Two photography shows at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Galleries exhibit the vitality that frequently accompanies early exploration of a medium.

Credit, Post-Gazette An image from Jason Vartikar-McCullough's "Reflections" exhibit. Click photo for larger image. "Reflections" and "Peregrination" Where: Pittsburgh Filmmakers Galleries, 477 Melwood Ave., North Oakland When: Through Sunday; noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and during Melwood Screening Room films. Information: Admission free; 412-681-5449 or www.pghfilmmakers.org "In Our House: Interpretations of African American Culture" Where: Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. When: Through Oct. 21; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. Information:: Admission free; 412-281-8723 or artsfestival.net.

In the inner gallery are more than 30 black and white, mostly abstracted, images by Jason Vartikar-McCullough, a Fox Chapel High School senior who is being mentored by Martin Prekop, Carnegie Mellon University professor of art and former dean of the College of Fine Arts.

The theme, "Reflections," is dual-edged, a reference to both the imagery -- reflected from surfaces such as water or glass -- and to the apprentice photographer's metaphysical musings upon the ways distorted representation and perception go hand in hand.

It's appropriate that his "Self-Portrait" is a double.

While it would be easy to get lost in fun-house mirror effects, Vartikar-McCullough manages to sidestep that. The limbs of trees, separated like unraveling threads of cloth, appear to be languorously drifting down a quicksilver highway. Light bounce, often problematic when photographing wet surfaces, is integrated to reveal or obscure layers of the pond of "Water Lilies."

Perspective offers a challenge in "Flower," actually a clump of water hyacinth leaves. Head-on, an "Arowana" (fish) looks like a science fiction alien. "Fabric Number 1" is surreal, with fingers pushing back a wet realm.

I particularly like the Japanese print effect of "Aspens" among this gallery of work by a promising young talent.

In the outer gallery six students from Filmmakers' Advanced Photography Seminar display work in a range of style and subject matter in "Peregrination."

"Promissory Note," a mixed-media piece by Carlos Peterson, is part of "In Our House: Interpretations of African American Culture." Click photo for larger image.

Sally Bozzuto makes observations as keenly as a cultural anthropologist would for her sharp color series "Small Town America." As with any good documentation, they add to the understanding of a place and a period, an element that lifts them above ordinary snapshots. Among them, the Uniontown window mannequin of "Stripes" sits dressed in a white skirt and blue-and-white striped blouse holding a red plush dog, the price tag of her natty hat hanging down across the side of her face. In another, "Linda's" Fashions & Furs is fronted by a grassy patch sporting an array of small cut-out bovines, one proclaiming "Holy Cow, Linda's 60," another providing a number for the Lawn Announcements company that places them.

Three visits to India were the source of Kara Pampanin's imagery, which includes the striking "Rest," a person wrapped in an electric-blue blanket lying on a low stone wall next to pale dirt pathways strewn with leaves and dropped blossoms. We see only the bare bottoms of his -- or her -- feet, stained the gray of the earth, bulges in the fabric giving testimony to the body within.

Also, Rachel Shepler shows candid shots of children at summer play; Michael Nixon creates softly colored, abstract images from his wife's pregnancy; Danelle Doty contrasts Los Angeles glitz with its homeless; and Cynthia Zordich shows decoratively framed human and botanical denizens of Highland Park gardens.

When visiting Filmmakers, it's always rewarding to stroll through the first-floor hall, where more student and faculty work is displayed on a rotating basis.

Currently, those include an exceptional work by Zordich comprising seven portrait images of her grandmother, alert in her later years, then stilled by death. The pictures are printed small and with their edges receding, giving them intimacy while visually paralleling the subject of passing.

Women of Visions

"In Our House: Interpretations of African American Culture," at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, comprises 56 artworks by 33 members of Women of Visions, a collective of black artists that now includes men.

	"Gold Standards," a sculpture by Vanessa German, from the "In Our House" exhibit. Click photo for larger image.

As the title indicates, the artists make culturally specific references in many of these works, and a docent tour would enhance the visitor's experience of them; but such explanation isn't necessary.

Standing out are Carlos Peterson's graphically and politically potent "Promissory Note," which backgrounds a crucified black Christ with a $20 bill; LaVerne Kemp's complex, original and warm fiber family tree, "The Journey of Ono and Hattie Bell"; and Carol Moye's photographs, including the arresting "Pimpin," he in white suit with a peach satin vest that matches the revealing dress worn by his young charge.

Among other notable works are Emory Biko's "Sunny Land No!!!!!," a mixed media work with a 1919 photograph of the mob murder of a black man replacing a note pad in a plastic Mammy figure; Vanessa German's "Gold Standards" -- a ritualistically presented and altered doll, her dress encrusted with "gold" jewelry; and Celete Hickman's "Opa Egun for Dorothy May Hickman, Ethel Kemp Hughes and Charles 'Teenie' Harris," an act of ancestral homage via an altar-like piece.

But that's just a sampling.