The Villages - August 2019 - 14

B E T TY E I C H
CAPTURES SCENES, CREATES CONNECTIONS
As a painter creates art with a brush, Betty Eich
captures scenes with her camera. It started postretirement, following a career in education. "I knew
I had to find something I was passionate about," said
the Village La Reynalda resident. "I began taking lots
of snapshots, and I took a class to learn about the
camera."
Intrigued, Eich began playing with aperture and speed.
"I didn't know about shutters or f-stop," she said.
"And things got interesting when I learned about post
processing. Using Photoshop Elements, you
could take a photo and make it look the way
you envisioned it. You could show what
moved you."
As a budding beginner, Eich began
looking at things differently.
"Photography helps you see the world
with new eyes," she said.
When she moved from Illinois to The
Villages in 2006, she discovered The
Villages Photography club.
"I became a member right away.
They were eager to share their
knowledge and they really helped
me develop my skills," she said.
Perusing her photo collection, Eich described her artistic process.
"It's part composition,"
she said. "You want to lead the
eye through your photo. When
you're creating a photograph,
you're making conscious decisions about how you're presenting
your subject - it's where you stand,
how tight you go, what you include
in the frame."
While in Copenhagen, Eich took
shots of an ancient canal. A stretch of
brightly colored townhomes line the
14

AUGUST 2019

waterfront and ships point their masts toward the sky.
"In this photo, your eye moves down the canal,"
she said. "My job is to align the visual elements - to
create the focal point. A good photo contains a piece
of the photographer. You see what I found engaging,
what touched my heart. It's not just a snapshot; it's an
emotional connection."
Now a photography business owner and avid
traveler, Eich probes each locale with her lens, finding
inspiration in everything - the lions lounging in the
Serengeti and the sunsets over Batswana.
"My husband Ed and I love to travel, and
that combines very well with photography;
I can bring my experiences back with me
- better than any souvenir," she said.
Among Eich's tokens of travel are intricate shots of a Chinese garden in Portland,
Oregon. "Photography is a two-dimensional medium, but the goal is to always create
depth, the way a painter does with brushstrokes and shadows," she said. "The
Chinese believed that evil spirits don't
have knees so if you raised the lintel,
evil spirits couldn't follow. When
you look at the architecture in the
photo, you wonder."
A good photo, she notes, should
conjure some curiosity about the
scene. And like a mode of transportation, a picture should take
you on a journey.
In a photo of the milky way
over the great sand dunes in Colorado, your eye climbs up a stack of driftwood and into the starry sky. In the
distance, you see the Sangre De Cristo
Mountains. "Because there's no light,
you can see every star in the sky,"
Eich said. "It's a spiritual experience."
Another shot captures the sun in

The Villages - August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Villages - August 2019