Greater Decatur Chamber of Commerce

The Decatur Area Arts Council invites the public to enjoy the September exhibit in the Anne Lloyd Gallery of the Madden Arts Center at 125 N. Water St. in downtown Decatur. A 50 year retrospective, Photography of George Nichols: Then & Now, is being sponsored by Hickory Point Bank and Trust. The exhibit features images of the many places Nichols has visited, tracing the metamorphosis of his black and white photography and his foray into color digital capture. A student of more than 20 photography workshops from across the United States and in Canada, Nichols has photographed numerous waterfalls, National Parks, The Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, cathedrals in England and scores of other stunning landscapes.

Nichols transplanted from New York City to work at A.E. Staley Manufacturing in 1962. For many years, he served as the photographer for local theatre group Theatre 7. Over his lifetime, he has traded up from a Kodak Brownie camera to a rangefinder to a 35mm single reflex then large format view cameras. In 2003, after forty years of making black and white prints from negatives using an enlarger and wet chemicals, he finally invested in his first digital camera and flat-bed scanner. Nichols quips that he now processes digital files in a "Lightroom" instead of a "Darkroom".

The public can meet Nichols at the opening reception on Friday, September 3 from 5:00-7:30 pm in the Anne Lloyd Gallery at the Madden Arts Center. He will speak about his work at 6:00 pm. Hors d'oeuvres will be served and the reception is open free to the public.

The exhibit will be open to the public from September 3-28. The gallery hours are from 9 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday and Saturdays from 10 am - 2 pm. For more exhibit information, contact the Decatur Area Arts Council at 423-3189 or check the website at www.decaturarts.org.