Bloomington photographer's work to be displayed at Amsterdam museum after winning contest

A professional photographer in Bloomington will have her work on display soon at a museum in The Hague, Amsterdam, next to the world-famous painting by Johannes Vermeer, “Girl With a Pearl Earring.”

The Bloomington photographer, Katy Lengacher, calls her photo “Girl With Big Dreams,” and it shows her daughter, Sagan, in a serious pose — and wearing a rather large earring.

Lengacher said entering her photo in the international competition was a hurry-up deal.

“I actually heard about it only last month on Instagram,” she said. “I slipped in there right at the end of the submissions period. It was submitted to a jury of the people managing the exhibition at The Hague — curators.”

“And,” she added, “we’re planning to go over and see it, the first week of May — Amsterdam!”

What they’ll see, in the same gallery as the Vermeer work, is Lengacher’s photo of daughter Sagan displayed on a framed screen and sharing display time with the other winners. Out of 3,500 submissions worldwide, 170 were selected by the jury of curators to show for a week in the Mauritshuis Museum.

“The what!?” a visitor asked.

Lengacher laughed. It’s pronounced ‘More-It’s-House,’” she said.

The photo of Sagan, who is a sixth-grader at the Bloomington Montessori School, was produced by Lengacher in her photo studio, Icarus Photography, on Kirkwood Avenue just west of Monroe County Courthouse Square.

How long did it take to make the photo?

“The actual photography, not very long,” she said. “Because I do so much planning ahead of time (photos) are executed pretty quickly, within a half hour or so.”

Lengacher modelled the lighting of her photo of Sagan on Vermeer’s — “light and shadow coming in from the left side,” she said, with special attention to the hands — “hands are hard.”

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“After I shoot it, I have a method of editing called ‘dodging and burning.’ Dodging is when you lighten an image and burning is when you darken it.”

How long does all that take?

“On a normal piece I probably spend eight to 12 hours,” Lengacher said.

The scarves Sagan wears in the photo come from a collection of costumes her mom keeps at the studio for her photos of infants, children and adults. And the starry, black background in the photo comes from NASA.

Lengacher grew up in Montgomery, a small town southwest of Bloomington; graduated from Indiana University in 2010; and opened her studio the following year, naming it Icarus.

“I’ve always been very interested in classical mythology,” she said, explaining the studio name. “I really enjoyed (the Icarus) story. It’s about ambition, and it’s a cautionary tale.”

“I chose Icarus,” Lengacher added, laughing, “because I have a really hard-to-pronounce last name!”

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington photographer's work wins, to be displayed in Hague museum