By Eye: Photos from the last 20 years

A retrospective of 20 years of images from the travels of Joseph Sorrentino, noted regional photographer. Joseph captures the people and places during his travels and shares them with us in a memorable way. Hear the artist's words: My career as a photographer and writer began when I was running a soup kitchen in West Philadelphia from 1985-1986. Back then, homeless people were usually portrayed in the media as substance abusers, mentally ill (or both) and living on the streets. Although we had our share of people who fit that description, most of our clients were really quite different from what I was seeing in the media. I began bringing in my camera and, always with permission, photographing people and writing down their stories. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was a photographer and writer. Much of my early documentary work concerned homelessness and poverty and several of the images in this exhibit are from projects that took me across almost all of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Other images in the exhibit are from the Rochester Zen Center, the Cowtown rodeo, farmworkers and my trips to Mexico where I photographed Day of the Dead, political protests, Holy Week and life in remote villages. I still owe a great debt to the people I came to know in that soup kitchen, as well as those in the shelters and on the streets where I photographed. They not only made me into a photographer, they taught me a sensitivity that has greatly affected my work and my life. Gallery hours Mon 9 am - 9:30 pm, Tues-Thurs 9 am - 6:30 pm, CLOSED Friday, Sat 10 am - 5:30 pm, Sun 11 am - 3:30 pm.