If there is a goddess of photography, she has smiled upon Carrboro this May.

There are five photography shows on exhibit throughout town, each with a unique flavor.

Martha Hoelzer is showing 20 of her photographs at Fleet Feet Gallery, 406 E. Main Street.

In her senior year at UNC-Chapel Hill, Hoelzer joined the Daily Tar Heel as a photographer. She had a lot of fun and honed her skills at the DTH, and then put them to her personal use as she traveled around the world, to Europe, Australia and elsewhere.

"I got inspired by some of the photos I saw on postcards and wondered if I could get my own images like on those cards," Hoelzer said. "I was totally blown away by all of the beauty and bright vivid colors. That is a lot of what I like to capture."

The Fleet Feet exhibit includes images shot both locally -- a Chatham County bee on a flower, mallards in Duke Gardens and an old tobacco barn -- and around the world, including a photo of the Twelve Apostles, a rock formation in Australia.

"It was a gorgeous moment of everything coming together as one and the realization of how impressive the world is that surrounds us," Hoelzer said of that shot.

Notecards using Hoelzer's images are on sale at Nested, 118-B E. Main St.

Nested also is showing photographs by Julia Parris. She creates a print on vellum expressing a visual interpretation of a phrase of music, and then sandwiches eight to 10 layers of drawings together, backlights then and shoots them with her camera.

"The technique and process of creating this body of work is really a combination of the photographic process and the printmaking process," Parris said.

Music was a focus in her family's home when she was growing up, and it is a recurrent theme in her art.

"The line quality, the depth and the way the colors blend in and out try to communicate a sense of music," Parris said. "Some are more peaceful and contemplative and some are a bit more aggressive, like a piece with a lot of rhythm."

Parris said she realized during her junior year at the Rhode Island School of Design that she was a synesthete: when she hears music, she sees colors. Not until she read about the phenomenon in a book did she realize that not everyone experienced music that way.

"I just thought this was part of the creative experience of listening to music," she said.

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Jesse Kalisher, owner of Jesse Kalisher Gallery at 209 E. Main Street in Carrboro, just had 11 of his photographs bought by the Louvre. He served as the judge for the 2009 Community Photography Contest now on exhibit at The ArtsCenter, 300-G E. Main St, Carrboro. The annual show raises money for scholarships for the ArtsCenter's ArtSchool classes and summer programs for children.

Judging comes easily to Kalisher, who has judged for years for shows, when he critiques the work of students in his workshops, and on a daily basis when he has to edit his own photographs.

Kalisher said the quality of the children's photography submitted for the show was remarkable.

"A great photo has two elements, content and style," he said. "If they have both, it is a home run."

On May 8, Kalisher's gallery will open an exhibit of his photographs of Carrboro as part of the 2ndFriday Artwalk, from 6 to 9 p.m. Fleet Feet, the ArtsCenter and the Century Center also have receptions that night.

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Years ago, I became interested in the Holga camera, a plastic camera developed in 1982 in Hong Kong. It is cheaply made and very simple. It has three focus settings -- far, closer and fairly close -- and a setting for sunny or not sunny. Because it has a manual film advance, you can shoot multiple exposures on a single photograph. The joy of using it lies in letting go of control. Many photographers now include this camera among their equipment and have a lot of fun with it.

I asked three people I know who take spectacular photos with the Holga -- Hunter Levinsohn, Rachel Elliott and Seth Tice-Lewis -- to participate in a show sponsored by the Carrboro Arts Committee this month and next at the Carrboro Century Center, 100 N. Greensboro St.

Tice-Lewis attended the California College of Arts and Crafts and then began a 25-year career in commercial photography. He recently began to take photographs for his own pleasure and enjoyment.

"The quirkiness and slightly unpredictable nature of the Holga camera gives these photographs a low fidelity aesthetic that captures the gritty quality of the subject matter," Tice-Lewis said.

Elliott is presenting some photos that focus on local agriculture, such as strawberry picking and egg gathering.

"I love the surprising results of the Holga camera images -- light leaks and blurred edges that lend a dreamlike quality," Elliott said.

When Levinsohn travels, she takes a Holga with her. Her images come from locales as varied as Poland, Las Vegas and Bolin Creek. The ability to double- and triple-expose images is an aspect of the Holga that appeals to Levinsohn.

"You can have a complex thought and you can exercise it with the camera," she said. "When you take one image, it has one perspective but then you add another image it gives you another perspective. It makes it more complex because you have to look at it more to figure out how to divide out the images."

Join the feast. As Kalisher said, you can't have too much photography. He is thrilled that there are so many Carrboro venues with photography shows.

"I'd love to see Carrboro embrace photography," he said. "I hope it continues."

Deborah R. Meyer can be contacted at eloise@nando.com or at 942-3252.

IF YOU GO

On Friday, Kalisher's gallery will open an exhibit of his photographs of Carrboro as part of the 2ndFriday Artwalk from 6 to 9 p.m. Fleet Feet, the ArtsCenter and the Century Center will also have receptions that night.