Among the photos featured in the Red Bank Regional VPA Senior Art Show are THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND ME by Margot Foster of Middletown and DOUBLE TAKE by Amanda Sullivan of Little Silver, below. (Click to enlarge)

According to Red Bank Regional High School faculty member Dawn Lisko, the senior photography majors in her Visual and Performing Art Academy program “have worked rigorously over the past four years.”

How rigorously? In an age when even the most accomplished professional photographers have abandoned film, scrapped their developer equipment and turned their darkrooms back into half-baths and wine cellars, the VPA students learned how to develop and print film negatives the old fashioned way — this in addition to training in the most hypercurrent digital shooting and Photoshopping techniques.

On the evening of Thursday, May 12, the rigors of the shutterbug lifestyle will pay dividends for nine of the RBR photography majors, when the VPA Senior Art Show spotlights the best of the students’ work in an exhibit that opens at Borough Hall in Little Silver.

BEACH TIDES by Jared Strumolo of Deal. (Click to enlarge)

Spotlighted in the exhibit at the municipal building on Prospect Avenue are five Little Silver residents — William Ferguson, Margaret Nagle, Tori Sidun, Amanda Sullivan and Kara Takacs. They’re joined by Margot Foster (Middletown), Molly Gerth (Shrewsbury), Brittany Serkus (Union Beach) and Jared Strumolo (Deal) in an event for which the artists are scheduled to be present for a meet-and-greet with the public.

The reception runs between 6 and 7:30p; there’s no admission charge and complimentary refreshments will be served up in classic art-opening style.

“The photographs featured in the show reflect (the students’) lessons and demonstrate their personal and professional growth,” Lisko states. “We hope members of the community will come meet the students and view their work.”

The VPA student photography exhibit remains on view during regular Borough Hall hours through the end of May; call Marianne Kligman at (732) 758-9089 for additional info on the public-welcome event.