Fashion met fine art at Pochron Studios’ monthly photo exhibition which featured one of St. John’s University’s very own students last Thursday.

Courtney D’ne Brown, a senior photography major at the Queens campus, was one of 10 artists featured at the Brooklyn Heights show. The show was confined to a single bare room in the Pochron Studios building and lasted from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Pochron Studios is a Brooklyn-based company that specializes in custom prints by photographers. The studio offers both traditional and digital custom printing, scanning, retouching and studio rental. The studio also offers monthly shows that exhibit work from up and coming artists. The shows usually consist of only fine art but to coincide with Fashion Week this month, the show had a slight twist of couture. Allyson Lubow, an employee at Pochron, was the curator of the show.

“I wanted my work to be less about the clothes and more about telling a story,” Lubow said. Lubow is a fashion photographer and her work was also featured at the event. “I was trying to go beyond normal fashion photography,” Lubow said, in reference to her work.

The Kansas-born photographer is a graduate of Pratt University and has been working at Pochron for three years.
Lubow handpicked all the artists whose work was exhibited at the event, including Brown.

“It’s a welcoming into the art world because we are now considered professionals,” Brown said. A native of Minnesota, the 21-year-old St. John’s student chose the school for its close proximity to Manhattan. “You need to be in New York to get into the fashion world,” Brown said.

The show is a major step for Brown, who aspires to have her work in the pages of highly esteemed magazines such as Vogue Italia.

The show was designed specifically for New York’s famous Fashion Week, which ended on Friday. The studio and photographers at the event hoped that important people in the industry would visit the exhibit while they are in Manhattan for Fashion Week.

“It’s all about making connections,” Lubow said.
According to Lubow, the shows usually draw large crowds comprised of photographers, magazine editors and people who simply come to view the work.

One spectator was particularly pleased with what he saw.
“Fashion is usually just looking at clothes, but this (the exhibit) makes a statement,” Reid Spector said. Spector came to the exhibition to support his girlfriend, Lubow. He pointed out, however, that Brown’s work was one of his favorite collections.
The show seemed to be a promising start for not only Brown but all the artists involved.