Photography show opens Wednesday at Kukui Grove

Local photographer Cordelia Bailey will have a one-woman show opening Wednesday at the Kaua‘i Society of Artists exhibition space at Kukui Grove Shopping Center. Bailey defines her work in digital photography as falling under two descriptions: Real and manipulated.

The first attempts to capture the subject as it really appeared. She may use post-processing software such as Adobe Photoshop to tweak features such as light and sharpness, but the essence of the shot remains unaltered.

In a press release Bailey describes one such shot where she discovered two elderly men sitting on a sidewalk.

 “I turned a corner and saw these guys and had only a moment before they would see me and the pose would be lost. I fired the shot from my hip and just hoped that the exposure would be okay. The picture is true.”

The second is the use of digital manipulation to create art. The photographer is no longer trying to present the subject in its true form. 

“With ‘Tidy Kiosk’ I was trying to add a bit of humor to a scene representative of Japanese culture,” Cordelia states in a release. “I saw a kiosk on a train platform in Japan. It was so very organized and perfect. I was able to shoot the shot in perfect light. Later I manipulated the scene to add some little men polishing and cleaning.”

These and other works by Cordelia Bailey can be viewed from July 1 to 15 (closed July 4) at Kaua‘i Society of Artists exhibition space. Bailey will give a lecture, open to the public, on “Realism and Manipulation in Digital Art” at 1 p.m. July 11.