Traveling the world can be a lot of fun, but memories are fleeting. That’s why many travelers bring a camera along. Local photographer Lee-Volker Cox began shooting images during his travels around the world while in the U.S. Air Force, but the hobby quickly became a serious endeavor, even after Cox settled on the Central Coast.
Cox’s more recent exhibits have focused on the Central Coast in one way or another. He did an exhibit about the local agricultural industry that showed at the Santa Maria Public Library. A recent featured spot at the Valley Art Gallery focused on the Central Coast as the sole subject.
But Cox’s current show, which hangs at the Grossman Gallery in the Lompoc Public Library through Sept. 30, is not bound by time or place, he explained.
“This one is different in that I’ve brought in images I have taken all around the world,” he said. “And with the title A Pop of Color, that means that the color is very bold or extremely subtle, and so it’s a wide array.”
After combing through literally tens of thousands of images, Cox selected 50 photos to show in A Pop of Color. They include landscapes, wildlife close-ups, people from around the world, and particularly colorful places.
The nature photographs are especially stunning due to the vibrant colors found in the natural world, Cox said. One image, which depicts a single bee on an echinacea flower, wasn’t shot on a camping excursion, but in his parents’ backyard.
“There’s so much that happens in nature, it exudes life, because that’s what it is,” he said. “And nature, by itself, has evolved to have so many different colors. So why are flowers red and yellow? Those are colors to bring the bees and butterflies and other pollinators.”
Many more images share people from near and far. There are people he met in other countries, like brightly clad fishermen on the coast of the United Kingdom.
Some are locals, he explained, like Santa Barbara County Supervisor and rancher Peter Adam. The photo, titled “The Happy Cowboy” by Cox, features Adam and his horse on his ranch, all while wearing his “signature turquoise shirt,” Cox said.
“Every person is unique, so the colors they pick express a little something about their personality,” he said. “So you learn something about their character when you see what they are wearing.”
All of the images in A Pop of Color include a few sentences of context provided on a small placard, Cox said, so that viewers are given something to ponder while viewing the photo.
Cox is also jazzed that the exhibit shows at the Grossman Gallery, which is in the Lompoc Public Library. The library, Cox said, is the perfect place to show his work.
“You have an awful lot of people who come in and see it, and that’s really what I enjoy about my photography, is sharing it with other people,” he said. “A lot of people may not know they are going in to see a photo exhibition when they go down to the library for something, and those are people who were never going to see it if it weren’t for the library.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne needs to spend more time at the library. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 1-8, 2016.