – a variety of pieces that include doors, windows, landscapes, flowers, abstract images and faces from numerous foreign countries as well as from the U.S. – and also from outside his home in Potomac. Many of his photos look like paintings because of the textures he displays through his camera lens. He has transformed his photo of a bicycle with flowers taken in Spain into a painting by printing it on canvas — a technique which expands the photo to brush-stroke quality — and makes it seem as if an artist painted it.
“I prefer to be non-specific in my choices of photographic themes and therefore my images tend to be quite eclectic,” Rosenberg said. “I love to see saturated, bright colors and this is reflected in my images. I also try to see the colors in my black and white (or monochrome) images. To me, the shadows and highlights of a monochrome image can, with certain subjects, be much more powerful than a color image of the same subject.”
Even though Rosenberg has been displaying his art only for a few years, he has already received prestigious awards. He was named first place winner in FOTOWEEKDC’S 2012 People’s Choice International Awards Competition. He won first place and honorable mention in the 2014 Photographic Society of America – Mid-Atlantic International Cups Division and was also awarded finalist and honorable mention in the 2013 Washington Post Travel Photo Contest. He has also shown his work in many juried art exhibits.
The OASIS Art Gallery is a new project of the Washington Metropolitan OASIS. Located inside Macy’s Home Store at Westfield Montgomery Mall, 7125 Democracy Blvd., Bethesda, the free gallery is open 30 hours a week – from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Rosenberg’s artwork will be on display until Sept. 30. His photographs are for sale with 30 percent of the proceeds benefiting OASIS and its programs. To see more of Rosenberg’s art, go to his website atwww.my-2nd-life.com.
OASIS is a national education organization dedicated to enriching the lives of adults age 50 and older through lifelong learning, health, wellness promotion and volunteer opportunities. To learn more about OASIS, call 301-469-6800, press 1 and x211, or visit online at www.oasisnet.org/washington.