A Tiny World Brought to Size in Capitola

The minute details of a tiny blue butterfly, the rough textures of a swallow wing, and the vibrant greens and purples of a buckeye spring bud are being brought to a larger scale at Dharma’s restaurant in local artist Bruce Harman’s macro photography exhibit.

The exhibit—which will run through Jan. 31 at the Capitola vegetarian restaurant—centers around the things in nature that are usually too small for people to notice. Wonders such as insects, plants and bird wings are brought to a massive scale on prints as large as 49-by-43 inches.

“I’m fascinated by living plants; I’m not so interested in things that are static and dead,” said Harman, “I’m fascinated by that, what it means to make something alive. I feel that when I do close-up work with plants that in some sense you can sort-of see the living quality of the plant.”

Harman, a 53-year old Capitola resident, has been involved with photography since he was in art school at the Philadelphia College of Art. Although photography isn’t his primary artistic outlet, Harman says it is a great point of reference for his paintings.

“It’s always been a sideline of mine. Painting has been my central interest,” said Harman.

All of the photos in the exhibit were not shot by a typical digital camera, but instead were scanned by a modified Epson 3200 scanner. Harman says that the technical aspects—such as lighting and choosing the right lens—are the most challenging part of photography.

“I modified the scanner so that it would work for this kind of thing," Harmon said. "I made a rig to hold the scanner in various positions. I just started playing around with it, and that’s how I got the shots in the exhibit.”

Bruce hopes that with the use of scanner photography, he can shed a new light on the little things in life that typically go unnoticed.

“At the smallest scale, everything is perfect—the way that things unfold and the way leaves and petals are sculpted, it’s like master craft, even at the tiniest level where most people never get to appreciate them."

Dharma’s restaurant regularly posts art on its off-yellow walls and has displayed some of Harman’s photos and paintings in the past, said Yogi Shapiro, 34, the restaurant manager who is in charge of picking the art exhibits.

“(Bruce) has been a regular customer for awhile, and I have had art shows up since last year,” said Shapiro. “He approached us, and we decided to put his stuff up.”

Shapiro hopes that the exhibit will bring a new feeling to the restaurant and also says that the customers have been saying great things about the photos.

“Right away (the gallery) brought a new atmosphere, and I think that every show has a different feeling. The photos are really elegant,” said Shapiro.

The eight-year manager said his favorite photo in the exhibit is the pair of swallow wings, but he finds all the photos in the gallery to be appealing.

“Besides their size, the clarity and how you get a really up-close look at these plants and different objects,” said Shapiro, “we normally don’t get such a close-up look on these things, and we take them for granted. It’s nice to get a new vision of them.”