The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE — A collection of the latest works by well-known regional photographer Chuck Almarez opened on Friday, March 1, in the gallery of the Clifton Forge School of the Arts.
The show’s title, “Alter-native Reality: What the Camera Never Saw,” belies a visual trove of masterful manipulations of the photographic image.
Noted for “pushing the edge” beyond expectations, Almarez is clearly on track, and joyfully so.
Almarez was born and raised in Los Angeles, Calif., and graduated from Loyola High School where he first learned photography and darkroom processing.
After 10 years of military service (four years as a photo analyst), he formalized his photography education with a degree from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif.
He also assisted in the Shroud of Turin project undertaken in 1979, and later worked as a staff photographer for Santa Barbara Research Center, a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft.
In 1982 he joined a fellow Brooks graduate in operating a commercial photography studio in San Francisco, where as starving artists, they shot whatever assignments they could drag through the door, primarily toys and technology from nearby Silicon Valley.
Years working in technology marketing intervened until he moved to Glen Wilton in 1989.
In 1994 he started Kid Pix Photography, shooting teams and sports photos in Clifton Forge, and in 2009 opened Fire and Light Gallery in Clifton Forge, featuring an interesting combination of photography and blacksmithing.
He currently teaches photography courses at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College and the Clifton Forge School of the Arts in Clifton Forge, at Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, at Carnegie Hall in Lewisburg W.Va., and conducts a variety of photographic workshops.
In 2014 he earned a Master’s Degree in Digital Photography at the School of the Visual Arts in New York City and is an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Photoshop and Lightroom.
His commercial work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Roanoke Magazine, Blue Ridge Outdoors, and other regional newspapers and magazines.
Local commercial clients include Alleghany Regional Hospital, WestRock, Bennett Logging, Highlands Community Bank, the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce, and the town of Clifton Forge.
To see more of Chuck’s photos, please visit www.almarezphoto.com or on Facebook@chuck almarez
The public is invited to a reception in the gallery on April 9 from 4-6 pm. Light refreshments will be served. There is no admission charge. The final day of the exhibit is Saturday, April 20.
The Clifton Forge School of the Arts is funded solely through contributions from the general public and from gifts and grants from private donors, businesses, industries and charitable foundations.
