The Jaffrey Civic Center is pleased to announce a photography exhibit titled 5-A-Day by Amanda Bastoni. The exhibit will be in the first floor Display Cases and will begin Nov. 20th and run through December 24th. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Dec. 4th from 5–7 pm in the first floor Auditorium Gallery.
Amanda Bastoni is a MacDowell fellow who lives in Peterborough, NH with her son and husband. They all live three miles from ConVal Regional High School where Amanda is the photo/video teacher. Amanda has a BA in counseling psychology from Keene State and a MFA in creative writing from Antioch University. Her images and writings have appeared in various newspapers and literary magazines including The Knot, Guideposts Magazine, The Oklahoma Review, Chicken Soup for the Soul Horse Lovers edition, and The Boston Globe.
For this exhibit, Amanda created a self imposed challenge. She took five black and white photos a day for eight months using only the camera on her phone. What came out of that challenge was a renewed respect for seeing. “I remembered how to pay attention to light, and I remembered that the world isn’t black and white, but filled with shades of the most beautiful grays. Instead of my daily dose of fruits and vegetables I consumed my daily dose of art. The project changed me. So that now, when students tell me they can’t find anything interesting to take photos of I showed them my 5-a-day project. I show them blurry photos of light on trees, shadows made my car headlights, the light made by venetian blinds on bathroom tiles, the silhouette of a cat, the inside of a lamp shade. I showed them what I learned – that good photography is not about what kind of camera you use or how beautiful your model is – good photography is about loving what you see. “
