"Attic Treasures" by Eric Rennie

My photograph, "Attic Treasures," is one of 30 images appearing in an international juried competition entitled Chiaroscuro at the Chateau Gallery in Louisville, KY.  The online exhibit runs from August 1, 2022 to September 1, 2022.  The images were selected from among 450 submitted by artists in 17 countries.  The term "chiaroscuro" is derived from the Italian words chiaro (meaning “clear” or “bright”) and scuro (meaning “obscure”' or “dark.”  It is a technique artists use to heighten the drama of a particular subject with contrasting light and shadow.

My photograph was taken in the attic of a farmhouse that had once belonged to my grandfather and that had remained in the family for more than a century.  This was "found art" in the truest sense, since I had come upon a collection of sea shells arrayed on an old steamer trunk.  There are times, like this one, when you come away feeling you have done nothing to deserve the shot you got.  As the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once admitted, “Of course it’s all luck."