“Seeing Is Deceiving”: TEA Talk Explores Famous Photographers’ Work

Westport always says it’s an “arts town.”

On October 26, we’ll get a chance to prove it.

And to show that “arts” is more than just drawing, painting, music and theater.

Next Sunday (October 26, 2 p.m., Westport Library), 3 photographers with ties to Westport will be featured at the Westport Arts Advisory Committee’s 10th annual TEA Talk.

The event — TEA stands for Thinkers, Educators, Artists — is called “Seeing is Deceiving: A Search for Visual Perspective.” The conversation will explore ways in which photographers translate their visual perceptions into images, making them wholly their own.

Panelists include:

• Spencer Platt: a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, and 1988 Staples High School graduate
• Rachel Hall: Westport police detective and drone photographer)
• Butch Quick: Award-winning Norwalk street photographer).

Spencer Platt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo: September 11, 2001. (Photo/copyright Spencer Platt, with permission )

Photographer-graphic artist Miggs Burroughs will introduce the afternoon, with an overview. He’ll ask: Is there such thing as a universal truth in a photograph? Or is it determined by the eye looking through the viewfinder?

Well-known photographer Art Nager will moderate the panel. Westport poet laureate Donna Disch will offer a poem honoring the topic. A reception will follow the event.

Visitors can also enjoy the current show in the Library’s Sheffer Gallery, on display through December 16.

“Every Picture Tells a Story: Photographs from the Westport Public Library Art Collections” highlights 36 images, hung in schools and municipal buildings around town.

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