“CANAL MULE”: This photograph by Alina Marin-Bliach is featured in “Exploring the World in Black and White,” her dual exhibit with Joel Blum, on view May 14 through June 12 at Gallery 14 in Hopewell.

New Jersey artists Joel Blum and Alina Marin-Bliach each take their own approach to exploring the world of monochrome images in “Exploring the World in Black and White,” on view May 14 through June 12 at Gallery 14 in Hopewell. While color images have their own realm of interest and beauty, black and white images allow the photographer to emphasize texture and details that may not be readily seen in color. Using the natural textures and contrast the photographer is able to create special feelings about the scene and the world captured in the image.

Gallery member Blum of East Windsor looks back to the work of the early photographers who, sometimes using the most basic of equipment, influenced the future artists with monochrome images that reached a level of perfection not matched today. Think artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, the master of candid images; the magnificence of Brassai in Paris at Night; or more modern artists like Richard Avedon or Michael Kenna, and a list or others too long to include here. This show is Blum’s tribute to these early “influencers” of the art world. The exhibit has no unifying theme, rather it simply searches out his thoughts in the monochrome paradigm.

“BIG WHITE BOW”: This photograph by Joel Blum is part of “Exploring the World in Black and White,” his dual exhibit with Alina Marin-Bliach, on view May 14 through June 12 at Gallery 14 in Hopewell.

Guest artist Alina Marin-Bliach, from Princeton Junction, will be displaying her photographs in “Along the Path” in the Goodkind Gallery at Gallery 14. In a span of over 15 years, she has traveled the majority of the 44-mile-long Delaware Raritan Canal and 22-mile feeder. In the last several years, Marin-Bliach has become increasingly aware of the historic significance of this canal which immigrant laborers dug by hand over a four-year period in the early 1830s. Originally built as a way to transport goods from Philadelphia to New York City, the canal is now part of the National Recreation Trail System. This recreational corridor is now a place where nature, historic remnants and eclectic man-made artifacts happily coexist. Marin-Bliach’s photographs explore various sections of the canal. Even though there are no people in any of the images, “a human presence and a nod to a time long past is pervasive,” she said.

Gallery 14 is located at 14 Mercer Street in Hopewell. It is is open Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and by appointment. It will be closed for Memorial Day weekend. For more information, visit gallery14.org.