West Virginia University music professor David Bess, who is developing a second career in Morgantown as a photographer, is presenting an exhibition of his photos at Slight Indulgence II on Collins Ferry Road through mid-February.

The exhibition is open now and the opening reception will be held Tuesday, Jan. 22, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.

Bess is currently associate professor of music education at WVU and served as director of the School of Music during 2000 to 2007, as well as coordinator of the music education program from 1995 to 1997. He also spent nine years as a high school band director in West Virginia. He has had an interest in photography since high school when he served as a yearbook photographer at Berea Community School in Kentucky, as a publicity and group photographer for the West Virginia State Baptist Camp, and won first-place awards for his black-and-white portraits and landscapes at the Kentucky State Fair.

He estimates that he produced more than 10,000 8×10 photographs in his darkroom during his high school years.

More recently, he has taken student portraits for the School of Music’s popular Recruitment Calendar and provided a number of photographs for College of Creative Arts publications and websites.

His photos have been displayed and sold in solo shows at Slight Indulgence II in Morgantown, at the Deep Creek Lake Gourmet Shoppe in McHenry, Md., and the Mountain Laurel Gallery in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., as well as at solo shows in Berkeley Springs, and in Front Royal, Va. In addition to his landscape photography, he is also active as a wedding and event photographer. He will also teach his popular class in digital photography in the WVU Community Music Program again this spring.

The photos in the exhibition at Slight Indulgence include many landscapes from all over West Virginia, as well as some from Pennsylvania.

Slight Indulgence II, located at 3200 Collins Ferry Road, is open Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

-WVU-

cl/01/22/13

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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