Two employees of Albert Lea’s Green Mill Restaurant are pooling their talents for the October show at the Albert Lea Art Center.

Angela Burch is showing her photography and Ryan Heath is showing both photography and painting.

The show came about when Burch was talking with Albert Lea Art Center Board President Lu Callstrom at the restaurant.

“I showed her some of my pictures and she encouraged me to show,” Burch said, adding she then spoke with Heath, with whom she had taken some photography classes.

“I thought, ‘Why not? We can do this together,’” she added.

Burch is showing photos of her recent trip to Florida — beaches and sunsets in both black and white and color.

“I have a few nature items from the area as well,” the Austin native said.

Burch picked up most of her photography skills on her own. “As a class we were told to go out and shoot. I learned by trial and error, and I’m still learning,” she said.

While she doesn’t have any in the show, Burch also enjoys ceramics, having taken a number of pottery and ceramics at Riverland Community College from Deb Schnell and Paul Williams. “Those two have definitely been an influence for me,” Burch said.

Heath grew up in Albert Lea and has been painting for six years. He also works in pencil and charcoal and enjoys painting in acrylics.

He’s taken classes in photography, painting and drawing at Riverland Community College.

Heath’s photography is mostly black and white. “I do a lot of depth of field, architecture and contrasts,” he said. “I like the blacks and whites because of the contrasts.”

But the opposite can be said of his paintings. “In my paintings, I like a lot of color because I have more control over it,” he said. He has 13 paintings in the show, a couple of them very large in size.

His paintings show more emotion than anything, he said.

“It’s really nothing that I see,” Heath said.

Heath said he now paints after his kids, daughter Reggie and son Grayson, go to sleep. But they’re always up for going for a drive so he can take pictures, he said.

Heath said he hopes the show motivates him to spend more time on his art.

“I hope people will see something new and different,” Burch said of their show.

The opening reception for the show is from 5 to 7 p.m. today. The show continues through Oct. 31. Regular gallery hours are from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.