Shots beyond the visible

Most photographers work on capturing the images they can see. Mary

McAleer goes a level beyond that. Using infrared film, the Newport

Beach resident photographs places using a spectrum of light that the

eye cannot perceive.

“I think [infrared] captures the spirit of a place,” McAleer said.

Her personal photos of County Cork, Ireland, and Folly’s Ruins in

Jamaica are on display through Aug. 31 at Townsend Gallery (1581 W.

Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock, [323] 478-9513). It is the first time the

commercial photographer has seen her work hang in a gallery not

attached to a college.

McAleer’s works have a dreamy quality to them. A circle of stones

in Ireland beckons to the imagination. The walls and ceiling of a

hallway leading to a tree-covered window look as if light emanates

from within. You almost expect to see a mermaid emerge from the

Caribbean Sea as it laps up toward a row of ruined columns.

“The thing about infrared is that you really can’t see what the

camera sees,” McAleer said. “What happens is you’re photographing the

color temperature of heat.”

She took the photographs for fun while on vacation in Ireland

seven years ago and in Jamaica last year. Her vacations tend to be

“busman’s holidays,” as she likes to ply her art wherever she goes.

Born on the East Coast, McAleer has been taking pictures since she

got her first Kodak Brownie at age 9 or 10. Growing up in Lowell,

Mass., the old textile mills provided a perfect subject for a budding

shooter.

“My mom looked at the pictures and said, ‘Well, could you at least

put your sister in front of them’ “” McAleer remembers.

In her 20s, she got a 35-millimeter camera and started to take

classes at Orange Coast College.

“I used to look in my refrigerator and I’d have a whole shelf

devoted to photo paper and film,” McAleer remembers. “It was like I

was eating Kodak.”

Her interest in photography soon led to an interest in commercial

work. She met partner Mark Milroy at OCC, and they started the

architectural photography firm of Milroy & McAleer in 1979. Today the

Costa Mesa-based company photographs interiors and ads for companies

that include the Hyatt, the Ritz Carlton and the Hilton.

Though her work appears in magazines across the country, McAleer

did not expect that anyone would be interested in hanging her

personal works. Then she met Debra Boudreau, owner of the Townsend

Gallery, when Boudreau was working for the American Institute of

Architects.

To hear Boudreau tell it, the gallery owner wrangled her way into

McAleer’s home for dinner because she liked the photographer. When

McAleer showed her some of the infrared work prints, Boudreau was

fascinated.

“I don’t know a lot about photography, and they were enchanting,”

Boudreau said.

The gallery owner decided to put on a show of McAleer’s work.

“Traditions and Innovation: Dreamscapes in Photography” features both

McAleer and Mexico City photographer Elsa Chabaud.

McAleer has been tickled by the response to the show. She likes

telling the story of the reaction of a man, a former Marine, who is

working on her home. When the man told her his family was from

Ireland, McAleer gave him an invitation, which has a fantasy-like

picture of an oak tree. The next day, the man came back, very

excited. He told McAleer that he had taken a magnifying glass and

found five different forms that could be faerie folk near the tree.

“How neat is it that I could capture his imagination with my

picture,” McAleer said.

* * *

Do you know a local artist, writer, painter, singer, filmmaker,

etc., who deserves to get noticed? Send your nominee to In The Wings,

Daily Pilot, 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627, by fax to (949)

646-4170 or by e-mail to [email protected].

* JENNIFER K MAHAL is features editor of the Daily Pilot.