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A digital look at Wissahickon flowers

NOTHING in Wissahickon Valley Park is high-tech. It's there to provide an escape into nature, after all.

But for photographer Bruce Wagner, transforming nature with technology isn't always a bad thing.

This Sunday, Wagner will present a slide-show of his work that juxtaposes unaltered photos of the park's flowers with abstract images he created from those shots through digital manipulation.

Wagner experiments with new ways to create expressive images in the hopes of capturing both the natural world and the feelings it can evoke. In the flower pictures, he enhanced colors, created pixilated distortions and zoomed in for some ultra-close views that are invisible to the naked eye.

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By displaying both the original photographs and the enhanced images, Wagner hopes viewers will see nature from a fresh perspective.

"I feel a spirit in the flower and I try to capture it, and the abstraction expresses the spirit that I find," he said.

Long before he honed his transformative technique, Wagner was inspired to become an photographer by documenting an actual transformation: when streetcars disappeared from his hometown of Denver.

"When I was growing up, they were being phased out," Wagner said. "I went to take pictures of the street cars one day and the new buses the next."

Wissahickon Valley Park, 200 Northwestern Ave., 215-242-3121, August 12, 2 p.m., free, register online, fow.org

— Mary Sydnor

Faces of Debt

To observe "Forgiveness Day" — a holiday devoted to the powers of absolution — the International House on Friday night is screening "Payback," a new documentary based on Margaret Atwood's 2008 essay "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth."

In the film, Canadian director Jennifer Baichwal investigates a broad concept of debt (not just the financial kind) by turning her lens on unusual situations. She tracks an Albanian blood feud, talks to a mogul convinced of mail fraud, raises questions about who really bares responsibility for the Gulf oil spill and examines the working conditions of tomato farmers.

Atwood and Baichwal focus on the way lives are shaped by the experience of owing and being owed. But don't expect moralizing: The film is a nuanced meditation on a slippery subject.

"The film doesn't lead to an inevitable conclusion, but it creates space to think about something in a way you might not have thought about it before," Baichwal said.

— Alyssa Stein

International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, Friday, 7 p.m., free for IHP Members, $7 Students and Seniors, $9 General Admission, ihousephilly.org/

Art Attack is a partnership with Drexel University and is supported by a grant from the Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge, administered by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.