VCU news

By Brian McNeill

A new exhibit at the Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University will showcase a collection of nature photographs from around the world, shot by Rob Sabatini, D.D.S., assistant professor in the Department of Periodontics in the School of Dentistry.

The exhibit, "Wild Things/Far and Near," will run from Feb. 18 until Sept. 30, and is free and open to the public.

"I have always enjoyed photography but was frustrated by limitations of the film format. Digital changed all of that for me but I still lacked focus," Sabatini said. "Then one day in the winter of 2009 I visited the pipeline rapids downtown on the James and saw the great blue herons that gather there each year to breed. The next day I became a nature photographer with a particular fascination for wildlife."

The exhibition features Sabatini's photographs shot in Kenya, Alaska, the Amazon Basin in Brazil and New Mexico, as well as closer sites, such as Virginia, the Carolinas and Florida.

Several of the photographs show exotic animals in faraway countries, such as a leopard in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Yet those shots, Sabatini said, actually were the "easy ones." His favorite shots, he said, were instead the ones of wood ducks, some taken as nearby as the Dutch Gap Conservation Area along the James River in Chester.

"The photos I treasure the most are the ones I worked the hardest for," he said. "The process of studying a subject, finding it, waiting for it to do something interesting in perfect light, and not messing up the shot, results in personal treasures that cannot be replaced."

Putting the exhibit together has been a thrill, Sabatini said, as it is an opportunity to show some of his favorite shots and see if people enjoy them. He added that he hopes visitors can see the passion that went into his hobby.

"I guess if there is something I would like people to get from this, it's the message that finding a satisfying hobby is something to ponder, and something that is attainable at any age," he said.

Sabatini joined VCU's Department of Periodontics in 2005 after retiring from 24 years of practice and teaching in the U.S. Air Force Dental Service. He earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Queens College of the City University of New York and his doctorate of dental surgery from VCU. He completed his residency in periodontics at Wilford Hall Medical Center in Texas, and earned his master's degree in periodontics from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio.

 

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