Blink of an Eye

What kind of images can be captured in the blink of an eye? If you are walking by The Screening Room Gallery, next door to the Malverne Cinema 4 on Hempstead Avenue in Malverne, there is a window gallery full of 16 inch by 20 inch framed prints to illustrate this intriguing concept. All the images were taken by the Club of Long Island Professional Photographers as the first of four shows to be presented in 2014. This will be the third year the club has utilized this venue to share the work of its members.

The idea for the exhibit, “Blink of An Eye,” began with a suggestion from CLIPP member Christina Daly, the Herald’s Photo Editor. Her suggestion was to shoot images at one-tenth of a second, approximately the amount of time between blinks of a human eye, but the theme expanded into much more than that and the photographers took the theme in their own way to show how life can go by in a “blink of an eye.”

Photographer Barbara Cittadino, from Oceanside, added a second layer of thought to the “Blink Of An Eye” theme.

“The image is shot at one-tenth of a second not only to show the steam of hot tea, but using Grandma’s dishes, that I will treasure forever,” Cittadino said. “Grandma passed on at 101 and a half years old. A long time? No, to me, it went in a blink of an eye.”

Turning outwards, Christina took the theme to a majestic lightning storm over a farm. Her image shows not one, but many bolts of lightening happening in the blink of an eye.

“I’ve loved lightning storms since I was a kid and I always wished I could take pictures of them,” Daly said. “After years of not being in the right place at the right time or not having the right equipment, I finally got lucky. I was able to get this photo during a storm in New Jersey right above Abma’s Farm in Wyckoff.