BAFFA Gallery seeks your old photographs

Have a photograph of a local main street from childhood? Or a park that’s changed or stayed the same over the years? Whatever the subject is, the Bay Area Friends of the Fine Arts is looking for photographs taken across Long Island and New York City during the 20th century for its upcoming show, “Glimpses of Our Past.”

Submissions for the January art show are open to anybody, regardless of BAFFA membership or artistic ability, with the exhibit aiming to preserve the memory of the Long Island and New York City of yesteryear, while teaching new generations about what came before them.

“We’re looking for historical photography that honors the community, and we are stretching it out to New York City and the Five Boroughs. Anything that’s between 1900 and 2000,” said Holly Hunt, executive director of the Bay Area Friends of the Fine Arts.

BAFFA is expanding submissions to include New York City since many Long Island communities weren’t as developed or documented in the early 20th-century.

To find submissions, Hunt has reached out to local historical societies, and encourages residents and nonprofits to dig through photo albums they might not have touched in years.

Hunt, a photographer herself, said the idea for the show came up after thinking about how many open-calls galleries host don’t accept photography.

“I felt that we needed to open ourselves as an organization to people who support the arts, but they may not be an artist, and this gives them that because everyone owns a photograph.”

BAFFA has already received interesting submissions, including a picture of President Teddy Roosevelt. Hunt will also feature photography from her grandfather, Roger Higgins, a photographer for The New York World-Telegram and The Sun in the mid-20th century, who captured New York City’s scenery and celebrities like Salvador Dalí, Charles Schulz, and even the Rosenberg spy couple. For years, Hunt has scoured archives in New York City and Washington D.C. where her grandfather’s photographs are available in the public domain.

Along with the community-submission aspect, another unique feature for “Glimpses of Our Past” will be workshops and events at the gallery space on weekends in January. Attendees of the show’s reception on Jan. 7, from 1-4pm, can bring food created from a historical family recipe for a baking contest, and after the reception a free historical trivia will take place.

Other events include a historical scavenger hunt, a workshop on how to find and access archival photographs online and in person, and a collage-making workshop towards the end of the month. Two satellite events will also take place: a photography presentation at the Longwood Library, and another photography presentation and documentary screening at the Sayville Library.

For Hunt, the show is more than just bringing together the community inside the gallery space.

“Without photography, we wouldn’t have history,” Hunt said.

BAFFA is accepting submissions for its exhibit, “Glimpses of Our Past,” now through Dec. 4.

To submit historical photographs for display, visit www.baffa.org.