{"id":15482,"date":"2016-12-27T07:44:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T14:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15482"},"modified":"2016-12-27T07:44:50","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T14:44:50","slug":"in-the-midst-of-a-comeback-photographer-mounts-exhibit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/12\/in-the-midst-of-a-comeback-photographer-mounts-exhibit\/","title":{"rendered":"In the midst of a comeback, photographer mounts exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Peters\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Most of Mary Peters’ large photographs were still spread out on the floor of a storage room next to the Last Chance Pub and Cider Mill last week. She was in\u00a0the process of hanging them throughout the pub.<\/p><\/div>\n

Mary Peters was hanging some of her huge, canvas-mounted photographs at the Last Chance Pub and Cider Mill<\/a> last week, preparing for the first of what Last Chance manager Tanner Vinecke hopes will be a series of collaborations with artists.<\/p>\n

For Peters, though, the exhibition has a deeper meaning.<\/p>\n

For her it marks another stage in the process of recovering from a concussion she suffered in 2012. Peters, a Lewistown native who has lived in Lavina for nine years, has long been a professional photographer, shooting weddings, graduations and other events and milestones as well as doing work for newspapers and magazines.<\/p>\n

After falling and hitting her head, her life changed dramatically, although for a long time she hardly realized it herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with concussions is, you as a person feel fine,\u201d she said. \u201cBut you don\u2019t remember a year and a half of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the period of time for which she has no memories, and once she became \u201ckind of coherent\u201d again, she said, she\u2019d come home from a shoot and she couldn\u2019t tell if some of her photos were in focus. She didn\u2019t know if the problem was with her lenses or with her own eyesight.<\/p>\n

She bought new camera equipment and she tried different glasses and contact lenses. She went to doctors, optometrists and physical therapists. Mostly it was a process of relearning what she used to know, and learning how to deal with the after-effects of the concussion.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>She had been doing a lot of work for the World Class Bucking Horse Association<\/a>, and when she was photographing the Miles City Bucking Horse Sale last May, she took only one lens and used automatic settings on her camera for the first time ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still knew what I wanted to do, but the mechanics of it were hard,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were just so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

So was living with three to four migraines a week that resulted from the concussion. She learned to deal with those, too, by cutting back on the work she was doing for various organizations and by wearing sunglasses and a hat with a brim when she\u2019s outside. The hat and sunglasses cut down on sun glare and limit the amount of visual information her brain had to process.<\/p>\n

Concentrating on particular tasks is another problem. If she is interrupted while sorting through photos, choosing and annotating frames for later use, she finds it difficult when she returns to remember where she was, and what she was doing.<\/p>\n

A similar forgetfulness plagues her in dealing with people, remembering names and details of conversations.<\/p>\n

\"Mill\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Peters’ photo of a bronc rider adorns a wall of the Last Chance Pub and Cider Mill.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a big fan of feeling stupid,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to get a really thick skin if you can\u2019t remember things.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the exhibit now up at the Last Chance Pub, 2203 Montana Ave., means so much to her. It is tangible evidence that she\u2019s getting back on track, that she\u2019s still taking photos that people found compelling.<\/p>\n

The exhibit came about by happenstance. Like some other photographers, Peters liked shooting in the alley behind the Last Chance. The brick and steel building used to house a tractor factory, and the industrial feel of the location made for a lot of interesting photo settings.<\/p>\n

Peters was there this summer, when the pub was still under construction, shooting senior pictures for a client. She got into a conversation with a subcontractor who happens to be a good friend of Sam Hoffmann, the founder of Red Lodge Ales and the owner of the Last Chance.<\/p>\n

A week later, Peters was there for another shoot and got into conversation with the subcontractor again. He was interested enough in her work to suggest that she consider mounting an exhibit in the pub after it opened.<\/p>\n

Hoffmann was game, as was Vinecke, the pub manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to give the artists their own canvas in this building,\u201d Vinecke said. \u201cI\u2019m lucky that I get to have their art grace my walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters was excited by the exhibit because the Last Chance Pub occupies such a large, high-ceilinged space with big expanses of wall space. She thought some of her rodeo and bucking-horse sale photos would be perfect there, so she had them printed in large format\u2014one is more than 4 feet wide and 6 feet high\u2014on canvas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked the rodeo stuff because they add some movement to such a huge space,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s typical Montana art, with her particular twist,\u201d Vinecke said, \u201cwhich makes it fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Details<\/strong>: For a look at more of Peters’ photography, go to her website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Peters was hanging some of her huge, canvas-mounted photographs at the Last Chance Pub and Cider Mill last week, preparing for the first of what Last Chance manager Tanner Vinecke hopes will be a series of collaborations with artists. For Peters, though, the exhibition has a deeper meaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[5307,5306,2539,5308],"class_list":["post-15482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-diversions","tag-last-chance-pub-and-cider-mill","tag-mary-peters","tag-miles-city-bucking-horse-sale","tag-world-class-bucking-horse-association","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}