On Friday, March 16 from 5:00-7:00 pm, Noble Horizons welcomes the community to a free opening reception in the Learning Center Gallery for Robert Blank's collection of new photographs. Gallery guests will enjoy a photographic journey through Vietnam, New York, Namibia, Utah and several other exotic global destinations. The exhibit will be open weekends 11:00am-4:00pm through April 22.

As an urban planner, Bob Blank has had an ongoing fascination with cities and their inhabitants. For much of his career he was involved in the physical and social resurrection of inner city neighborhoods. As a result, when he turned to photography, many of his photographs were of cityscapes and city dwellers and how they live.

As time has passed, he has also developed a strong interest in photographing other subjects which he finds emotionally or aesthetically moving. Working in black and white, he is drawn to the play of light and dark and to the visual effects of found shapes and objects.

Dr. Blank has studied at the International Center of Photography in New York City and the Maine Photographic Workshops where he was privileged to work with Constantine Manos. He usually works with a medium format camera. Most of his photographs of people are unposed and spontaneous whereby he attempts to capture an honest, revealing moment. Against the overwhelming tide of current photography, he continues to produce black and white photographs using film, not digital, cameras and printing them in his darkroom. He believes that the results evoke a more direct and emotional response.

His work has been accepted, and has won prizes, in several juried shows and has been exhibited in one- and two-person shows in galleries in SOHO and Chelsea in New York City. He has had solo exhibitions at the Tremaine Gallery of the Hotchkiss School, the Tremaine Gallery of the Salisbury School and the gallery of Noble Horizons.

This show, "People and Places Near and Far", includes photographs taken in ten countries around the world and four states in the United States. Most of Dr. Blank's past exhibitions have one theme or are of one country. However, this show provides a range of subjects in a range of places all of which could be the basis for the theme of another exhibition.