“Mostly Present,” a sampling of regional Williamsport by Richard Karp, is now on display through January 4 at Gallery425, 425 Market Street, Williamsport. The recent photographs from the area feature topics that range from nature and cityscapes, to portraits and editorial photographs.

A native of Williamsport, Karp attended public schools in the area. He later took adventures in New York, California, West Virginia and Washington state, before settling back in Williamsport in 1976. He has worked as a factory and construction laborer, forklift operator, school teacher, apple picker, tree planter, computer programmer, systems analyst and administrator and restaurant operator.

Karp earned degrees at Penn State and Williamsport Area Community College and is retired from a computer career and involvement with the family business. A photographer since his teens, Karp now immerses himself even deeper into his passion. He has lived for the past 28 years on Bastress Mountain.

“Part of my family’s tradition is taking pictures, especially at holidays and celebrations,” Karp said. “In tenth grade, my classmate Harvey Kaplan had a 35mm camera, and I remember his expert hands holding the camera, with his fingers on the lens barrel. Later, a series of his photographs of windows, a collection he called ‘Openings’ were well done and beautiful.”

When Karp was in his late teens, a gift book of famous photographers from his sister Barrie made a big impact on him. Barrie, a visual artist, always encouraged his photography and vision of himself as an artist.

“I got my hands on a used Konica rangefinder camera with no light meter and all manual settings; and it forced me to become familiar with exposure aspects of aperture, shutter and film speed and their effects on image,” Karp said. “I remember being in the library at Penn State looking at photographers’ works instead of studying for mid-terms – I was hooked.”

Karp has admired many photographers, including Terry Wild, a local photographer whose class he took at Lycoming College.

“Great photographers inspire me, in varied ways,” he said. “Beauty, light, storytelling, history, people, mastery of craft – there are so many modes of expression in photography.”

Karp’s early love of cameras and photography was nurtured by viewing the works of others. Some who have made a lasting impression on him include Arnold Newman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Bert Stern, Emett Gowen, Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, and many more covering a variety of genres.

“When I see something great, it is internalized and then informs how I see,” he said. “I love looking at photographs, I love shooting in the moment, I love magic time when the light is low and shimmering, I love beauty — in people, nature and buildings, I love telling a story — revealing feeling or character, and I love recording a moment that can be recalled years later. I’m sentimental that way.”

“A particular fascination of mine is witnessing the effects of time — seeing a person, place or event in various stages,” Karp said. “Eventually the subject is no longer there, which makes the shot poignant, or at least historical.”

In the early days, Karp used 35mm film cameras and experimented with medium format film cameras as well. In 2006, he changed to digital for a friend’s wedding and never looked back.

“I still have negatives from long ago and use a scanner to convert them to digital files,” he said. “Photoshop is used to edit scanned and original digital images. Printing is done on an inkjet printer, except for very large prints which are printed elsewhere.”

Quite often, Karp’s photographs are unplanned, so a variety of themes will be on display. “I always have a camera with me to catch a moment that presents itself, beautiful light or a subject,” he said.

Some of those subjects or moments captured include a stump while kayaking on Hunters Lake, fall ferns and leaves found on a hike, trees in fog on another hike, the artist Yuri Karabash on a chance meeting outside his studio, and exotic light on Elmira Street.

“A few weeks ago, I was motorcycling with my photographer friend David Burke when we stopped and he set up his 4×5 camera to take a shot of trees,” Karp said. “Shots of David shooting are in the show, as is the photograph he took.”

Other photos in the exhibit were more planned, such as a widower admiring a sculpture of his wife, a body of work portraying Williamsport architecture, a dusk shot of Fourth and Pine Streets, and one of the Graff House, which was shot this year for Victorian Christmas.

“Another part of local experience which I express photographically is the gas industry in our region — in this case its use of water,” Karp said. “A photograph of my teen swimming hole on Lycoming Creek — complete with jumper from the railroad bridge — is bracketed by two gas photographs: ‘Taking Water from the River’ and ‘Taking Water from Pine Creek.’ ”

Nobody enjoys looking at Karp’s photographs more than he does, and the artist gets satisfaction from the creative process and self-expression of his art.

“Visual communication is multi-faceted and can be an expression of beauty as in the nature or architecture photographs,” he said. “It can be as simple as expressing an emotion — something that is felt by viewing or revealing the emotion felt by the subject. If someone gets to see the beauty I see, or the nature of an object or aspect of a person, that is rewarding.”